Episode 15: Hospitality as Lifestyle
SUMMARY
What is required to make hospitality a part of your lifestyle? In this episode we explore the topic of hospitality with Bethany Curtis. With over 25 years experience of hosting people in her home, she shares four key insights to making hospitality an intentional family effort.
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PODCAST NOTES
Title: Hospitality as Lifestyle
Hosts: Milo Curtis and Olivia Curtis
Download the Companion Notes PDF
DEFINING HOSPITALITY
Hospitality is the practice of receiving and entertaining strangers and guests with kindness.
Hospitality is simply a joy of life. As we welcome family, friends, and coworkers into loving places, we find mutual refreshment in shared meals, in conversations, and in the shelter of each other. (Christine Pohl, Making Room, p. 102)
God hasn’t invited us into a disorderly, grungy life but into something holy and beautiful—as beautiful on the inside as the outside.
1 Thessalonians 4:7 (The Message)
FOUR CRITICAL LESSONS ABOUT HOSPITALITY
Hospitality is the art of giving yourself away for others.
I believe that hospitality means to give of yourself… In other types of services you can give of your talents or skills or resources. The tasks aren’t what hospitality is about, hospitality is giving of yourself. (Christine Pohl, Making Room, p. 72)Seek to serve, not to impress.
Hospitality isn’t showing off. That’s not the objective. Instead, it is sharing what you have with others in a way that serves their needs for community and rest.
People aren’t craving perfection or longing to be impressed; they’re longing to feel like they’re home. If you create a space full of love and character and creativity and soul, no matter how small or undone or odd, they’ll take off their shoes and curl up with gratitude and rest. (Shauna Niequist, Savor, December 13)Hospitality works quietly and mundanely firstly.
Hosting takes an incredible amount of time. Time thinking, planning meals, shopping for supplies, and prepping of your space. Practicing hospitality as a lifestyle creates a flow that works in your favor. Knowing that people are coming over is a built in motivator to steward your resources well and anticipate those that coming.
We cannot separate the goodness and the beauty of hospitality from its difficulty. In a paradoxical way, hospitality is simultaneously mundane and sturdy, mysterious and fragile. (Christine Pohl, Making Room, p. 127)Hosting is a family effort…each one doing their part.
Make hospitality a way of living that your family embraces. Find ways that allow each person to consistently participate. Identify a night of the week that isn’t already committed to other extra curricular activities.
BOOKS MENTIONED
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Theme Music: Love Poem by Soyb