Hospitality

I think it’s important to note that hospitality is not Martha Stewart.  Someone might think they need to know all there is to know about baking, cooking, or entertaining, but true hospitality is so much more than that. As R. Paul Stevens writes,

“Hospitality is often confused with entertaining. Entertainment could represent a superficial hospitality, but it is possible to entertain without being hospitable.  Whole families, whether single parent or extended, can engage in the mission of God by giving hospitality to the stranger, the outsider, the marginalized and the needy.  It is a way of loving our neighbor as ourselves.”

So as Stevens puts it, it is far reaching and beyond the concept of entertaining, or setting your table with fine china.  It’s more about stretching our resources and stepping outside of our comfort zones to show how Jesus did the same for all of humanity when he came to Earth.  Boil it down a step further means caring for someone in such a way that leaves them thinking, “I was cherished, treasured, and loved by that person.  I was left with my dignity intact.  My basic needs were met.”  So I extend this question to myself, “how can I extend hospitality?”

Below you’ll find posts on hospitality.  Some of practical application types, while others are more theoretical or woven through a story.  For instance, in Split Pea post, the word hospitality is never used, but you can see how our family friend opened her home for me to stay over.  As you read, I hope you will begin to see ways in which you already extend “evangitality” and be inspired of new ways as well.

Posts on Hospitality:

• Know Who You Are (a primer)
• Rhythm of Grace
• Hospitality in the Small Things, Not Just Efficiency
• Food, Culture, & Christian Formation: Part 1
• Community
• How Redemptive Love is Part of Hospitality
• Knowing Who You Are First
• Receiving the Gifter
• Opening Your Home
• Qn Writing a Mission Statement
• Hosts as Guests

Practical Hospitality:

• Making Dessert for Someone Else (even if it’s gluten-free)
• Hospitality & Food: Why I Cook
• Giving Recognition: Three Tangible Ways of Hospitality
• Crafting Hospitality
• On Food & Justice
• Christian Hospitality: Serving the Least of These
• God’s Palace Temple & Hospitality
• Simple Meals
• Community Meals
• A Mother’s Gift