Starting this month, I’m giving myself a challenge – a challenge that I hope the Spirit will use to grow me in Christ-likeness and grow Christ’s church at the same time.
I’m calling it the Once a Month Hospitality Challenge: Intentionally opening heart and home to grow the church.
The Challenge
Once a month for the next four months, my family and I will host lunch immediately following the Sunday morning worship service for visitors to our church.
The Purpose
To be intentional about fulfilling the biblical command to practice hospitality.
To be intentional about building relationships.
To be intentional about growing our church.
Nothing binds a church together faster than a full heart and a full table. It’s what the Spirit does: he fills us up and fixes us together so we’re a testimony of his grace.
For those reasons, we’ve found that hospitality has been a huge factor in my family’s own church planting journey.
The Strategy
On a pre-selected date, my plan is to have a meal ready to go when I leave for church in the morning. But because I can’t do this alone, I asked another church family to partner with us. This family has a heart for building relationships and entertaining, so I’m very excited to serve with them. Plus, they are some of our very favoritest (new word!) people in whole wide world.
The guests? For the most part, we’ll leave that up to God. Sometimes, the invite list will depend on who shows up for church that morning. I want to be ready for any opportunities to connect. But I particularly want to reach out to new members and recurring guests who haven’t assimilated into church life yet. Those invites will happen in advance.
Next, we’ll invite church family members who need encouragement and any other guests God brings our way.
It’s sure to be difficult. I’ll probably be waiting for the pastor to say “Amen” in his closing prayer much like a track runner poised at the starting line of a race track. And then I’ll frantically make a mad dash to the house to get dinner on the table before our guests arrive.
It’s sure to be inconvenient. There’ll probably be cancellations, schedule changes, sickness, and more.
It’s sure to be messy. My five-year-old twinadoes will make sure of that! But that’s what life is! I don’t pretend to imagine that opening both heart and home to friends and strangers alike would be anything other than that – messy!
But, I know it will be really fun. And, above all, it should be exhilarating to see how God fills us with his love so that we can pour it out for others.
Oh, and here’s the kicker. To up the ante, I’m going to try to meet this challenge without buying anything new! No cute plates, no new serving dishes, no sweet little hand towels for the guest bath.
It’s not that those things are unnecessary, it’s just I know myself. I can turn any chance to open my home into a party, and I’d rather spend time preparing myself to open my heart instead. All the “stuff of entertaining” can easily become a distraction for me and before I know it, I’ve taken my eyes off the Person who helps me love the people in front of me and focused them on pretty things instead.
So, I’m budgeting for food and paper goods. That’s all.
Think I can do it? I’m a little unsure. But I hope you’ll follow along, because I sure could use your encouragement!
I’ll be posting about our meals (the dishes that made the grade and those that flopped – because there are sure to be a few of those!), the lessons we learn along the way, and how God orchestrates the meal and the company for his glory.
Full heart. Full table. Once a Month Hospitality Challenge. Join in! Subscribe to Hive Resources so you don’t miss any of this series.
“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.” Rom. 12:10-13
While you’re here, be sure to enter the giveaway for the illustrated Bible memory set of Ps. 91 by Heart Binder Innovations! Contest ends tomorrow!
I’m linking up with Thought-Provoking Thursday.
Oh I love this! My husband and I have done something similar, it’s a great way to welcome new people. I have an overnight breakfast casserole I make for such occasions. Or my husband makes a firefighter breakfast–which can be deadly! Having another couple help is essential. Looking forward to hearing how it goes!
Christina, I’d love to have your overnight breakfast casserole recipe!
This is great you are starting this!
Dave and I started a ministry like this many years ago and it was met with much excitement. There were several families that signed up to be on a rotating schedule to be ready to invite visitors. If no visitors came that morning or did not want to come over we used that opportunity to invite someone over from church that we wanted to get to know or just seemed like they could use some fellowship. We would pray that God would direct us to those who needed the fellowship and encouragement.
One of the great things was the number of families that stayed and became actively involved in the church from that initial lunch together, seeing that people really cared, they could learn more about the church and see we were real people, just like them.
Also it was a great opportunity to get to know others in the church and encourage them. Sometimes the thinking is that “they have lots of friends or fellowship” and would never come over but we found those were the ones who were the needing the fellowship and encouragement the most.
Hi Kim, thanks for your encouragement! We’re excited to see how it grow and how God uses it. A few Sundays ago, Pastor Ken passed around a sheet with ministry opportunities on it – and we saw hospitality and knew right away that we wanted to do this!
What a great step of service you all have taken Melissa.I can’t wait to hear about how it goes.We have a concept of ‘host’ family in our church.Every time a new family comes to our church,host family is suppose to take care of them.We signed up in this unknown territory.Excited and anxious at the same time.
Nive – I am very excited to hear about your hospitality plans too! Tell me more about this ‘host family’ idea – what a great concept!
This is a great challenge. After church planting for 9 years and then being called to a more estabilished church for another 5 years, I can honestly say our most effective ministry effort was opening our home to others! This year I picked out a phrase to remind myself of the importance of this : People not Projects, Hospitality not Hermitting! LOL!
Susan – I LOVE that phrase – “People not Projects!!!!
I love this, Melissa! I can’t wait to follow along on your adventure and hear about God’s grace at your table. God has used Sunday after church to be a time for me to grow in my understanding of hospitality. I used to think of it in a daydreamy way about how it’s such a perfect opportunity to invite people over. Two toddlers later God has made that a reality just about every Sunday. We give international students rides to church and at least one joins us for lunch most weeks. It’s been a huge blessing but with little people who are sure ready for nap time when we walk in the door, it’s nothing like the pretty picture I used to daydream about. But much better. His ways are so much better!
Melissa, I think that’s why hospitality is such a Christ-like grace – it is hard business to extend love and charity. It is the essence of what he did for us through his glorious gospel! I, too, have many stories of personal failures when entertaining with my two kiddos in tow. Sometimes it gets the best of me internally and I have to quickly regroup and recenter my heart on HIM – not details like a clean house, perfect meal, lovely table settings, or well-behaved kids at the table!
I know this will grow me in Christ-likeness!
This post is absolutely wonderful and greatly encouraged me! I am going to take the challenge. I love the part about buying anything new…