Archives for March 2011

How many times have you risked an un-antiseptic situation by having a girl who might easily have a sexual disease sleep between your sheets? We have girls come to our homes who have three or four abortions by the time they are 17. Is it possible they have venereal disease? Of course! But they sleep between our sheets.

How many times have you let this happen in your home? Don’t you see this is where we must begin? This is what the love of God means. This is the admonition to the elder—that he or she must be given to hospitality. Are you an elder? Are you given to hospitality? If not, keep quiet. There is no use talking. But you can begin.

If you have never done any of these things, or things of this nature, if you have been married for years and years and had a home (or even a room) and none of this has ever occurred, if you have been quiet especially as our culture is crumbling about us, if this is so—do you really believe that people are going to hell? And, if you really believe that, how can you stand and say, “I have never paid the price to open my living place and do the things that I can do”?

The compensations of this type of radical hospitality are often completely underestimated. For one friend, unexpected resistance came from her Christian mother: “What will your neighbors think if you take that troubled personality to live in your home?” Quite contrary to those expressed fears, the neighbors soon recovered from their surprise, viewed closely some of the costly struggles of this dedicated family, and witnessed the marvelous end results. Their admiration was boundless. They had viewed in action a Christianity about which, before this demonstration, they had only heard words.

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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 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.

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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When we are doing the hard works of redemption in this world, we must be willing to walk behind that Gospel plow despite the disapproving nods around us. And, if we are Christian, we must cleanse our hearts from the creeping secular attitudes of chauvinism, provincialism, and materialism which keep us from exercising a sacrificial, Christ-like love.

Before his death, Francis Schaeffer, the founder of L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland, a community which has ministered Christ to the disenfranchised intellectual, talked about exercising this type of costly hospitality.

L’Abri is costly. If you think what God has done here is easy, you don’t understand. It’s a costly business to have a sense of community…

In about the first three years of L’Abri all our wedding presents were wiped out. Our sheets were torn. Holes were burned in our rugs. Indeed, once a whole curtain almost burned up from somebody smoking in our living room. Blacks came to our table. Orientals came to our table. Everybody came to our place. It couldn’t happen any other way. Drugs came to our place. People vomited in our rooms, in the rooms of Chalet Les Melezes, which was our home, and now in the rest of the chalets of L’Abri.

How many times has this happened to you? You see, you don’t need a big program. You don’t have to convince your session or board. All you have to do is open your home and begin. And, there is no place in God’s world where there aren’t people who will come and share a home as long as it a real home.

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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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Many people, besides children, need “hiding places” for short or longer periods of time. In years past, Circle Church people made tentative experiments in opening their homes to adults whose lives need psychological restructuring, to unwed mothers needing a refuge, and to lonely singles feeling the weight of social isolation.

We are learning that, while there are some who heal spontaneously in a hospitable shelter, there are others whose brokenness is so demanding it will take all we can give. It is important with these individuals to establish a living ratio of three healthy adults to one distressed personality. The task of rebuilding lives, giving support and discipline, acting in the sometimes preposterous role of substitute parent, is too demanding for one person, or even one couple, to supply.

I would never take an emotionally fragmented person into my home unless I was certain my marriage was on an absolutely solid basis with evidence of spiritual growth. Faced with a live-in counselee, David and I quickly discovered there were areas in our relationship we had tacitly agreed to overlook. These included slight personality flaws which were widening like a crack in the plaster. Patchwork was required, but we had been too busy looking in other directions to apply the proper attention. Everything suddenly surfaced when we added another personality to our living circumstances.

Our comfortably passive coexistence became polarized by the presence of this difficult, psychologically damaged housemate. The living experiment was borne with difficulty as well as grace. We are personally grateful that light was thrown on the problems because we were forced to deal with them—as well as minister to a demanding broken personality to whom we had given shelter. But, if our marriage had been less healthy, the “sandpaper effect” might have placed it under a great deal of undue strain.

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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 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.

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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We will never live in the manner of the family described in the previous blog post. We aren’t called to it, but my vision of the ministry of hospitality was expanded tremendously through the influence of these people. And, I am grateful to the Lord for allowing me to have been exposed to them.

Life Response

1. Do some consciousness-raising as to the plight of children in your community.
2. Question a social worker.
3. Investigate which charitable organizations place foster children.
4. Inquire about statistics, and the availability of placement homes, and procedures in juvenile courts.

As you do these four things, please remember that just a little learning can be a very dangerous thing.

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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 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.

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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We must “know strongly” that Christ has asked us to walk this way—to take needy children into our homes—because often the road is rocky and steep and full of danger.

Then—when one of these dear children bends his or her head and, in childlike simplicity, asks Jesus to “come into my heart,” when tension melts, when distrustful eyes are softened, when someone reports, “Boy! If they’d had work like this in that hospital, I would never have stayed sick!”—each uncertain step clearly becomes worth it all. Then, we would willingly face a dozen more sleepless nights. Then comes heart-shouting praise. Then comes an in-rush of love . Then the world shines.

The first time my eyes were opened to the challenge of using one’s home for this special brand of hospitality was when my husband was the assistant pastor of a large church in the city. We came to know one outstanding family who ministered unusually with their home.

With nine children of their own, and two foster children, they nevertheless ran what was practically a boarding house for missionaries’ children. There were always three or four living with them whose parents were on the field. Add to this a Grandpa, several international students, maybe a missionary family home on furlough, and you just might taste a sampling of what went on in this household.

The father was a doctor, well established and highly respected in his field, who was able to afford a large enough dwelling to house this menagerie of personalities. I laugh when I remember one of the teens saying, “You know, if it weren’t for all of us kids, Dad would probably be pretty well off!” His wife—well, she knew the Lord had called her to be a mother, and her heart mothered worldwide.

Sunday afternoon dinners were kind of “bring whomever you want” affairs. David and I were invited to sit down on frequent occasions at one of the tables to enjoy a life-style which up to this time had been foreign even to our imaginations. The house was well lived in—imagine organizing all the coats and boots and gloves and hats and mittens required by our Midwestern winters—but the important things that needed doing were submitted to definite systems of organizations.

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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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One couple we know had a special burden to share themselves with the oriental people. They promised each other they would adopt one child for every one of their three natural children.

Once the decision had been made, it was not so easy to carry out the task since there was such resistance from the agencies they contacted. With one of the adopted children, assistance from U.S. Senators was a necessary part of the red tape. Through the years, the vow was fulfilled. But all three children, found at different places in different years, are the same age and in the same grade in school!

“You must be very certain this is something the Lord requires you to do, because of all the difficulties which-may occur in bringing others into your immediate family,” related this woman. “And it must be a decision both you and your husband make. One person shouldn’t be imposing a pet desire on the other.”

A firm verification from the Lord, and great patience were required in this case. The first child suffered from diarrhea for a year and a half before the cause of the condition could be discovered and cured. These decisions must be based on “knowing strongly” that the Lord has asked you to do this hard thing, to hold this child screaming in nightmares for the third time this night, or for the 12th consecutive night. To “know strongly,” when that teenage girl given into your keeping doesn’t return home one evening. To know strongly, when hostility occurs because of the huge reservoir of mistrust in one little life.

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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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Jimmy showed up at the Chicago Police Department. He wondered if they could find him a place to live. It seems as though Jimmy’s only parent was alcoholic and things had become unbearable at home.

A call was placed to Evangelical Child and Family Agency who, in turn, began to make calls of their own. One couple contacted already had a foster child plus several natural children, and the wife explained the impossibility of caring for any more.

She related the call to her husband and assured him she had refused the request. But, after they had retired to bed, she realized he was weeping. “I think we’ve just said no to the Lord,” he explained. “We promised Him that this home would be dedicated to caring for children. My own dad was an alcoholic. What if somebody had said no to me?” The phone rang the other way the next morning with news for ECFA that a home had, indeed, been found for Jimmy.

Some of our commitments to the neglected children of the world may be no more than supporting a child vicariously through one of the many Christian organizations which funds overseas orphanages. Or, we may find ourselves actually adopting some of these offspring from underprivileged or war-torn lands.

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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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For years I have wondered if Christians could make a substantive difference in our society by concentrating on giving shelter to these rejected special needs children. What would happen if each Evangelical church would call out three to five gifted couples to consider the ministry of foster-family care?

What would happen:

1. If the congregations would rally?
2. If doctors would volunteer free medical aid for those hard-to-place children with physical problems?
3. If Christian therapists and psychologists would pledge themselves to help with emotional disorders?

Yes, what would happen?

What could we accomplish for the cause of Christ in metropolitan Chicago, or where you live, if families in churches opened their doors? What could occur in farming communities if people opened their hearts? What results are possible across the nation if we become faithful in just this one small area of social concern?

I am far from inferring that everyone has the ability to be hospitable to a needy child. In fact, I believe just the opposite.

Few of us have such highly developed gifts of hospitality that we can exercise them in these radical ways. There are few who can bear the pain these types of commitments require. Nevertheless, I believe we lack vision in our outlook. There are many, more qualified by the Holy Spirit to do this type of work in the world than are doing it now. Some of us may be sinning because of our nearsighted neglect.

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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 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.

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.

Share this Article

In my unconscious moments before I fall into deep sleep, I frequently imagine children like Timmy—the world’s children—stomachs bloated, eyes resigned to suffering, bodies and spirits abused, battered, and maligned. I am jolted awake, and often in a cold sweat, with heart beating wildly, I send out prayers against such agony.

For years I have said to the Lord, “Father, if you want me to take into our home one of these disadvantaged children, please bring that child to me. By this I will know it is Your will.”

One day He did, but that child was 26 years old. She had experienced two years of mental hospitalization, six months of it in a catatonic condition. Haunted by electroshock therapy, she was suffering from horrible memories of her existence in a state institution. We realized this “child” the Lord had brought into our lives would never be able to know God’s love until she had experienced a loving Christian family.

From firsthand experience David and I know the painful despair and joyous delight of what I call “radical hospitality”—taking people with need into one’s own home. We learned tremendous lessons, had our strength utterly spent, found the compensations sometimes remarkable, and some times nonexistent.

Another way the Lord has answered this prayer was by allowing me to serve on the board of the Evangelical Child and Family Agency, an organization which began in 1946 when an infant was abandoned in a cardboard box at the door of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. The inference was clear that the mother wanted her child to be reared in a Protestant home. But, there was no specific agency to provide placement service for Protestants.

Clearly a need existed, and a group of ministers and lay people began this agency, which has stimulated much concern over its many years of existence. ECFA now provides adoptive services, places children with special needs, coordinates foster family care, conducts an unmarried parent program, and provides family counseling.

————————————————————————————–

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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