Scot,
I’m glad to see you mention Amy Oden’s book. I think she is just top-notch. I got to hear her speak a few months ago on the history of women in Christianity (taken from her book, “In Her Words”) and she was amazing.
Regarding Peggy’s comment, I very much agree. Also, to complicate it further, I think limiting hospitality to what happens in your own home is a problem because implicit in that is that you have a home big enough to host people. In order to afford a home, my husband and I would have to move out of the city (where we are just minutes from our jobs, schools, church, friends) and deep into the suburbs, where we’d end up having to make long daily commutes back into the city. We live in a tiny apartment that is just not suitable for much hospitality, but is allows us to live the life we feel called to at this stage. We do have people over, but if you add more than a few extra bodies, we’re going to be in trouble. I’d hate to see the Christian virtue of hospitality tied too closely to the American-dream of home ownership. To that end, I do like the ideas you introduced about Elizabeth Newman’s book.

I think that the era of the nuclear family comment is something of a cop-out. The key is to be focussed outward instead of inward. I know and have known many families, including those with young children (in some instances three, four, or five young children) and no extended family within hundreds of miles, who excel in the practice of hospitality.
That said, however, I must admit that this is an endeavor at which I fail miserably. Some are empowered by being in social situations, I am drained by it more often than not.

In my wife’s three years of marriage we have had hundreds of people into our home. We keep a guest book by the front door and love to look back and see who has stopped by. When you look through it you remember conversations, difficult times, answered prayers, Bible studies, and many other things that remind us how thankful we are to be surrounded by so many people we call friends.
It is a tragic shame that we walk right past hundreds and thousands of people on a regular basis and miss out on opportunities to practice hospitality. We don’t miss the opportunities for lack of a place to bring people or normally due to a lack of food. We miss opportunities because we lack the eyes to see people that way, because we have been trained that our home is our refuge that is not to be invaded, and because we would much rather do something else. Open up your home and your heart will follow.

I believe Peggy would find comfort/rest in Christine Pohl’s book. For example I appreciate that she introduces the section of the book on “recovering the practice” with a clear reality check:
“Hospitality will never be free from difficulty, but to sustain the practice, it is crucial to consider the well-being of hosts as well as guests. it is here that we quickly encounter struggles with limits and boundaries because physical and emotional strength, space, food, and other resources are finite. While God often supplies these miraculously, hosts still must make hard choices about how to distribute resources, expent energy, and focus ministry.”
She follows this up with an extended discussion on limited resources and creating healthy boundaries.
Another very simple but helpful quote that we operate by is “when hospitality is viewed as entertainment, the house is never ready.”
Personally, we have found that inviting people to our home for dessert rather than dinner creates many more opportunties (for people are more open to a shorter, more causual setting) and is less “work” on our part.

Matt’s comment reminded me of the danish proverb Pohl qoutes: “If there is room in the heart, there is room in the house.”

Brad,
Sometimes it is hard to know which comes first and I think it is different for different people. Some people have it in their heart but have not yet tried it. Others just need to try it and their heart would follow once they actually experience it. I think those are the two sides of the coin between the proverb you mentioned and what I said in comment #3. Pohl’s book sounds good.

Scot,
Could you explain what you struck you about Peggy’s comment? I really resonated with it persoanlly. My experience of three young ones is that they do take up all your time and energy and more, truly 24/7. When people would come over, much of my time was spent tending to my young children and I’m sure that was less that wonderful for guests. And when the twins were babies, it really was a survivalist mentality. My house was such a wreck, despite my husband and I going 24/7, that is was hard to invite people in. I know we’re not supposed to care, but you do … So does hospitality mean offering to help with other people’s young kids … and as a mother, a very tough thing, trusting other people with your children? I think, in the most common form, I define hospitality as welcoming people into your home …

Sorry about the typos … rushed right now.

Diane,
What struck me was this: I have colleagues, Joel and Karla, who just had twins. They are swamped. I was telling Kris the other day that there was a day when, to be sure, twins would be an extra burden but since families were more nuclear and neighborhoods more familial, that the crushing burden Joel and Karla are now carrying would not have been so severe.
The burden on families who have no other connections is immense today.
We went down last Saturday and held their kids for four or five hours and I think it made a difference for their day. That’s what struck me.
So true is what struck me.

A year or two ago I shared a significant amount of Pohl’s “Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as Christian Tradition” at an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) Graduate Student Area Conference. I highlighted the unique opportunity for servanthood, lived out Gospel witness which graduate students have in the rich, diverse setting of higher education. A snapshot of hospitality which was not lost on young and old at our annual Faculty Conference/Family Camp was seeing faculty and IVCF staff (including those in leadership) joke and chat while washing dishes and setting tables — a tradition of shared ministry which extends back for a long time.
En route back from the week at the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Lancaster County, PA, our family made a return visit to Pittsburgh, where we had served for just over a decade. On Friday night, our family of 5 was hosted by an IVCF friend from college and then on Saturday we were hosted by an IVCF alum family from the 1950s in Pittsburgh. On Sunday we had an afternoon ‘potluck’ social w/several generations of brothers-and-sisters in Christ connected with IVCF. Adults and kids spilled over from the adult education room into the hallway and gym as conversation and games went on and on.
On Sunday night we returned home to check out the basement family room of our new house. The room was finished by our neighbors (my wife’s parents), who were striving to help us complete this large space in time to help share the hosting of their other daughter and her 3 boys who were arriving on Tuesday. When my wife’s parents got on the road Tuesday morning to pick up their daughter’s family from the airport, their van had difficulties and we loaned them ours.
We’re not “rural Hutterites,” but it may come close as our families mix with one-another for the next 6 weeks as they cross from yard to yard, house to house and make regular trips up/down the road to visit other relatives. Around the breakfast table I take my 7 year old twin girls through Sinclair Ferguson’s “The Big Book of Questions & Answers: A Family Devotional Guide to the Christian Faith,” after our lesson I set them loose to walk their journey of faith with us . . . by God’s grace some taught, some caught.
3 quotes from Pohl which I underlined:
1. “My journey into hospitality began twenty years ago as I worked with refugees and poor people in my local church. Even before then, however, I had felt specially drawn to people with disabilities and to those troubled folks who simply needed a friend. I noticed how they were frequently overlooked in the busyness of everyday life and sensed that their invisibility was a loss to everyone. Often, as my life intertwined with theirs, I found myself enriched and changed. During those years I did not have access to the vocabularly of hospitality, but I knew intuitvely that I had touched on something very important” (ix). — note: particularly moving to our family as we have a child with a brain bleed leading to numerous developmental delays and I have had various issues related to cancer treatment; God has carried us through, the grace offered through the care of His People has been immense
2. Guests [in L'Abri households] learn about the Christian life by living alongside families in the daily give and take of caring for one another. Edith Schaeffer, cofounder of L’Abri, observed, “For some young people, L’Abri homes are the first really happy homes they have ever seen . . . You can’t imagine what the opportunity of eating, doing dishes, helping peel potatoes, being a part of conversation and family prayers in such a variety of homes does, which any amount of lecturing and ‘talking about home life could never do” (p.155).
3. “Many people who practice the kind of hospitality enjoined in the gospel describe it as ‘the best and hardest thing’ they ever done. In their experience, its difficulty and its joys lie close together. They find it to be the ‘best thing’ because they sense God’s presence so frequently in the practice. As practitioners see small miracles every day, Scripture and prayer come alive. Hospitality is wonderful because it is filled with unexpected blessings, beacuse it is fun, and because of the opportunities it providees to become friends with so many different kingds of people” (p.170, Chapter 9 “The Spiritual Rhytms of Hospitality” is powerful).
Bonus: Read “An Outpost of God’s Kingdom: Making a Christian home,” a review of Kim Peterson’s KEEPING HOUSE: THE LITANY OF EVERYDAY LIFE by Lauren F. Winner in the newest Books and Culture.

Scot,
I agree that the burden is crushing. Many times I thought a lesser person than my husband would have simply left. I will guarantee that you helped your friends immensely.

Scot –
I’m reading this post at the Milwaukee airport during a downpour.. and a flight delay. I found your description of the Margaret Kim Peterson book so compelling that I just ordered it — I’ve been a ‘stay at home mom’ (she said while writing at the airport) for 3 1/2 years now and have NOT gotten the hang of hospitality, and liturgy, and order, and space… and I’m absolutely thrilled to hear about this book!!!
Can’t wait.
Will be over the pond for a long weekend ministry trip – the big pond, not the Lake Michigan one.
Steph

I’ll un-lurk here for a moment and say that I think perhaps there are times when we are hospitable to others, and times when we let others be hospitable to us.
And, I do very much like the idea that hospitality encompasses more than just having people into our homes.

Well!
Imagine my surprise to see my name in a post! I thought it was the “Margaret” who wrote the book….
As is always the case, there is an unknown story behind the comment…and mine is no different. I am the youngest of six to a very close family…I’m talking about a “first name basis” with 150 aunts, uncles and cousins…
When God called us away from “home” to serve “in the far country,” our first was 9 months old. That was easy. Our second one was easy, too. But we were in a catastrophic accident that totaled our car during the first month of my pregnance (at age 44) with our third…and our world came crashing down. It is only this summer, seven years later, that things are beginning to come back together, physically, for me…and the rest of the chaos will, hopefully, continue to come along with mommy…
During this time I was brought on staff (part-time) at the large church we attended. It was the loneliest time of my entire life…yet God provided this amazing ministry opportunity because my brain was still working, even if my body didn’t quite have it together. When you don’t “look sick” or “act sick” people forget quickly your limitations and say things like: “oh, that was such a long time ago…I thought you were all better by now.” It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….
Then, I read this blog back in April…and had to cool down significantly before I could make a civil reply. You can see the original post and the few comments, mine included, here: http://www.christianstandard.com/2007/04/promise.html
So, thank you, Scot, for knowing exactly what I was talking about…and for doing exactly what I was challenging the folks at the other blog to do.
Hospitality does begin with the Trinity…and we who are in Christ are part of their dance. Sometimes I get up and dance, other times I clap or sing along. And I do what I can to love others in as many different ways as I possibly can, as I have the opportunity and strength…but I am grateful for the grace extended here.
….I won’t have much time for reading books, however, until this fall…when that youngest one is in first grade…all 3 in school all day.
And Diane, aren’t we lucky God brought us such amazing men!

Scot,
One other thing…I think we may have some confusion in terms…when I say “nuclear” family, I’m meaning just me and my husband and children, as opposed to “extended” family, where grandparents and aunts and uncles and grown siblings with their children live within an hour’s drive, if not in the very same town. Besides, I lost thousands of “auntie” hours invested in my sister’s children…
Even our small group found it difficult to be helpful…it was a 20 minute drive to the nearest one… I learned to ask only when I desperately needed help (what a hard thing that is to do!)…and even that could sometimes be once a week. Once a week…fifty two weeks a year…seven years: you do the math!

There are often special circumstances, certainly car accidents and recovery, and twins qualify (especially when the twins are very young).
When I was 5 my mother was diagnosed with MS – and I am the oldest of three children. Fortunately it has been a mild progression. But my parents still practiced table fellowship hospitality in our home, on a regular basis. It was pretty laid back, seldom overly concerned with formality – and when guests offered to help out, as they often did – the offers were gratefully accepted.
We received as well of course. I remember once when my mom was hospitalized we went out to dinner six days in a row – at six different houses (all from church). We were served ham the first five times – then showed up at the pastor’s house on the sixth day only to be met by the pastor’s wife who apologetically told us that she had planned a ham dinner – but their dog had gotten loose in the kitchen and eaten the ham – we would have to settle for spaghetti. An act of God or an answer to prayer perhaps – at least we thought so.
As I said in a comment above however – this is an area where I fail miserably and the posts on table fellowship and hospitality are convicting.

Yes Peggy, the husbands make all the difference. … I had an undiagnosed health problem through the twins adventure and yes, I can connect to “you look fine” when you feel very ill inside. I knew something was wrong, but try to be a young mother and have any medical professional take your symptoms as anything other than “normal” exhaustion or depression: hint, it won’t work. I had some funny episodes with a shrink, since I thought, well, maybe I am crazy. She threw me out of therapy … I was offended to be so mentally healthy! … and yet I knew something was not right …I did get a diagnosis, finally and some help but I agree that we don’t have a social safety net for these situations … and that’s where Christian hospitality and may I add, lack of judgment, can be so truly a Godsend. I remember one day at church holding it together when another mother yelled at me for putting one of the two-year-old twins shoes on a kitchen counter. Yes, that was bad of me, but I was exhausted and didn’t even realize what I was doing. I remember feeling so judged and ready to give up because I was so tired and here was this woman with one child, not three, telling me I was spreading germs … and of course, at the time, it never even entered my head that maybe she should have been helpful and kind. Oh dear.

Peggy,
I read the blog link. It could have been written by the woman who yelled at me. Your response was right on!! Absolutely. It lifted me to read it.

Scot,
I’ve been thinking about your questions all day – what is hospitality? Perhaps more importantly how should we practice hospitality?
I have a Christian colleague here (Professor of Psychology) who makes it a point to practice hospitality by inviting – about 10 or so at a time, once a week throughout the term – the students in his introductory class to his home for dinner. It is all volunteer of course, many students take advantage of it and many don’t. They eat, talk, and play board games. His kids (three under 10) love it, as do the students. It is a low key, informal environment, and allows the students to view him as a person.
This is one of many examples that serve to point out the fact that I should probably be intentionally doing more to practice hospitality.

test

I’m in the process of reading “Called to Care: A Christian Worldview for Nursing (IVP, 2006).” Early in the book, the Judith Shelly and Arlene Miller argue:
“Western medicine developed out of a Greek, and later Cartesian, body-mind dualism that viewed the body as object. The role of the nurse, however, grew out of a Christian understanding of the human person as created in the image of God and viewed the body as a living unity and the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit’ (I Cor 3:16). Medicine has traditionally focused on the scientific dimension of the human body, relegating the spiritual and psychosocial dimensions to religion and pyschology. The uniqueness of nursing is its emphasis on caring for the whole person as embodied. It is defined as both an art and a science . . .
The impetus for this movement came when the first-century Christians began to teach that all believers were ministers who were to care for the poor, the sick and the disenfranchised (e.g., Mt 25:31-46; Heb 13:1-3; Jas 1:27). As the churches grew, they appointed deacons to care for the needy within the church. Eventually, more men and women were added to the roll of deacons, and their designated responsibilites grew to include caring for the sick. Phoebe, the deacon mentioned in Romans 16:1-2, is often considered the first visiting nurse. By the third century, organized groups of deaconesses were caring for the sick, insane and lepers in the community. In the fourth century the church began establing hospitals. Most of these hospitals did not have a physician, they were staffed by nurses . . . ‘The age-old custom of hospitality . . . was practiced with religious fervor by the early Christians . . . Their houses were opened wide to every afflicted applicant and, not satisfied with receiving needy ones, the deacons, men an dwomen alike, went out to search and bring them in’ (Lavinia Dock and Isabel Stewart, ‘A Short History of Nursing, From the Earlies Times to the Present Day,’ Putnam, 1931, p.51)” (p.16-19).
More to say regarding ‘reproducing the likeness of Jesus in our world as the People of God’ in another comment, but I’ll wrap-up this one with Shelley and Miller’s definition of nursing: “a ministry of compassionate care for the whole person, in response to God’s grace toward a sinful world, which aims to foster optimum health (shalom) and bring comfort in suffering and death for anyone in need” (p.17-18).

The various issues which we’ve faced over the past decade has underscored the reality that each day, each minute, each second (all of life) is a gift of God. One of the means of grace by which He has carried us through is the light of Christ’s hospitality through the Body of Christ in the midst of a dark world. While in Pittsburgh, we were welcomed into the homes of others and others came into our home to make our place more hospitable to live in through cleaning, cooking, watching our kids, mowing the grass, etc
During our transition back to where we were raised, the local congregation which we left helped pack and fill our truck. In addition one of its members helped us drive out while the congregation with which we were connecting provided volunteers to unload our truck (and I’ve had the opportunity help another member pack-up) after we spent 1 month at my parents house and 5 months at my wife’s parents house.
At our new local congregation, a helpful welcome center provided valuable information, the children’s ministries helped our kids make a smooth transition into their work (giving our youngest the attention she needed with her developmental delays), several pastors and a deacon met with us in follow-up to a Sunday afternoon ‘newcomers meal’ and passed along pictoral/address directories so we could ‘be at home,’ one of the pastors helped us with our basement projects, and a small group welcomed us into their home for Bible study, food, and friendship. Our fellowship group (an age/life-situation based time for weekly prayer/deaconal support separate from the time of worship and Sunday school) provides meals, childcare, various means of support for those in challenging life situations. In addition, my wife has once again found a gathering through which to provide support group for young moms (note: ‘Mom’s Night Out’ is currently taking advantage of a local donut shop as I’m home with the kids). The monthly practice of the Lord’s Supper is enriched by nearly monthly gatherings for the whole congregation (picnics, socials, lawn parties) and an annual footwashing service which serves as a rich reminder of our mutual servanthood.
In a few weeks, we’ll host the 3rd conversation in a developing ‘shared resources’ program for our local congregation. Highlights include:
-Bulletin board for listing items that are wanted or are free for the taking (no items for sale)
-Lending binder in a pocket on or near the bulletin board (this binder could start with items and services the folks in the group and the church have to loan)
-Opportunities/tools to share more about who we are and what we have to offer in the area of our gifts and talents, possibly a church yellow pages or a “getting to know each other” guide that would include gifts, skills, interests, hobbies . . .
Just getting started and the stories of how we have seen/experienced/given hospitality in our local congregation continue to multiply. Praise be to God!

Diane,
I am glad to have lifted you some…I don’t know what I would have done with twins…
Tom,
Your story is a great one. May it be duplicated all around!
By the way…I think that there are many more cases of mothers/families with young children who have significant challenges that largely fly under the radar in many churches….

Found this in my e-box this morning. A little too relevant for the conversation? The encounter with the Word caused me to stop, confess, refocus as I offer a new day to the LORD.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”
And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,* you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” — Matthew 25.35-45

Oh, no, Tom…that scripture was ringing loud and clear to be from the start. Actually, that scripture is etched in my mind forever.