Hospitality

Hello lovely people!

For this month’s Women of the Word Journal, I have decided to jump on the back of Nii Noi’s preach on hospitality from a few weeks ago. If you didn’t get the chance to hear it, I’d recommend watching it online.

Hospitality is a very formal word for what I have in my mind. I tend to call it, “having people round for tea”. Although this name is rather long-winded. Being from the North of England, ‘tea’ can refer to either a hot cuppa or your evening meal. I’ve experienced raw, heart-filled conversations over the former, and love and laughter over the latter. “Having people round for tea” is something that I always look forward to. Some of you may know that in 2020, I moved into a flat. Whilst waiting to move in, I had been sewing a sample of Joshua 24: 15

“But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”

There are many ways that our households can serve God. The one that I was most excited about was being able to have people round for tea. In fact, I was so eager, that the first few people were subjected to a tiny desk for a dining table and my rocking chair was the only comfortable seat in the place. But that didn’t matter. In fact, my friends were excited to hear my plans for my flat and I was buzzing to have them experience its evolution with me.

My parents often had people over for lunch after church or we would go to someone else’s house for dinner. I can distinctly remember my brothers and me just taking our first mouthful when our host said, “shall we say grace?”. Our eyes went wide, and we looked at each other in alarm. Grace was never said in our house, so we had no idea what to expect. For all we were used to dining in different houses, I was intrigued by how different people do things and would often quiz them as to the reasons behind these differences.

Now, something you should know about my Mum is that she likes our house to be clean, especially when anticipating visitors. Having a clean and tidy house was like my Mum’s armour. I could always tell how nervous she was by how clean the house got. My brothers and I would run upstairs to play in our room rather than risk making a mess before the visitors arrived. My Mum gets comfort from knowing that the house is at its best when people arrive. A clean house lets her relax a bit and enjoy the dinner more. As I said, it’s her armour. Her safety blanket. Everything else might go wrong but at least the house is clean. But when I went to university and started to consider having people round, I found this experience of only hosting in a perfect house really intimidating. The state of my house became a barrier that stopped me from inviting people over. My house wasn’t good enough/ clean enough/ big enough… That was until I came back from a friend’s house after having a fab time with them and thought more about what had made the evening so great. Their house wasn’t tidy. The food wasn’t anything special. Their kids were totally crazy… but I had felt so at home. So valued and loved to be invited into their chaos. Into their reality. And I was hit by the realisation that when I go round to someone’s house, I’m not going for the food. I’m not going for the novelty experience of being in the world’s tidiest house or meeting the most Christian™ and loving family. I’m going in order to spend time with real people. People that I want to know more.

The first time I had people from church round to my house for dinner, I was a student, living in a shared house, drinking out of jam-jars. I had made my first lasagne and the Wiffen’s came round to taste test. Since then, I have cooked for a number of people and have been amazed by what I’ve learned about them. I’ve been a member of The City Church for 8 years and am only now beginning to really chat to some of the people whom I’ve known all that time. It might turn out that we have completely different taste in books (although we both have Terry Virgo on our shelves). Or we both have tales about a hike up Snowdon. Or we could spend hours ‘geeking out’ over board-games. There’s never enough time on a Sunday morning to really talk to someone. But sharing a meal, a cup of tea, or a bottle of wine provides a fantastic opportunity.

It doesn’t always work out perfectly. I’m certainly not the world’s best hostess. I’ve eaten a partially raw potato (although fortunately my friend’s was fully cooked). I’ve had a friend be sick when round for tea. I’ve definitely served at least one person food they don’t like. But in every instance, I’ve enjoyed someone’s company, we’ve had a laugh and I’ve gotten to know them a bit more. They’ve felt valued and blessed to be invited, and I’ve felt loved and honoured that they came.

So, my encouragement to you is to take a tiny-baby-pigeon-step outside of your normal ‘socializing zone’. If you’ve never invited anyone round to see your digs, try having a close friend round for a cup of tea. If you’ve never ventured beyond your usual circle of friends, try inviting someone new. If you’re great at having people round, but they all tend to have the same lifestyle as you, try inviting someone different. And to all of us, if invited into someone’s home, let’s try hard to accept.

1 Peter 4: 8

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

God bless,

Lizzy