by Nicole Whitacre
I used to think that hospitality was for certain, uniquely gifted women who “got into that sort of thing.” You know the type: she has three lasagnas in the freezer, a roast and potatoes in the crockpot, cookies in the oven and coffee just brewed. Her table is always graced with fresh-cut hydrangeas from her garden—even in the dead of winter (or so it seems). She’s never happier than when a few strays show up unannounced for dinner, except of course, when a family of seven comes to stay for the week.
Me, well I panic when an extra guest shows up for dinner. My hydrangeas barely bloom in spring, and I think the chicken in my freezer has a frosty coat. Oh, and the coffee? I drank that already.
Don’t get me wrong—I love all things domestic, and I thoroughly enjoy the opportunities I have as a pastor’s wife to get to know people. But I never thought I had the kind of capacity for regular hospitality as those “gifted” women.
Sadly, I didn’t see the importance of hospitality either. I considered my home to be merely one of many possible places to get together with people. So when my husband Steve and I would plan to meet with people I was quick to suggest we take a couple to Starbucks or host a group at the park. Less work for me, I thought, to my shame.
You can see why I had to laugh when our senior pastor’s wife, Lesley called and asked
me to lead a women’s meeting on hospitality. I think maybe God was laughing too.
So I sat down with a stack of Bible dictionaries from my husband’s library and a few books on hospitality (I had to buy and borrow as I didn’t have any!) and made some surprising discoveries.
For example, did you know that hospitality it is everywhere in Scripture? It’s a major theme in the Old Testament, notable in our Savior’s life and teaching, and a regular practice of the early church. Hospitality even figures prominently in the Bible’s description of heaven.
In fact, the number of times the New Testament authors exhorted believers to practice hospitality led one author to observe that to them, “hospitality was evidently rated highly.”
Obviously, I had not rated hospitality as highly as I should.
What’s more, hospitality is not optional or only for those with a special gift. Hospitality is required for all Christians. It also appears on the short list of characteristics of a godly woman and is most particularly required of a pastor—and thus, by extension, his wife (1 Tim. 5:9, 1 Tim. 3;2, Tit. 1:8).
Christian. Woman. Pastor’s Wife.
I’m slow, but I began to think maybe this applied to me.
So, I kept studying.
Hospitality in Scripture, I learned, is a compound word meaning “love of stranger.” It is to “show kindness to a stranger in such a way that they cease to be a stranger any more.”
When someone walks through our front door, a tangible, powerful thing happens. There is a fundamental change in our relationship. People who were once strangers cease to be strangers. For in opening our home to them, we are also opening our lives; and they in turn, feel comfortable to open up their lives to us.
We’re no longer strangers. We’re friends.
How many times I had experienced this without noticing! As I began to consider our relationships, and the closeness I felt with my church community, I realized that this was, in almost every case, a result of hospitality extended and hospitality received.
That’s why hospitality is an essential part of church life: it “builds up unity and helps meet practical needs” in the church. It is “a way of bringing the household into the church and the church into the household.”
Hospitality serves my church and at the same time, it serves my family. It is a strategic way for my husband and I to graft our family into the church and the church into our family.
So hospitality, then, is a central part of my calling to help my husband. It helps him lead our family into a love for and commitment to the local church. And it helps him care for and shepherd the church that we love.
In fact, in Scripture, “loving one another demanded being hospitable.” So if I truly love the people in my church, as I claim to do, then I must be faithful to be hospitable.
With two small children, I don’t feel like I can do much in the church right now. I can’t do regular counseling or serve on a ministry team. I can’t even make it to church if one of the kids are sick. But I can do hospitality.
Of course it looks different for me than for the other gifted pastor’s wives on our team. These women are the standard I am striving for; but many of them are also in a different season of life, not to mention they have been faithfully practicing hospitality for many years. They’ve gotten pretty good at it by now!
What matters, though, is not my gifts or skill, or the scope of my hospitality, but simply that I am faithful to “show hospitality.” Not only is it a command from God to me, it is a vital, strategic, powerful way to serve my husband, my children, my church, and even the lost.
John Piper’s exhortation has become my motto: “Don't ever underestimate the power of your living room as a launching pad for new life and hope and ministry and mission!”
I’m not so quick to suggest Starbucks these days—for it can’t compare with my living room as a launching pad for new life and ministry.
