We All Need to Practice Hospitality

"I don't have the gift of hospitality."

"I'm just not good at hospitality like __________."

"I don't have enough space to practice hospitality."

"My house isn't nice enough to have practice hospitality."

How often do we say things like this?

I know I often have. I have tried to make my refusal to practice hospitality sound spiritually acceptable. But all the excuses I can come up with don't really stand up.

In Rebekah Lyons' new (and soon to be released) book, Rhythms of Renewal she talks about four different rhythms we need in our lives - rest, restore, connect, create. Within each of the rhythms she talks about some practical ways to make this rhythm a part of our lives. Each is challenging to consider, yet simple to act on.

In the section on the rhythm of connect, Rebekah has a chapter on hospitality. I found this chapter especially challenging. I'm not the one who has a perfectly decorated space or a themed table setting when I have people over. Quite honestly, when I'm setting up for anything, making the space look pretty is the last thing on my mind, if I think of it at all. And I've always used that as an excuse not to engage in hospitality of any kind.

But, when we think of hospitality only this way, we actually miss out on what it's supposed to be about. It's not about how something is decorated or making things look pretty. Those things are nice, but they're not central to hospitality.

Hospitality is actually about connections and relationship. The creation of space where people are welcome as they are.

Rebekah put it this way:

"Creating a sustainable culture of hospitality requires casual frequency, getting together often, coming as you are, hosting as you are."

It's when we approach hospitality this way that we create the space for connection to happen. And it gives all of us permission to practice hospitality exactly as we are. Yes, some will have beautiful decor or place settings as part of it. But, others of us won't. And it's all okay.

The more I've thought about hospitality since I read this chapter, the more I've realized it's not even really about the physical space we create. The words of a speaker at a chapel at work a couple months ago capture for me what I'm beginning to see is what hospitality is all about. That speaker, the director of a local recovery ministry, put it this way:

"Hospitality is not to change people, but to off people space to change."

If I approach hospitality from that mindset, the more easily I embrace it. I invite people into space I've created, whether in my home, in my office at work, over a table in a coffee shop. I come as I am and I invite them to come as they are. Together, in that space, something beautiful can happen.

How are you doing at hospitality?

Where does your understanding of hospitality need to change?