David:     Old joke Karen.

Karen:     Oh goodness.

David:     Told it many times you’re recognizing it immediately and it will instantly date me as well.  Man goes into the grocery. “I’ll have a pound of kiddly beans.” The proprietor responds, “I think you mean kidney beans.” Angry customer: “I said kiddly, diddle I?”

Karen:     Okay, I’m just really, really eager to hear you pull this one in. Let’s give a greeting to our listeners. Stay with us because you don’t want to miss this.

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:     Words are important.

Karen:     Words are important. Is that what your little joke at the beginning?

David:     That’s how it is. It’s not an easy joke to tell. I had to practice.

Karen:     It’s a tongue twister. There’s no doubt about it.

David:     We’re in one of those series where words can sometimes mean something different to the person who’s listening and I’m thinking that’s the case when we talk hospitality. My personal feeling is that many people instantly think entertaining.

Karen:     Okay, entertaining such as in Martha Stewart maybe.

David:     Whoever.

Karen:     She’s been the doyen of hospitality but really slash entertaining.

David:     She probably wouldn’t like being a part of the kiddly group. Anyway, hospitality I thought I would look it up to see if it would be helpful and my premise is that most people think the same thing. When you say hospitality, I think entertainment. You don’t.

Karen:     No.

David:     Okay, but I looked up hospitality in the dictionary. I do that a lot and it didn’t help all that much. It said the act, practice, or quality of being hospitable. How do you like that?

Karen:     Kidddle. Kiddidily.

David:     See, I said it wasn’t easy to say. Okay, and then it has a secondary meaning. Solicitous entertainment of guests.

Karen:     Did you have to look up that solicitous?

David:     I did just to make sure I was right. But that’s kind of in my mind when someone is solicitous, they’re kind of going overboard.

Karen:     Okay. To an extreme maybe.

David:     Yeah.

Karen:     Okay.

David:     But here in the dictionary hospitality connects immediately with entertainment of guests and you make a very big distinction in your book, Open Heart, Open Home, that hospitality is not the same as entertaining. I know that when we get into this podcast you’re going to be talking way more than I am going to be. So, I’m going to do some reading, but it is from your book.

Karen:     Hard to live in your own home with an expert on any topic, isn’t it?

David:     Here we go. Entertaining says, this is Karen’s writing, “I want to impress you with my beautiful home, my clever decorating, my gourmet cooking. Hospitality, however, seeks to minister. It says ‘This home is not mine. It’s truly a gift from my master. I am his servant and I use it as he desires’. Hospitality does not try to impress but deserve.”

Karen:     That’s good.

David:     Okay, I’ll keep going.

Karen:     Okay.

David:     “Entertainment always puts things before people. As soon as I get the house finished, the living room decorated, my place setting is complete, my housework done, then I will start having people in.”

Karen:     Let me add one more to that.

David:     Go ahead.

Karen:     As I learn to cook, you know, get a meal from the refrigerator to the table.

David:     Okay. The so-and-sos are coming. “I must buy that new such-and-such before they arrive. Hospitality, however, puts people before things. We have no furniture. Okay, we’ll eat on the floor. The decorating may never get done. Please come just the same. The house is a mess, but these people are friends. We never get to see them. Let’s have this time together anyway.” I’ll keep reading, Ok?

Karen:     Okay.

David:     “Because we are afraid to allow people to see us as we really are, we welcome the false ideal of entertaining. To perpetuate the illusion, we must pretend we love housework. We never put our hair in rollers. Our children are so well disciplined that they always pick up their toys. We must hint broadly that we manage our busy lives without difficulty, working hard to keep people from recognizing our weak points. We also prevent them from loving us in our weakness. Because hospitality has put away its pride, it doesn’t care if other people see our humanness. Because we are maintaining no false pretenses, people relax and feel that perhaps we can be friends.”

Keep going?

Karen:     Sure.

David:     Do more short paragraphs.

“Entertaining subtly declares, this is mine, these rooms, these adornments. This is an expression of my personality. It’s an extension of who and what I am. Look, please, and admire. Hospitality whispers what is mine is yours. Here is the secret of community that is all but lost to the church of today. And all who believe were together and had all things in common.”

You’re quoting from Acts chapter 2, verse 44.

Karen:     Yeah.

David:     “The hospitality of that first century church clearly said what’s mine is yours. Entertainment looks for a payment. The words, ‘My, isn’t she a remarkable hostess.’ A returned dinner invitation. A job advancement for self or spouse. Esteem in the eyes of friends and neighbors. Hospitality does everything with no thought or reward, but takes pleasure in the joy of giving, doing, loving, serving.” You draw a great distinction.

Karen:     Yeah, a great distinction isn’t it. It’s interesting to be reminded of all that again. Sometimes you forget the things that you’ve written, but that’s really true. I still believe all of those things. There’s a distinct difference. And what we’re talking about is not just hospitality. We’re talking about biblical hospitality, scriptural hospitality, a hospitality that demonstrates to those we invite into our lives what God is like.

David:     Could I just go back and pick up a little bit of where we were previously in this series?

Karen:     Ok.

David:     We started by talking about the loneliness epidemic that marks this country. It should be a signal to the church to call out the spiritual gift of hospitality. That’s where we began.

Karen:     Right.

David:     We won’t review all that. People can go back and listen to that podcast. Then we said one of the most powerful ways to model the love and welcome of God is the practice of Christian hospitality. So, let’s give just an idea of where we’re headed in this visit.

Karen:     Okay, well, I wrestle continually in a half or probably decades as far as how to help churches create a hospitable church. A hospitality that’s a part of the very DNA of that church. So, I know enough about the training process and the learning process and the teaching process to know that the very best thing to do at that point in time is to find those people in your church and they generally are a handful maybe even more but those who are passionate themselves about using this gift. And you know they’re passionate about it because people say, “Oh, I was over at so and so’s last night and we, you know, game night… it was a wonderful night.” They’re the people who are always including folk and inviting them in.

So, in the church what I would do, if we were in pastoring again, is I would find those people who demonstrate that ability in somewhere or other continually. And I would create what I would call an advocacy group or hospitality, and this would be a standing committee. A committee that needs to be represented in the staff and also in the church governing system whether it’s an elder board or a deacon board whatever. But it’s something that you want this advocacy group to begin permeating the life of the church with the creative ideas they come up with as far as how you teach about hospitality.

David:     It’s no different, Karen, than what you would do if you wanted to start a say a mission committee.

Karen:     Or a building the buildings and grounds committee or anything like that. Something that is…

David:     You’re looking for the people who are interested in missions. They have a passion for this, and they become the group that kind of salts the whole of the congregation.

Karen:     The mission. If you had a mission committee or commission.

David:     Yeah. It’s nothing different than a music committee.

Karen:     Yeah exactly.

David:     You’re not going to ask the tone-deaf guy.

Karen:     He probably wouldn’t want to be a part of it either.

David:     No, he has other skills.

Karen:     Yeah.

David:     Okay. So, what you’re saying is the church doesn’t have for the most part hospitality committee, standing committees.

Karen:     Right.

David:     We don’t know why it doesn’t but that’s normally the case. But this is the starting point.

Karen:     Yeah.

David:     Those people who are good at it, not necessarily entertaining but hospitality.

Karen:     And sometimes they’ll have a hospitality committee that takes care of making sure that church suppers and church picnics and refreshments after a business meeting for instance are provided.

David:     Or Karen, that somebody is the greeter in the church. I think that that’s wonderful.

Karen:     Right.

David:     There’s a long time where there were no greeters. Now that word has gotten around. And it’s hard to visit a church where somebody doesn’t at least, when you’re walking up or come into the sanctuary or into the lobby, they say “We’re so glad you came.”

Karen:     Well, I’m not sure that that’s true. That it’s hard to… I think there are a lot of churches that haven’t gotten to that point yet. The new and savvy churches are.

David:     I know some that are.

Karen:     Yeah. We know some that have at least greeters.

David:     But you’re looking for the people who have a bent in that direction.

Karen:     Right.

David:     They are gifted by the Lord.

Karen:     I would say they have a spiritual gift of hospitality. Those are the ones I want to find if I were setting up this kind of an advocacy group that would be one that committee that functions all year-round, year after year.

David:     I feel the same. So, we’re looking for those people who seem to have a proclivity in that area.

Karen:     Right. And why do we do this? Let me give you the mission statement I’ve written out because I’ve worked on this a long time as far as how do we create that hospitable church. And we start with this what I call an advocacy group.

A properly organized hospitality committee which understands its mission of hospitality can change the environment of the whole church for the better. It will diffuse itself through the entire or DNA of the congregation.

David:     Yeah, it’s the yeast that leavens the whole of the loaf.

Karen:     Exactly. So, it’s extraordinarily important that a lot of the goals that churches have to be a friendly church to be an inclusive church can be stimulated and spearheaded by having a hospitality advocacy group. So, let’s talk a little bit more about what that looks like. Okay?

This hospitality committee year-round and I’m thinking of the creative ideas coming right out of that group. I love working with late people and convinced that it’s the biggest untapped energy source in the world.

So, when you get a late committee, not a staff committee but a late committee, who love hospitality who are called to it or gifted by the Holy Spirit to use it, then you start asking them for creative ideas. They would champion the biblical ministry of hospitality by 1: educating church members in the profound importance of the spiritual gift.

You know a sermon or two to back-to-back on a couple Sundays is not going to last in its meaning. It has to be advocated for all year round in a variety of ways. And you’re not going to spend a whole year talking on hospitality from the pulpit. So, who’s going to bring up that concept year-round so people don’t forget about it and that would be this group, this advocacy group.

So, they educate church members in the profound importance of this gift. They establish a ministry of welcome for newcomers.

Let me talk about that a little bit because you mentioned it.

I remember growing up in the Church Life First Baptist Church of Wheaton Illinois. I was a child, but I don’t remember having these welcoming greeters at the door. And so, we’re running into more and more of that.

So, it’s “Hi, how are you welcome to so-and-so.” And then they pass you on into maybe a coffee place or a place that takes your someone with a clipboard who takes your name and your phone number or contact information.

The problem with that is that what people want who are new to a church or new to an environment is to feel that they are welcomed but known. So, sometimes it does not happen at the door with these greeters. Or sometimes in churches a pastor or staff person will say from the pulpit, “This is a time when we want to greet the newcomers among us.” So, during that time, as people say, “Hi, glad to have you here. My name is Such-and-Such, and what is your name?” And they’ll get that far. But that’s not enough.

So, we’re greeting at the door, and we need to say, “Oh, so good to have you here. Are you visiting? Do you live nearby?”

David:     What prompted you to come here?

Karen:     “What prompted you to come? Tell me a little bit about your life.”

Now, you can’t do a lot when people are walking in, but you can do that much. And that immediately signals to that newcomer that there’s more than just formulaic. “Good to have you. Glad you’re here.” That happens Sunday after Sunday after Sunday for everyone and doesn’t go any farther than that. Those few little changes, that nuance, will make people who come who are new saying, well, they really do want to know why.

David:     They were very warm.

Karen:     Yeah, they were very warm. So that’s what the hospitality committee would begin to work with in the concept of developing ministries of welcome for newcomers.

David:     Yeah. If you say, “tell me why you came here. How did you hear about us?” And the person says, “We’re going through a hard time. And I thought I’d start to go to church again.” All of a sudden, you’re talking in a totally different…

Karen:     Totally different thing. Yeah. And even putting your name on a newcomer’s list, it’s good if there is follow up. But some people don’t want to commit themselves that far. They want to look a place over. I mean, there’s just that’s what this committee would do. They would create that to be much more impacting and make it a personal.

Thank you. So, they mentor the hands on skills of would be hosts and hostesses. So, there are people who want to invite folk into their lives or into the homes. They have an inner instinct or an inner drive to do that. But they’re insecure. They don’t quite know how to go about it.

So, this advocacy committee would begin to train them in those social skills. How do you create a meaningful conversation for instance? How do you get a group of people who are strangers around your dinner table? They’ve come, but now how do we create community among them? So, they feel good about that time together.

So, there are social skills that can be taught. How do you do easy hospitality meals? You say, “We’re going to have a pie night. Everyone bring a pie. I’ll provide the beverages,” you know. They’re just all kinds of easy ways to do that. And that’s what that advocacy group would begin to train people in how to do that.

David:     It’s nothing different than somebody who says, “I think I’m interested in missions, but I don’t know.” And then you start to mentor them.

Karen:     Yeah, right. So, here’s the great book you can read or here’s some return missionaries…

David:     Go ahead. You’re tugging your heart for some part of the world.

Karen:     Yeah, right.

David:     But you’re just asking the simple questions and helping that person develop in the area where there has been an interest, but not a whole lot of experience.

Karen:     That’s excellent. So, this group then does administer hospitality events with us in church.

David:     What would be an example?

Karen:     What would be… a church supper, a church social, church picnic, refreshments after the business meeting, whatever.

David:     And you’re not just talking about all A through H brings a toss salad.

Karen:     And that’s fine. That’s a fine way to organize it.

David:     Of course, it is. But that doesn’t accomplish the purpose in mind.

Karen:     No, what I’m asking that committee to coach those people who are doing these sorts of events and is how do you create community with it. So, one of the things I would suggest, and these ideas again will come out of that hospitality committee, is that when everyone sit down at a table and of course those are often long tables, maybe divided in half, and you give them a question to discuss.

David:     Example…

Karen:     What would be getting to know you better questions. So, what are you passionate about? You know, it’s a great question. We asked this. What are some of the things that you’re passionate about? When you’re at your happiest, what are you doing? Who was the person who influenced you and changed the trajectory of your life? These are all questions we ask among groups in our own home.

David:     Those are simple questions that take the conversation for 45 minutes to an hour for the people just within your close proximity to answer.

Karen:     I will guarantee when you have spent that kind of time with that kind of question, you will know much more about everyone in that group than you will with superficial chit chat.

David:     Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, getting past chit chat, that’s a great…

Karen:     That’s a great topic in itself. Okay, so that committee administers these hospitality events, making sure that it’s not just food and program, often there’s a little program, but that at those time together, those people begin to know one another better.

David:     Could part of it maybe be even training the staff? Because the staff sometimes becomes a group exclusive to itself that has lost contact in some ways with the membership of the church.

Karen:     Well, you noticed that I didn’t say this was staff run.

David:     Okay.

Karen:     Its lay people run for that very reason. I think that often staff feels like the church exists to help them do their job. My feeling is that staff exists to free the lay people to do their jobs.

David:     I guess the reason I asked that question, Karen, and I agree with you, is that a lot of times, I think ministers have to be trained as to how to ask good questions and so on. Ministers are skilled for the most part in terms of talking.

Karen:     Yes, it’s true. Very skilled.

David:     Praise the Lord for that. A lot of people would be absolutely petrified if they were asked to give a 25-minute sermon on Sunday.

Karen:     Week after week after week.

David:     Yeah, and then yeah, that’s the hard part. You do it repeatedly over and over and over again. But a lot of times, even when ministers invite people over to get to know them, they spend the time doing most of the talking.

Karen:     Yeah.

David:     So, someone has to come along and say, now as pastor, we’ll invite the people in with you and one of us will take charge of being responsible for the conversation and asking questions and we make sure that everybody gets to talk.

Karen:     So that you will know your people better after you’ve left. And this is, I think we may have skipped over one of the points and that was this advocacy group that helps the pastor in their hospitality outreach. Some pastors and wives are extraordinarily hospitable. To extend that invitation to a whole church, no matter what size it is, is exhausting and expensive. So, the committee would say, “We’re going to invite a group of people over. Are there some people you would like us to invite over so you can get to know them better? And then you and your wife or your spouse, you know, we have a lot of women now who are who are ordained minister or spouse, come and we’ll provide the hospitality environment for the purpose of you to get to know your congregation better and for them to get to know you better. And don’t worry about it. We’ll plan the questions, so you don’t have to do that.”

David:     Be wonderful.

Karen:     So, let me see, where are we? “They mobilize the homes of the congregation to create outposts of neighborliness and outreach.” So that you can see why this needs to go on all year. I mean, if you have one or two sermons on hospitality, people will have forgotten this. So there needs to be sort of a neighbor outpost mission that happens in the church. Maybe an email goes out and after training and there’s training that needs to be done with this, that says, “How many of you invited someone from your neighborhood into your home? Respond and we’ll tell what were the stories, what was good about it? What was, what do you need to do better? And then we’ll share that in either a church newsletter or a group email.” I mean, there’s so much that people can do now with technology. We’ll have a Zoom meeting. We’re just learning about Zoom so we can talk about how we could do these things better or answer your questions if you have a question.

David:     I have this feeling that we’re going through a lot of ideas and people are identifying, but I’ll never remember all this. Is there a way, the list that you’re going through can be shared with people?

Karen:     Yes, it can be. I’d be more than happy for people to email me Karen@Hungry Souls, S-O-U-L-S. Karen@HungrySouls.org. And if they will request the hospitality committee file, I’ll send that to them via email. So, I’m really happy to have them do that.

David:     Okay, that’s good. Where are we headed now?

Karen:     Well, let’s go to some ways that we can measure whether we’ve been successful. I mean, how do we know if this is working or not? What are some of the measurements? Because, you know, you have a big program like this that goes on and on. You have some intuitive or anecdotal information.

David:     Yeah, this is a little more difficult. The music committee, you know whether the choir sang that morning.

Karen:     So, if I sang well…

David:     Or a musical night was put on.

Karen:     Yeah, we used the entire church and little kids were so cute in their part. You know, yeah, we get we have instant feedback.

David:     This is harder because it’s not when the church is gathered as a whole.

Karen:     So, I think that number one, you would begin to see an apply redefinition of the concept of hospitality from entertaining, which is where you began to the biblical concept of hospitality that is not the secular concept of entertaining.

David:     Yeah, I think that would be good. That would be a huge indication that “Hey, we’re pulling off what we intended.”

Karen:     And you hear that for the little story, someone gave me a call and they were needing… I said “You come on over. My house is a mess, but we’re going to sit and talk about this. You’re not going to be alone right now.” Stuff like that. You begin to the rumor meal starts. Sorry, I don’t know if it’s a rumor meal, but…

David:     The good rumor.

Karen:     Yeah, it’s a good. Then there’s a growing awareness in the congregation that you sense that being given to hospitality is a normal expression of the Christian life. And again, you might have a sort of a brag sheet or something like that or report sheet, where people say “We had so-and-so is over and we had the most wonderful evening.” And you know, I’ll come tell your goofy story. We’ve done this with pastors. Tell one time when you were most embarrassed and your… and because they were all pastors, they just sat around at howled. They all understood what those embarrassing stories were. Stuff like that.

You know, it’s really great to a noticeable transformation of exclusive church social subsets; to inclusive and communal networks of compassion, openness, warmth, curiosity about others and acceptance of all. Now small groups are great. But they can be very great if they if they follow certain healthy ways of functioning. But they can become clannish and…

David:     Inclusive

Karen:     …and inclusive and clubbish. So, we want to continue to be renewing the small group life by inviting new people in and then dividing small groups in half. And what happens with that is that the small group movement within your church begins to grow and flourish. And then other people are brought in, and the group is renewed again and again by the bringing in of new folks through this gift of hospitality.

David:     These are all wonderful.

Karen:     We have said that hospitality just isn’t relegated to the use of the home, right? It can be practiced by inviting someone to go to a restaurant with you or have ice cream together at the local ice cream shop downtown or you know, there’s a thousand ways. Meets you in the park and we’ll have a play date with our kids. Come. Will you come and meet me? That’s a part of the invitation.

So, this can take all kinds of iterations. But you should also see an increase in the use of the homes, the homes of the people in our congregations. So much better in some ways than a restaurant because at a restaurant you’re always aware that you’re taking a table time off.

David:     Right.

Karen:     Waitress is, or waiter is not getting his tips from a variety of people hitting the table. So…

David:     Although if people are good at hospitality, you can move into meaningful conversation pretty quickly, even with a round table of six people.

Karen:     That’s true. But that home allows for you to relax, enjoy, be expansive and you know, stay till 11 although about that time you stand up and say “It’s been so wonderful having you here. We wanted to have you get to know one another but better.”

David:     “Stay as long as you want. I’m going upstairs and putting my pajamas on.”

Karen:     Yeah, you’ve threatened to come down in your pajamas. Everyone laughs but they get the idea.

Okay, then we begin to hear verbal phrases such as this. I mean, they’re all kinds. So, I listed a few. “It feels as though I found a home.”

David:     Yeah, that’s wonderful.

Karen:     “I’ve gained a family and that’s so extraordinary. I finally am somewhere that lets me be who I am. I just feel like it can be myself.” Isn’t that wonderful? I want that.

David:     Yeah, those are just like, “Oh boy, we pulled it off and we’re getting better.”

Karen:     “This is the place where I know I belong.”

David:     “I’m not a stranger anymore.”

Karen:     “I’m not a stranger. I don’t feel outcast or a stranger. Not like an outlier.”

David:     Karen, I just can insert in here. Everyone assumes of course that this is for the ladies of the church because hospitality is a woman’s gift, right?

Karen:     Yeah, I realized as you were reading it from the book, it was a little gender slanted. Some of the most hospital men I know, my father was the essence of hospitality. He’s just extraordinary. Christ had no place to lay his head that he could count on in no home of his own when he was here on the earth, and he was the most hospitable human who ever lived.

David:     But you understand that the scriptures say that if you’re to be one of the leaders of the church, you need to have a wife who is hospitable.

Karen:     Nope. You’d be given to hospitality if you’re going to be a leader in the church. And I don’t know of any time when I have been considered for leadership in a local church. When I’ve been asked or anyone else has been asked if they exercise the gift of hospitality. So again, that’s fallen by the wayside, but it is very much a scriptural premise.

David:     And it’s timely.

Karen:     Right.

David:     There’s the time for the church to rediscover the biblical concept of hospitality. Have we made the distinction enough so that people know when we’re talking about kidney or talking about kiteley? One is hospitality. Another is entertainment.

Karen:     Yeah.

David:     Do you think we’ve made that point?

Karen:     I think we’ve made a point. Yeah.

David:     Okay. Well, good. Have we satisfied in terms of our own communication skills that we have brought people along to another step where we’re saying this just isn’t individual, people together working on this, but whole congregations, the effect of it becomes so more multiplied when the church is involved?

Karen:     Okay. Well, let’s end by sending a challenge out to our listeners.

Would you consider going before the Lord and saying, how do you want me to exercise the gift of hospitality? That would be a very practical thing to do.

Then you just begin to wait and listen, and you’ll come up with a card that comes in the mail saying on the front of it, “Be hospitable.” He’s pretty obvious when he’s starting to prompt us.

David:     He, being God.

Karen:     Being God. And then you can go ahead and start doing this the most simple way possible. If you’ve never done it before, pray before you invite anyone to your home and pray before they come. And then if you’d like to write me at my email address again, Karen, K-A-R-E-N @hungrysouls.org and say, “Yay, I did it.”

That can be your accountability tool if you don’t have any other. So that’s some things we can offer to our listeners, the people who are listening to us right now.

Outgo:     You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review, and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2020 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60187.