One year ago, my husband and I became life group leaders for a new young families community at our church. Once a week, everyone gathers at our home to eat a meal, study the previous Sunday’s sermon, and pray for one another. It’s the sweetest, loudest chaos in the world, as ten couples try to glean spiritual wisdom while bouncing newborns and babies, chasing toddlers, and disciplining preschoolers.
When life group is over, there is always a trail of stickers stuck to the floor, puffs or yogurt bites littering the living room, or the occasional potty training mess somebody is cleaning up. There’s Play-Doh, blocks, and at least one toy flashing lights and blaring nursery rhymes to destroy a pair of socks or twist someone’s ankle.
And friends, I love it. Oh, how I love the life, laughter, and messes that fill our home. In fact, when we first bought our house, knowing it was built in the 1890s and needed extensive renovations, I prayed that when it was finally ready to host others, everyone who walked through our doors would feel truly at home.
I believe God answered my simple prayer in simple, subtle ways. Adults from the group throw their feet on the couch, bring drinks to the furniture without thinking twice, and everyone works together to clean up the weekly spit-ups, spilled juice, and smushed fruit the little ones leave behind.
It’s rhythmic, natural, and, dare I say, a holy pursuit.
The Relationship Between Community and Hospitality
Community, a noun often overused and a verb often under-supported in the local church, is simply a group of people who have found God-given rest in showing up for one another without pretense or practiced etiquette. It’s both refining and refreshing, and I think that’s how God meant for His Body to operate.
I have learned so much about hospitality through this little community. As spring approaches and warm weather makes it a bit easier to invite friends over, I’d love for you to remember a few things so hospitality blooms in your home (and heart):
1. Appearances Are a Waste
Most of us know that appearances, in the grand scheme of things, are a waste, certainly where Proverbs 31:30 (ESV) is concerned: “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” But knowing the truth and choosing to accept it and live it out are two different things.
When I think of the most hospitable people I know, the times in life when I felt most at home inside the four walls of a place that wasn’t mine, I think of the company I kept. My brain replays the words they said, the laughter they offered, the encouragement they provided, and bonus points for the delicious food they often shared!
I can’t recall if I saw dust gathered on the ceiling fan blades or dust bunnies littering the underside of the couch. I can’t remember how many pictures hung on their walls, or if their furniture seemed expensive. Those details aren’t what my heart and soul felt were worth preserving.
This spring, as you likely deep-clean and reorganize for the warm summer months, I encourage you to keep a home that is sanitary and decluttered, but let go of keeping up excessive appearances. Make a healthy, open space available for others to gather, but remember that their hearts and souls will take home what is life-giving, what comes from your heart and mouth. They will remember the lessons and laughter and stories you provide—not the pretenses that steamed curtains or polished staircases weakly invoke.
2. Flexibility Is a Must
Community, while so life-giving and beautiful, is still composed of human beings. It’s a bunch of imperfect people who will sometimes be flaky, forget they were supposed to bring drinks, or be susceptible to illness and family emergencies that must take precedence.
If your hospitality doesn’t have room for flexibility, you will quickly harbor feelings of resentment and frustration. Friend, if you don’t keep resentment and frustration in check, those feelings can easily turn into bitterness, which is far deeper and much harder to uproot.
Don’t let Satan take a foothold there. Protect your community by accepting their humanity.
When my husband and I did life group training, the leader told us plainly: “People will disappoint you.” There was no “maybe” or “if” about it. It was and is a fact. People fail us all the time, whether intentionally or by innocent accident. We clean, cook, and bend over backward for people to cancel at the last minute or never offer a thank you.
But we give and serve and love because we are called to love as Christ loves. We are called to serve as He serves. And we are called to humbly remember our place—that we, too, are humans who are flaky, lazy, forgetful, prone to sickness and unexpected emergencies, and can and will be just as disappointing as others.
Just as Christ offers us free mercy and grace in our humanity, may we protect God’s love in our homes by releasing control and allowing flexibility to be a healthy part of our hospitality.
3. Confessing Your Limitations Is Necessary
As the leaders of our life group, my husband and I have a hard time delegating responsibility when we are in a busy season or are unable to host a weekly meeting. It feels like our job, our responsibility, always to ensure that it’s our house we are opening up to others.
But, just as I mentioned earlier, we are human beings with schedules that can change, sickness that can crop up, and, honestly, plain exhaustion that can plague us. We, too, must admit our humanity and ask others in the group to host, cook the main meal, or take charge of the kiddos when we don’t have the capacity.
When we agreed to lead the group, we wanted to lead it all the time. Sometimes, though, leading well is recognizing when you actually aren’t able to lead well. It’s understanding that God has given others in the group His own talents to cook, play with kids, read Scripture, encourage others, and lead prayer.
When we let go of our pride and recognize that we aren’t the ones preserving the group—that it’s God who grows and sustains our community—we can lean into His calling to rest, rejuvenate, and refresh. In this surrender, we can recollect ourselves and gear up to better lead with love and hospitality the next go-round.
Hospitality in Bloom
Hospitality flourishes where hearts are humble, flexible, and attuned to their limitations. With the guidance and sustaining power of God’s love and grace, you can open your home to others without stress, pretense, or bitterness clouding your community.
When you recognize your imperfections and accept the imperfections of those you welcome into your home, you create a space for others to be open and honest and to find the encouragement their souls need. Your words, your laughter, and the safety you create can be the very avenue that God uses to keep them tethered to His goodness and plan for their lives.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Tatiana Maksimova
