Practicing Hospitality (part 1)

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What a tremendous weekend we had as a family!  I’ve been reminded that we are truly blessed when we learn to open our hearts and our homes to others!

 Our weekend has been all about hospitality.  Not every second of the weekend but enough of it to make you reflect on the importance of it.  Another word for hospitality is welcome…. warmth….. kindness…… generosity…..  The definition is clearly

“ Receiving and entertaining strangers,with kindness and without reward; kind to strangers and guests; disposed to treat guests with generous kindness; as a hospitable man..”

Keep in mind the Bible clearly states:

1 Peter 4:9 – Use hospitality one to another without grudging.

Romans 12:13 – Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.

Titus 1:8 – But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate;

Mark 9:41 – For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.

and many, many more verses and examples on hospitality.

“A thought to remember……entertaining is focusing in on the hostess & hospitality is focusing in on the guests”

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Is hospitality something you tend to shy away from?  Is it something you embrace it?   Do you practice it at your home?Opening my home has been something throughout the years that I’ve come to do more and more and have learned to really enjoy.  Has it always been that way?

NO.  

There were many times (& sometimes still) I get nervous about things like “Is my house big enough?”  “Is it clean enough?”  “What am I going to cook?”  “What if they don’t like my cooking?”  “What if ?”  What if?”  “What if?”

I could “what if” myself to death! (remember we are not entertaining….we are showing hospitality….I’ve got to remind myself of that often.)

It’s something that over time you understand that God wants us to do as believers and something that we should be practicing on a regular basis. (remember it’s Biblical)

Let me just add in…..hospitality does take time and effort and planning.  (we’ll get into that later on).

Why practice?

Well….practicing in general always makes us better.  The more we do things, naturally we tend to improve and it becomes second nature to us.  When we aren’t doing certain things we tend to get “stale”.

So what are we to do?

Start by looking for ways to open your home to others.   Do you have church family?  Do you have friends?  Is there someone in your “mom play group” your wanting to get to know better?  Is there a new neighbor?  A new believer of Christ?  A missionary family in town. Find someone or a family that you can welcome in to your home.  Pray and ask God to show you a family that you can be hospitable to. 

Remember being hospitable isn’t always having an overnight guest, sometimes it’s a dinner….maybe a lunch….how about some coffee and dessert….or sometimes just your local pizza shop and a bottle of soda.

Whatever you choose to do…..it’s all about opening your hearts to others as you open your home!

Now that we went over what hospitality is and why we should practice it…..stay tuned to part 2  “Practical Hospitality”  (part 2)  We will cover some easy & practical tips for hospitality.

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