Archives for January 2011

The great house was the most beautiful in town—not that it was so grand, but that it was so fine. Its sturdy foundation supported thick walls, expansive porches with turrets and buttresses tiptoeing skyward.

Not one room was non-functional, but each had been designed for a specific purpose. Each shingle and each tile of the roof was perfectly constructed, and the house’s lathing and arch were cunningly crafted. Truly a Master Builder had been at work here.

Apart from the mortar and brick, the tile and stone, there was an unusual atmosphere surrounding the house, an excitement which said this was a household unlike any other. By night the windows shimmered with light, and by day, when the lanterns inside were dimmed, it seemed as though the lights were still shining.

The people who lived in the house were also special. They shared and demonstrated such loving concern for each other, such caring. If one stood by the great gate, music and laughter could be heard coming from inside; and because it was a real house, an angry word might ever so often pierce the atmosphere, but never haranguing or violent ranting.

Even the life growing outside, the shrubbery and flowering bushes, the bending trees, the budding plants seemed finer than the other gardens in town, more content to be about the business of growing.

The same storms beat upon these grasses and plants. The same winds blew and tore. The same harsh summer sun burned as on the other gardens in town. But, any damage was cleverly turned to advantage by the gardener who did his pruning with a careful knife and a firm but gentle hand.

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For decades, Karen Mains and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

In addition, pastors will find special resources to help them create effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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For one year I was dependent on my joint-heirs in the Kingdom, on my “extended family” of God. They have turned to me hands of mercy and aid and helps.

For I was aggrieved by the broken world, and they picked up my dropped baton and made the race with my battered friends for me. They sent prayers against the marred days and performed miracles over unwieldy faucets and the bent things that populated my heart.

For I was helpless and they mothered my children, buying circus tickets and planning bike hikes, making sure the days were special for growing up.

For I was bereaved from bearing too much pain for others, finding no room for my own, and they sent me to restore in the mountains and rest in the sea.

Yea, as they did this all for me, they did it unto Him who sent me.

This is the larger part of my rich and goodly inheritance, this fellowship of suffering and delight, this place of belonging in a homeless world.

Thank You, Lord, for these my brethren. Help us to always open doors to one another.

Life Response

Are the homes of the members of your church open or closed to one another? How would you rate the climate of community in your congregation? After these initial evaluations, find a pencil and paper. Sit quietly before the Lord and ask Him one question:

“What role of hospitality would You have me play in helping to create a better feeling of family within my local church?”

Listen carefully, then begin to jot down any ideas which seem to drop into your mind. Don’t lose your paper, but keep it as a list to remind you to be obedient.

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Karen Mains has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

For decades, Karen Mains and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

In addition, pastors will find special resources to help them create effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

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It is wonderful to find a natural mother who can give spiritual grace in the midst of her own trials. Yet, I discovered I was also part of a larger inheritance.

For one year I was dependent on my joint-heirs in the Kingdom, on my “extended family” of God. They have turned to me hands of mercy and aid and helps.

For I was weary, and they dusted and cleaned and scrubbed and laundered.

For I was fatherless, and they helped me plant dry seeds of promise, symbols of resurrection—life springing from the dark underground. They tilled his soil with me in our helpless “womanity,” praying over the man-sized gas cultivator and stubbornly willing it to do a week’s work in a day.

For I was hungry, and they brought stews of the products of the good earth, and hand-kneaded breads still smelling of yeast, and apple pies from the fruit of the backyard trees.

For I was imprisoned by the “manxome foe” despair, and they sat on my bed and wept as I wept, and brought guitars to concert me privately, singing, “If my head was like water and my eyes a fountain of tears, and I could mourn with the wounds of those who mourn.”

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Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen Mains serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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“You have mononucleosis.” Words from my doctor I did not want to hear. So? To bed again!

I had endured work-stoppage that fall with grace. The illness of my father had tested my faith in the indomitable goodness of the Lord’s will. I had looked on my mother’s pain with, hope for ease. The petty aggravation of broken things—equipment and bodies, had raised a slight spirit of anger; but this, this was the straw, and my spirit the camel’s back.

Days were spent on that pillow, head weighing a ton, fever stopping and starting, as I fought the despairing whys. I felt like a little child who had been spanked again and again for some unknown error. I was willing to change my unruly behavior, but I didn’t know what I was doing wrong.

One afternoon Mother came with food. The last thing she needed was to care for me. “Do you have this awful feeling that someone somewhere doesn’t like us?” I ventured timidly, afraid to reveal my stricken feelings.

“No,” she replied softly. “I have a feeling that Someone somewhere knows we won’t be the people He wants us to be without pain. Don’t ask where God’s love is. This is His shadow side. It is here in these bad things.”

Laying her hands on me, she prayed for healing. My chastened soul found comfort and the wounds began to mend.

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Award-winning author Karen Mains continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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One day I sat down and wrote four pages of complaints against God in my prayer notebook. Even the national economy seemed against us.

With Daddy sick I attempted to assume some of the responsibility for the retirement farm. It seemed suddenly important to plant the huge garden plot, nearly the length of two ranch-style houses. If health came again, if mentality was restored, life would be blowing in that fresh air, not the empty stares of dry-clodded earth or fruitless weed-riot.

So we planted it willy-nilly one half morning and afternoon with children pounding tomato stakes and longing for the creek. The plants were too close together, and we lost the onions to wildness and the butternut squash got crowded out by the cucumber. You see, I am only lately come to horticulture.

We angled the big tractor out of the barn and my 12-year-old son and I struggled with gears and chokes and levers in order to mow the huge lawn. We crawled on our knees to catch each good mulberry while the rest of last week’s crop fermented on the ground under the huge spreading, nesting place.

One afternoon while pounding five-foot iron stakes with a 20-pound mallet in 93-degree heat in order to anchor the tender fruit trees with rubber hoses against the bending west wind, I noticed I was unusually tired. “It has been a long year,” I thought, then hurried to finish a chapter in a book I was writing. I napped instead and woke feeling feverish. A blood test later revealed I had developed a case of mononucleosis, which lasts for six weeks—if you’re lucky.

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For decades, Karen Mains and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

In addition, pastors will find special resources to help them create effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

We must learn to think of the church as being without walls, and use our homes as tools of ministry. Once we have opened the doors, to our private selves as well as to our private dwellings, can the inheritance of this unique clan be slow in coming?

As I originally penned these words in the 1970’s, I reckoned that period had been a most difficult year in my life. Early that fall I was put to bed with a severe form of “over-ministry,” a disease I have since discovered common to many a pastor and his wife. Neatly six months later, as I was beginning to feel strong again, my dear father became ill with an attack of encephalitis.

We were informed several times during a week of crises to be prepared for his death. Though he lived, six months later he is still in a nursing home making infinitely slow progress with no guarantee of a return to normalcy.

Every few weeks seemed to harbor a disaster, great or small. Our three-year-old was hit by a fast-moving bicycle and was rushed to a hospital for twelve stitches uncomfortably near his eye. Our eldest lost a fingernail which got in the way of a pitched ball as he was attempting to bunt. We sustained two cases of scarlet fever, various throat and ear infections culminating in what seemed like weekly trips to the pediatrician.

There were frequent visits to the community hospital 20 miles away to see my father, then to the rehabilitation center that was unable to rehabilitate, then to the nursing home with its wheelchairs and wandering senility and the 60-year-old mongoloid woman crying, “No! No! No!” for hours in the evenings.

The mechanical and physical supports in my life threatened to stop functioning. The washer stopped washing, the dryer stopped drying, the freezer couldn’t decide whether to freeze, mushing my hand-picked cherries and wild blackberries and the summer’s beans. The muffler went on the car. The kitchen faucet jammed and something under the sink pretended to be a fountain. The birthday Big Wheel lost a vital part which held the entire contraption together. Paint peeled on the eaves, and water leaked in the basement.

————————————————————————————–

Karen Mains has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

For decades, Karen Mains and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

In addition, pastors will find special resources to help them create effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

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In Corinth, Paul shares the home of Priscilla and Aquila, as well as going into their tent-making business in order to support his ministry. A poignant phrase included in this short narrative bespeaks “… lately come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome.” Even in the face of dispersion they were able to share their lives with this one who had suffered so much for the Kingdom.

The documenting of hospitality continues. Philip the evangelist is credited with providing lodging to Paul as well as Mnason of Cyprus, “an early disciple.” While journeying by ship under arrest, Julius the centurion treats the apostle kindly when they dock in Sidon and gives “him leave to go to his friends and be cared for.”

Perhaps most notable of all is Paul’s example as recorded in the closing verses of Acts. Not only a recipient, he practices what he preaches. And, at the first opportunity, extends warm greeting in his own home.

“And he lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ quite openly and unhindered.”

The location? Rome. The occasion? Under house arrest, guarded by a Roman soldier, awaiting trial.

More than ever, society needs to see demonstrations of the meaning of family. Christ taught that those who do the work of God become part of the “extended family” of His Father. In order for this to happen, we must begin to share our lives. As we talk to each other honestly, we will achieve understanding, and love will not be far behind.

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Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen Mains serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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