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Kingdom Tales Trilogy

On Entertaining – Part 8

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After we develop an attitude of openness toward our immediate families, we can then more readily impart it toward those brothers and sisters in Christ, the household of faith. This marvelous refuge of acceptance and mutual support is graphically described in Ephesians 2:19-22  RSV:

So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

When have we experienced such unity? Our churches are filled with strangers and sojourners. The homes and lives of our congregations are often closed to one another. Efforts at entertaining, with the emphasis on things and pride, often build more gaps than they bridge. How much today’s church needs to be bathed in unselfish, loving, accepting hospitality.

Unless we develop a true spirit of acceptance in our church families, the hospitality we extend to our world will be hypo critical. When our immediate homes and the household of God are what our Lord intended them to be, we will naturally extend an attitude of openness to our neighbors around us. It is appalling how few Christians have entered into the lives of their immediate neighborhoods. These are a nearby inheritance to which our Father desires us to minister. How few of us are trying to find ways to serve our neighbors, to extend mercy. Often our official Christianity—our meetings and commitments—make us less accessible to them rather than more available.

Once the gift of hospitality has been developed in our homes, churches, and neighborhoods, we can begin to participate in a larger and more difficult effort: that of playing roles of significance in our society.

This ministry to society cannot be accomplished without the utter abandonment of ourselves to God. He will fill us with His Spirit and allow us to participate in healing and redemptive works completely unfathomable to us, if we are open to Him.

What a sin it is that many Christians know so little about this broken world. They have isolated themselves from the starvation of nations, turned their backs on battered and abandoned babies. Little do they care that children grow without a gentle touch, that old men haunt park benches dying from loneliness rather than age. This world, to many believers, is one large, silent scream. We refuse to hear the agony—of children too hungry to cry, of mothers with breasts gone dry, without energy to moan, of impoverished peoples numbed with outrage, of Indian youths suicided by despair.

I am moved to pray:

O God, help us to hear, to hear those cries without fear for ourselves, and with compassion for those who mourn. Help us to listen to those in need, without thought for our own material treasures. Help us to seek to be like Christ, upon whom was the Spirit of the Lord.

If Christians, corporately, would begin to practice hospitality, we could play significant roles in redeeming our society. There is no better place to be about the redemption of society than in the Christian servant’s home; and the more we deal with the captive, the blind, the downtrodden, the more we realize that in this inhospitable world, a Christian home is a miracle to be shared.

Thank you for allowing me to share with you. I am continuing to draw a contrast between “entertaining” and “hospitality.” I invite you to join me at this blog for my next blog post.

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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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On Entertaining – Part 7

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Entertaining subtly declares, “This is mine—these rooms, these adornments. This is an expression of my personality. It is an extension of who and what I am. Look, please, and admire.” Hospitality whispers, “What is mine is yours.” This is the secret of community that is all but lost to the church of the 20th century.

“And all who believed were together and had all things in common.” (Acts 2:44  RSV)

The hospitality of that first-century church clearly said, “What is mine is yours.”

Entertaining looks for a payment—the words, “My, isn’t she a remarkable hostess”; a return dinner invitation, a job advancement for self or spouse; esteem in the eyes of friends and neighbors. Hospitality does everything with no thought of reward, but takes pleasure in the joy of giving, doing, loving, and serving.

The model for entertaining is found in the slick pages of women’s magazines with their appealing pictures of foods and rooms. The model for hospitality is found in the Word of God.

In 14 years of an open house, I have never felt that people have abused the privilege. In fact, they have shown extreme concern not to take advantage. Many hands make light the work. The blessings from the practice of the gift have been overwhelming—“good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.”

Hospitality, like charity, must begin at home. How sad it is that so many of us don’t feel comfortable in our own homes. Men are not warmly welcomed at the end of a long day’s hard work. Roommates live in a tense atmosphere. Children are greeted with scoldings and reprimands. Wives and husbands wait to dump frustrations on each other. How we all long to hear, “It’s so good to have you home.” Or, those other words, “It’s so good to come home to you.” If those dwellings we inhabit are not filled with the gentle considerations, the cherishing, the openness which earmark hospitality, it will be most difficult to extend the gift beyond our front doors.

Think with me for a moment. How have you shown hospitality to those who reside within the framework of your own home? Do you realize you are extending the love of Jesus to these ones who hold such an important position in your life? Please return to this blog and read more, as I continue to draw a contrast between “entertaining” and “hospitality.”

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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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On Entertaining – Part 6

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For most Christians, taking in anyone in need, even one’s own family, is a radical step. Many who say they follow Christ have no comprehension of the basics of hospitality. We have allowed the world to force us into its mold. We think in terms of entertaining as a woman’s chance to demonstrate her skill and the quality of her home. Entertaining has little to do with real hospitality.

Secular entertaining is a terrible bondage. Its source is human pride. Demanding perfection, fostering the urge to impress, it is a rigorous taskmaster which enslaves. In contrast, Scriptural hospitality is a freedom which liberates.

Entertaining says, “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 is truly a gift from my Master. I am His servant and I use it as He desires.” Hospitality does not try to impress, but to serve.

Entertaining always puts things before people. “As soon as I get the house finished, the living room decorated, my place settings complete, my housecleaning done—then I will start having people in.” “The So-and-so’s are coming. I must buy that new such-and-such before they come.” Hospitality, however, puts people before things. “We have no furniture; 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.”

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 house cleaning, that we never put our hair in rollers, that 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 pretensions, people relax and feel that perhaps we can be friends.

I imagine that right now, if you think for just a moment, you can think of someone who needs to sense the gentle touch of our Savior’s love. So, I invite you to return to this blog and read more, as I continue to draw a contrast between “entertaining” and “hospitality.”

————————————————————————————–

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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On Entertaining – Part 5

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In I Timothy, Paul lists hospitality as a requirement for high office in the church, and he emphasizes in Romans that we are to “practice hospitality.” I Peter 4:9 stresses this again, saying we are to “practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another.” The King James Version translates I Timothy 3:2:

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality…

Those who desire to lead in the church—the early church called them “bishops”—need to have a very intentional leaning to offer hospitality. This requirement only emphasizes that hospitality is more than just a human talent, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, It is a supernatural ministry which, when combined with righteous living, bathed in prayer, and dedicated to the Lord, can be used by God far beyond anything we ask or think.

Scripture indicates that the Judeo-Christian heritage is rooted in hospitality. A theme of hospitality runs through the Bible—a design for open-heartedness to all people. We are to share what we have with those in need. We are to open our selves and our homes.

I am overwhelmed when I envision the results of a corporate return to the principles of Scriptural openness. For instance: Think of the impact the church could make in society if only four or five families in each congregation would care for needy children, nurturing them in love and pointing them to Christ. If a large urban area has a hundred churches, four or five homes times a hundred would involve at least four or five hundred children.

It is important that we do not think of hospitality as strictly a woman’s prerogative. In fact, this ministry is also the responsibility of men—indeed, of the entire Christian family.

If any of these thoughts I’m sharing are beginning to resonate with you, I invite you to return to this blog for the next installment. I’m drawing a contrast between “entertaining” and “hospitality.” Our world, today, desperately needs Christians willing to follow Christ in extending true hospitality to people who need the gentle touch of our Savior’s love.

————————————————————————————–

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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On Entertaining – Part 4

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The facts have been adequately documented. Prisons do not rehabilitate. Insane asylums are overcrowded and under staffed. The aged and the infant are abandoned. The judicial system is overworked. Social workers struggle with the frustrations of bureaucracy, too much paperwork, too-heavy caseloads. Not only are the institutions of society approaching immobilization, but a mad, erratic disorder rises frequently on the private level: children are held hostage at gunpoint, bombs are sent in the mail, parents are murdered by offspring.

This is obviously a world in which human solutions are inadequate.

The answers for the problems are found in Jesus Christ, who at the advent of His ministry announced:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18, 19  RSV).

Christ’s ministry to this impoverished, captive, blinded and oppressed world must, in one way or another, also be ours. Many of us have been given a most remarkable tool through which to minister—the miracle of a Christian home.

I am firmly convinced that if Christians would open their homes and practice hospitality as defined in Scripture, we could significantly alter the fabric of society. We could play a major role in its spiritual, moral and emotional redemption.

For the Christian, hospitality is not an option. It is an injunction. We are commended to hospitality from the example of the patriarch Abraham, who lifted a tent flap and saw three holy visitors coming to him across the burning sands, all the way to the wise counsel of the Apostle Paul.

The Levitical law declares:

And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field to its very border, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the Lord your God (Leviticus 23:22  RSV).

The prophets join in the commendation. Isaiah records these remarkable words:

No, the kind of fast I want is that you stop oppressing those who work for you and treat them fairly and give them what they earn. I want you to share your food with the hungry and bring right into your own homes those who are helpless, poor and destitute. Clothe those who are cold and don’t hide from relatives who need your help. If you do these things, God will shed his own glorious light upon you. He will heal you; your godliness will lead you forward, and goodness will be a shield before you, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. Then, when you call, the Lord will answer. “Yes, I am here,” he will quickly reply (Isaiah 58:6-9  The Living Bible).

Christ’s words on this subject are recorded in the Gospels:

When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor the maimed, the lame, blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just (Luke 14:12-14  RSV).

These passages from scripture all offer important truth to keep in mind as we consider the contrast between “entertaining” and “hospitality.” Please take the opportunity to return to this blog for the next installment.

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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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On Entertaining – Part 3

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Today I put away my pride when I open my front door and accept those standing there as they are. Consequently, I expect them to accept me as they find me. No compunctions remain about asking for help with the vacuuming, sending a seminarian upstairs to bathe a baby, or giving a pile of potatoes to someone to peel. Visitors may be more than guests in our home. If they like, they may be friends.

Now when we organize a planned evening of dinner and fellowship, my husband asks guests to contribute to the meal. One brings a salad, one a dessert, one an appetizer. It is not important for me to do everything in order for the occasion to be a success. I have four children to raise, a God to know, words to share, and wounds to heal. Because I’ve put away my pride, lovely things occur. People discover they can be hospitable to me. Yes, we can be friends.

One morning this week, I woke and discovered that an overnight guest (who slept on the floor—all beds and mattresses being full) had filled the house with the odor of ham-and- cheese omelets cooking in the kitchen. He discovered the leak under the sink and used the morning to repair it, then stewed the ham-bone with kidney beans and served them with homemade tortillas. How far we’ve come. Years ago it would have been impossible for me to have offered a floor for the night—or stepped aside to be served.

Essential to hospitality is the open heart which results in an open house. These two elements are potential in every Christian, male or female, married or single. Each has a heart the Spirit is seeking to move with the things that move the heart of God. Each of us has a home—be it a small room, a modest apartment, or a mansion—in which we can practice hospitality.

For ten years my husband and I lived in Chicago’s inner city or close to it. We immersed our lives in the needs and problems of its inhabitants Ours is a fractured society much in need of healing. Yet you don’t have to live in the city to come to this conclusion. You need only to pick up the daily newspaper to become aware of the fragmented nature of the world. This is a world that needs a large dose of true hospitality.

May I invite you to return to this blog for the next installment? I intend to continue to share my thoughts on the contrast between “entertaining” and “hospitality.”

————————————————————————————–

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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On Entertaining – Part 2

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Memories of my family home linger in the child part of my mind—comfortable clutter, the dining room table a collection center for books and mail and jackets, the rooms decorated with children’s toys. Visitors never seemed offended, but visibly relaxed in the face of all this informality. Ties were loosened, jackets removed, shoes discarded, and feet propped up on the coffee table. My childhood pastor was one visitor who symbolized all who crossed our doorway. He invariably fell asleep on the second-hand mohair sofa murmuring, “This is the only place I can get away to relax…”

True hospitality comes before pride. Mother and Dad knew it had nothing to do with impressing people, but everything to do with making them feel welcome and wanted.

This primary lesson was hard-won for me. Because so many of our church activities are conducted in our homes, for many years it seemed as though I did nothing but clean up after people. One group would leave. I would vacuum. Another group would come and go. I would straighten. Another would eat. I would wash dishes.
Since I am not a housekeeper by nature, it was only natural that my inclination against such work would dominate me on occasion. One morning I picked up a neglected book and began to pursue the world between its pages with delight. By mid-afternoon, couch cushions were tilted crazily, surrounded by my son’s armada of miniature cars. Newspapers tiled the carpet helter-skelter, and dishes stood from last night’s supper, mixed with the remains of the day’s cereal and peanut butter. Then the doorbell rang. it was someone from the church.

Hospitality before pride… I reminded myself dismally. Determined, I welcomed the woman with warmth, invited her into the unsightly rooms and refused to embarrass her with apologies. I consciously let go of my pride and was rewarded with her amazing words, “I used to think you were perfect, but now I think we can be friends!”

From that point I began to apply the precepts learned in my parents’ home and, just in time, for I had been well on my way to becoming so involved in taking care of things that I would have found no time to be a caretaker of people.

Please come back to this blog for the next installment. I will continue to share my thoughts on the contrast between “entertaining” and “hospitality.”

————————————————————————————–

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.

Share this Article

On Entertaining – Part 1

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As I begin a new series of installments on the subject of Christian hospitality, I turn to the subject of “entertaining.” Many people confuse “entertaining” with “hospitality.” I hope to show the clear contrast between these two, very different, acts. At the end of these series of blog posts, I feel confident that you will see the freedom that flows from genuine hospitality. This will contrast with the bondage that entertaining can bring into your life.

With the wealth of my background that I have shared with you in the previous six blog posts, you can see that opening my door and issuing welcome may come easier for me than it does for others. Yet, I have discovered that even an innate inclination to hospitality must be honed and refined, imbued and filled, if it is to be more than concern about centerpieces, menus, table settings and spotless rooms.

For Christians, hospitality is a marvelous gift of the Holy Spirit given so that we may minister to this dying society. If our hospitality is to minister, to impart to each who crosses our threshold something of the presence of Christ—if it is to transcend the human and deal in the supernatural—there must be an agony of growth, a learning, a tutoring at the hand of the Holy Spirit.

For some, like myself, hospitality is as natural as breathing. For others, the practice must be acquired. For all, the gift must be nurtured. From this instinctive human ability, nurtured in the greenhouse of my family, the Lord has developed a spiritual aptitude in me. My hospitality, which participates in ministry, becomes a catalyst for the miraculous.

Important lessons have been learned through these years of continual open house. The first began in our honeymoon apartment when two friends stopped by, unannounced.

“You mean you spent the evening on the front porch and didn’t invite them inside!” my mother exclaimed in dismay. “Karen! Haven’t you heard your father insist I must never put my pride before my hospitality?”

My mother reminded me of an important precept. I invite you to return to this blog, as I continue to share my thoughts on the contrast between “entertaining” and “hospitality.”

————————————————————————————–

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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Company’s Comin’ – Part 6

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It’s time to take a brief pause from my narrative and offer you a chance to reflect on what you’ve read in the preceding five blog posts. Please take this moment to reflect on the Life Lessons that you might within the information I’ve shared with you.

To do that reflection more intentionally, may I ask you to please think very carefully and analytically about the following questions? Then, will you please take a piece of paper and jot down your answers?

  1. What people do I know who display a special quality of “open heart/open home”?
  2. What do these people do or say which conveys this openness?
  3. Why is the hospitality of these people of importance to me?
  4. What quality in myself makes me respond to these people in this certain way?

Thank you for taking time to reflect. In future blog posts, we will return and look at these questions again to see if you would still answer them the same way that you did at this point in time.

Real-life examples are extremely important as models for growth in our own lives. I hope the previous examples will help propel you to a place where Christian hospitality becomes a very natural outgrowth of your walk with the Savior.

Please continue reading, as I share with you my thoughts in the next series of blog posts on the contrast between “entertaining” and “hospitality.” As always, I welcome you to connect with me through my website, Hungry Souls.

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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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Company’s Comin’ – Part 5

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The family ritual of storytelling was remarkable. To a child like me it was firsthand history-reporting as well as poignant homilies on the condition of mankind. Civil War tales abounded. Green Barry Burton was remarked to have fought on both sides. No turncoat he, his mare happened to wander across the lines; and the animal being more essential than the cause, my great-grandfather was forced to go “Union” in order to regain his rightful ownership.

The tale-weaving stretched to relatives and friends, half-brothers and sisters I have never known. Marvelous names emerge in my memory, their accompanying stories sadly forgotten. There was an Aunt Pink Hill and a renegade, “Hook” Burton, the mention of whom usually aroused comments about hanging. The foibles of these people were roundly approved, their idiosyncrasies valued. These family mythologies dance in my subconscious, weaving endless delight in humanity, capturing the passions and despairs of life into nuggets worth relating and contemplating.

Only by looking back through the dance can I comprehend my present. Whence this almost inordinate loyalty to my family? The source was certainly the comradeship I saw demonstrated in that clan. Whence this ridiculous sentimentality about children? The four of our own were a handful to raise straight in this crooked world—but, oh, how lovely to feast on little faces, to love the touch, the sound, the smell of warm, wiggling bodies. And now, grandchildren have joined our lives offering their own sweet sense of presence. They remind us that the family line continues into yet another generation.

Whence this subtle emphasis on hospitality? Certainly it is influenced by the past. The food on the long tables was a remnant of southern and southwestern tradition—Uncle Dewey’s country fried chicken, hot bacon grease and vinegar dressing spilled across the greens, Aunt Bertha’s special potato salad. Cold cornbread crumbled into milk, steamed bread, “the mess”—molasses poured over butter or peanut butter and stirred until it resembled creamy caramel, served up with pancakes or bread.

Food on family occasions was more than an art, more than a demonstration of gourmandism. It was a sharing, a communal expression. There was not much emphasis on elegance or finery, but a high priority on how hot the verbal debates could wax, how riotous the laughter would rage, how deeply the discussions would range. Communal sharing was symbolized by this feeding of one another. Life was celebrated in the rich enjoyment of one another’s company, by the mind-stretching dissent, by the endless parading of family folklore. Those people and their times together are enhanced by a vivid memory of my grandpa fiddling country rhythms, tapping and bouncing his spry frame to encourage some fat toddler to take to dance.

These festivals dwindled as younger generations moved on, moved out. The hub of the wheel from which the spokes radiated has disintegrated. Those six children born of that thin, beautiful woman and her philosopher husband are almost gone. Mysteriously, they live on in me—a child least known to them due to distance and time. It is a demanding, yet welcome, haunting.

The impressions and way of life they transmitted to me are more actual than the wooden bowls and the iron pot of my grandmother’s which now hang in my kitchen. These people are the source, the wellspring from which I drew long unconscious draughts. They were the atmosphere I breathed. From them I inherited mystique about hospitality.

I invite you to come back to this blog, as I continue to share some of the basis for a life-long experience of extending an open heart and open home to people who need to feel connected to others. And, I welcome you to connect with me through my website, Hungry Souls.

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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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