Your heart is ready. Your home is ready. How about your family?
A lot of my illustrations about hospitality so far have referenced my husband and children. It’s my current stage of life, but please don’t think its a description of the best environment for hospitality . When I say family in this post I mean the people who you share your home and life with. That could be spouse , children or your roommates, the people in your college dorm.
For my first 10 years of adult life I lived with friends from college or from my church. It was here that I got my first taste of being a family on a mission. Our homes were transformational as we tried to navigate our 20’s. We shared our clothes, possessions, cars, and our money. We shared our tears. We prayed. We grew as disciples as we celebrated one another’s jobs and career, we worked through relational tensions. We talked into the night about dreams and guys . We prayed for our people of peace and invited them over for dinner, or to our parties (We threw the best parties. Sheffield peeps: Millennium anyone?). Over the years, different homes filled storehouses with memories.
Who are your family?
How do you get your family ready?
Remember God’s vision for your home? Have you assumed that vision is yours alone? or are your family included in it, invited to share in it, run with it, incarnate it? We need a sense of vision and purpose as a family as we open our homes. You family might feel coerced or used feeling only the cost, instead of feeling empowered, inspired and united around God’s call on your family. Like I once heard a preacher say “If the vision is unclear, the cost is always too high“…
In our first year here in MN we’ve sought to observe and absorb the world we’re in, get our family settled, weather the Minnesota weather. We’ve looked to see where God is already at work (Jn 5:19) in order embrace His vision and respond to it. Two things we’re definitely sure of: to disciple missional leaders & to reach out our community here in the ‘burbs.
The growing sense of vision is shaping our practices at church, in life, and inevitably at home. My husband (a pastor) volunteers in our kids schoolweekly, and is our daughter’s soccer coach. Our children are integral to the process and to the call . Together we pray for neighbors and build friendships and engage with the community. We host play dates and invite our children friend’s and their parents into our home, investing in our children’s people of peace. We lead huddles in our home to train this next generation of amazing passionate missional leaders. We host potlucks in our home to build community life at church, deepen relationships and also give a living picture of what a missional community could be. Our neighbors and community friends popped in during the last potluck, our worlds are colliding. Importantly the whole family is involved. We have a sense of purpose, and its vibrant and its fun and we laugh, sometimes chaotic. But our home is becoming a fun filled potluck hosting hub, rather than a hideout.
What do you see the Father doing?
What’s your family vision ?
Get some Rhythm
This next bit is really important:
My house is not open 24/7. I’m not discipling anyone into anything healthy if I model a life without boundaries in the name of being missional. It’s certainly not how Jesus lived and served. There are many examples in the gospels where Jesus deliberately pulled away from the crowd and their demands, to invest in his disciples, to connect with his key relationships, or be with the Father. He served people, yet wasn’t defined by everyone else’s schedule. Can we say the same?
One of the healthiest ways we can get our family ready is to understand and practice a healthy rhythm of life. A genuine day off. Sleep. Vacation. Abiding, growing, fruitfulness and pruning.
If your home is going to be a place for His Kingdom come, remember you need to restore your soul as individuals, and as a family. You don’t need to be a fortress, but you do need be a place which can be a place of retreat as well as adventure. Sometimes the best way to get your family ready is to recognize their need for rest, and to explore the way your family rests. In one of the homes in in my 20’s we had a family night just for the girls in the house. To be together, go out for a meal or a movie using some of our shared housekeeping funds. Years later as wife and mom we too have a family night, go out for a meal, watch a movie, get take out. My husband and I have regular date nights. Pushing your family to do more, be more, try harder to fulfill your missional vision for your home can be exhausting for all involved! Observing and exploring your family rhythm of life, the season your family is in, may reveal limitations, but also a way to move forward together When you’re refreshed as a family its much easier to welcome people in.
One of the best tips I learned from Sally that I’ll share with you: As you prepare your family to open your home consider your family’s pressure points of the day, week, month, season, and year.
The Day:These days it’s rare that really late nights play a role in hospitality for me. I’ll need a special occasion! When I’m tired I’m not the best listener, prayer, discipler, missionary . Furthermore, no matter what time I go to bed my kids are up early wanting breakfast/a book to read/something to do/ the latest weather forecast. I am on, whether I want to or not!
The Week/Month:Here we pay attention to things like our preaching schedules, meetings, kids activities, work travel. Sometimes we just have to acknowledge our best intentions and great plans aren’t going to work. Sometimes the kids really do have strep. Sometimes we just need to stop.
Seasons:In my 20’s when I lived with nurses on a night shift, or computer programmers with looming deadlines, it was important adjust expectations. That wasn’t the time to have lots of things happening in our home which would demand their time and energy. It was a time to serve them, with meals and peace and quiet. What season of life are your family in?
Year : What times of year are huge pressure points ? I’ve noticed the first and last week of the school year was challenging. Too many meetings at the start of the year, so many end of year events at the end. Not great weeks for hosting things at our home. If its unavoidable – LOTS of support required!
When we protect our pressure points there’s energy and opportunity left for hospitality. Hey, we might even have a bit of energy for spontaneity! But don’t by doing everything, simply one faithful hospitable next step in response to His vision.
Different Personalities, different approaches: Our family has a few introverts and a few extroverts. So some of us get recharged by time alone, whilst the others prefer to recharge with others. I’ve noticed its worth ensuring we all have energy for people coming over and spending time with us. So the day before a particularly large gathering we have a quieter day with lots of down time. The dog might get a long walk that day so he’s tired out and sleepy by the time people arrive. What do you need to consider when you look at the range of ages and personalities within your family?
Are you ready to extend your family as you go on mission?
Does this all feel too much for your family right now because there aren’t enough people involved? Here’s one other thought.
Maybe it’s the Nigerian parties of my childhood. Maybe it’s being single until 29.But if the missional conversation doesn’t lead to a rediscovery of the kind of hospitality that creates extended families on a mission together – I’m going to be disappointed. Jesus had the 12, but there were a number of other men and women involved who were personally transformed and then became part of the mission team. Could our hospitality be a opportunity to invest intentionally in some people and enlist them in God’s mission with you? We absolutely LOVE the young missional leaders we get to disciple. Most of our discipling happens at our kitchen table. They’ve enriched our family, there are great role models (and babysitters) for our kids. They’ve come to soccer games and recitals. Some will join with us in our mission; for others its a incubating time as they learn and dream. They’re all becoming family. (There’s so much more to blog about young adults, so that will come in future posts). I’d encourage you to ask the God who sets the lonely, the fatherless, the alien and the widow in families – how He might want to extend your family too.
I’ll leave you with all this to consider. It probably won’t all be relevant, but hopefully some nuggets to process!
What is God saying?
What are you going to do about it?