Three Reasons Hospitality is Important

Hospitality seems to be a dying art. As our schedules get busier, we focus less on loving others well. We don’t intend this. In fact, we often long for deeper friendships, even in our busy seasons. However, sometimes focusing on the needs of our family seems all we can handle.

I’m not a natural at hospitality. It’s something I’ve had to work on over the years. My cooking skills are very average, it’s hard cleaning with three young kids, and it can be difficult to coordinate schedules with others. Thankfully, my very average hospitality skills have taught me that friends aren’t looking for royal treatment when they come over. They are looking for community. Even those of us with limited hospitality skills can offer community.

But really, why does hospitality matter?

  “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:”

1 Peter 4:8-10 ESV

For me, being a ‘good steward of God’s varied grace’ means allowing others into our lives and homes, even though it doesn’t look perfect (our life or my hospitality skills). 

I’ve also found the following three things to be true as to why hospitality is so important.

1. Offering hospitality is good for our children. It’s good for our children to see us open our homes to others and they see us doing it without the house being ‘perfect’. It’s also great for them to hear adults talking about their faith to one another. One night, a family we were just getting to know came over. After dinner, they put hands on me and prayed for some health issues I’ve been dealing with. There’s no greater way to teach our children about being a Christian than to show them how to give and receive love from others.

2. Hospitality is good for our marriages. Healthy friends are great for your marriage. As adults, it’s hard to find time to nurture healthy friendships. By taking time to invest in friendships with other couples, it also adds an investment to the health of your marriage. Other couples can help bring guidance and wisdom through tough life events, give insight from what they’ve learned in their marriage, and be cheerleaders for you and your family. Healthy couple friends want you and your marriage to succeed and thrive. When we have friends into our homes, we invite them into our lives. Bonds are created, and vulnerability with each other is often established.

3. Hospitality is good for your home environment.Our home is cleanest when friends are about to come over. The entire family knows when we are having friends over for dinner, and we all have certain “jobs.” My husband makes coffee and picks up random items that might be lying around. Our kids clean their rooms, help set out plates, and sometimes make a small dessert. And I make dinner and clean up afterwards. By turning it into a family event, everyone feels included which makes it more exciting for the arrival of our guests.

Wife Step: Make a list of friends you and our husband would love to have over to hang out, and set up a date and time with at least one couple from your list!

Kristin lives in Huntsville, Al (or Rocket City as the Huntsvillian’s call it) with her husband Tim and two daughters. Kristin and her husband helped start Epic Church in San Francisco, Ca., and are now the lead planters of Essential Church in Huntsville, Al.  

While living and working in San Francisco, Kristin and her husband felt God calling them to Huntsville to start a church for people in the South who no longer believed church was for them.  She’s been married to her best friend and biggest fan, Tim, for ten years. Together they have three beautiful girls.

Before motherhood, Kristin was a Mary Kay director and an aspiring business woman. After years of hard work launching and maintaining a successful career, it all fell apart upon moving across the country. For years after losing her career, Kristin struggled with understanding her value and self-worth. She sought value in other titles, such as being a pastor’s wife, and then eventually a mom. 

Kristin now understands our value doesn’t come from the titles or careers we have. Kristin is a stay-at-home mom who seeks to give her children an ordinary, happy childhood. She seeks to find her value in Jesus each day and teaches her kids to do the same by teaching them scripture and letting them see how God fills our shortcomings. She has found her family’s gifts come to the surface when there is space for simplicity. She loves running, reading, writing, being outdoors, and hiking with her family.