Phillippa
I am not a confident cook nor do I really enjoy cooking (except for desserts!) but I persevere with the hospitality because I think it is very important and love the conversation and getting to connect with people. In my previous church we were mainly involved with uni age/young workers who could easily (and were keen to) come for dinner. As I had toddlers and babies at that stage (and husband doesn't cook) often I would 'cook' my 'Packet Mix Dinner'. This involved heating up a pre-made Woolies lasagna and a packet of garlic bread, and putting together a pre-packaged Woolies Caesar salad. Dessert was something tasty from the frozen desserts section (apple pie, sara lee cheesecake). I think some people were suprised I hadn't cooked but it tasted fine, and really reduced the stress esp. when having to breastfeed a baby somewhere during the meal prep. Another method we use often for our Bible study groups is to delegate out the salads and desserts - people are always happy to contribute and it lessens the burden of preparing the food.
Lunches usually involve soup in winter and salad, rolls and a BBQ chicken or BBQ meat in summer.I do keep it simple and once after serving spag bol. to a single friend he commented that it was really nice to just have normal food at someone else's house as it made him feel like we were relaxed and he was one of the family, rather than having a fancy dinner party. This was very encouraging to me and helped me realise that that was what hospitality was all about - sharing our normal lives with others, not putting on a good 'show'. I love comment somewhere on the blog that defines the difference between entertaining and hospitality - very helpful : )
Melody
I am SO excited about this series. The ladies at church recognise that we need fellowship, so they’re trying to organise women’s meetings, bible studies, fellowship teas etc. and I’m convinced we just need to get into each others’ homes. You get to know each other better across a kitchen table than eating biscuits at church! But hospitality, sadly, seems to be a practice of older generations.
We’ve found a Saturday evening works best for our family. We have three school-aged children so weeknights or Sundays don’t work that well. Saturdays are more relaxed and we can eat earlier. BBQs give something for the guys to do, and the ladies are comfortable if they feel needed in the kitchen – I don’t worry if I don’t have everything ready. The guests are always happy to toss a salad or set the table – it’s a bit of an ice breaker too.
Once people have spent a few hours with you in your home, you have created a bond and references for further conversations. This works great for school mums, neighbours, fellow church members, everyone really.
Linda
We have found it really helpful to set aside a regular and consistent time to have an open-invitation dinner - particularly to welcome internationals, but also open to other members of church. Holding it on the last Saturday night of every month at 6.30 pm @ a regular venue means that the students and workers makes it easy for the internationals to remember. For ourselves as the host, and others on our team, it means we don't always have to rethink the wheel when it comes to the best date and we (and others on our team) can organise our calendar around it, well in advance.
Making it pot-luck has been helpful as the amount of food available grows as the number of guests grows. We just supply rice (our guests are typically Chinese), drinks and disposable plates, cutlery and cups (minimal washing up).
For us, this event has meant even though some international students and workers who no longer come to the church service will come to these dinners and we are able to catch up with them there. It's also allowed easy opportunities for our guests to invite their friends and for us to meet them.
For our international ministry focus, holding two "touristy" events a year has also worked well. We try and organise trips sight seeing which people seem to have enjoyed. This has meant great opportunities for conversation during car rides and by organising transport, this really provides a cheap option for the internationals (esp. students) to do some sight seeing. We've been to Kiama, walked across the bridge from Milson's Point to Circular Quay, and taken them to Balmoral Beach. This year we plan to do the Spit to Manly walk, the Bundeena to Otford hike and perhaps a trip to the Blue Mountains or Hunter Valley. Opening this up to the rest of the church and other friends allows for further fellowship opportunities - locals with each other and locals with the internationals.
Gordon
I try to discipline myself to start the day with a cleanish kitchen. One of the things that freaks me out about having people around is wanting to offer them something or cook something and being unable to find stuff beforehand. Having the kitchen completely ready to go no matter who or how many walk through the door removes one significant anxiety about having people around. Having the rest of the house clean is a nice bonus but, as our guests can testify, fairly optional.
Louise
I'm not sure how much this helps... but because we've started somewhere new and have a newish baby we now seem to have heaps of space in the schedule for hospitality.
We have dinner on before Bible study for anyone who can make it. And we've been able to take up the opportunities like 'neighbour day' last weekend to get to know our neighbours over a BBQ.
My next plan is to have my son's kinder class over for an easter egg hunt in the holidays.
Food that's not too complex seems to relieve some of the stress and time pressure. Cooking extra earlier in the week and having something you can just pop in the oven means that I'm hopefully not too flustered.
Laura
Because my husbands work takes him out many evenings during the week, we have had to think outside the box for how and when we intentionally plan to do hospitality.
To be helpful for our particular family situation I try and think about this in 3 ways. Me and the Kids, Me and Rob and Us as a Family.
I am at home and primarily responsible for caring for our children whilst Rob is out of our home a large percentage of the week. This means that I plan to practice hospitality in the context of our kid’s weekly schedule and spend time with those people I see in that context, this is mostly with school parents, playgroup or people I see doing my weekly activities. Some ways this currently works for Me and the Kids:
- We plan to have friends from school around at our home 2 afternoons a week.
- We plan to stay at the school playground after school to get to know other parents and kids. I have often intentionally invited both Christian and non-Christian parents to stay to develop these friendships.
- I now attend our church’s playgroup, and I am finding ways during my week to cross paths with these women. I have joined the local gym and have so far seen some women there doing Pilates at the same time and catching up for coffee afterwards.
The thing I am learning over time is that hospitality is going to look different, at different seasons of our lives. For me, with young children, even though I like to have people to our home the size of our home is not always suitable for having tribes of parents and kids over. Even though some of our intentional hospitality time is spent having people over we also intentionally go to parks etc to suit the occasion. With our youngest child turning three soon we have crossed into the next stage of lots of noisy children who like to have lots of space to run around. The coffee and a biscuit morning teas in lounge rooms or cafes seems to be a thing of the past.
The other thing I am trying to get better at is being flexible. I have to be so flexible in accommodating Rob's working week that I compensate by having a very strict home routine. I need to work at not expecting the house to be tidy, kids to be well behaved and having baked goods on hand when having people in our home.
Ally
I have neglected hospitality in the past - mostly because I think I'm not very good at cooking or cleaning or any of the things required to have people in our home comfortably. I also find it difficult to know how to best serve our congregation who don't like western food or do not have much english. On top of this I don't have much energy left in the week to spend on having people over. However, I realised recently that we are doing a lot of hospitality because we are forced (by not having a church building of our own) to have Youth group (which includes dinner) and Bible Study and team meetings and also any whole church events in our home.
Our four young kids love friday night Youth because we let them stay up late to eat with the Youth. One benefit is that the kids who live on our street see what's happening and are now keen to join in! In addition some of our church members have realised that I need help with preparing for big events at our place so they pitch in cheerfully when they come over. I never have fancy meals and I always accept offers of help. I try to make it as stress-free as possible.
I suppose that this is a way of killing two birds with one stone: important ministry activities combined with a chance for hospitality in our home. I think it works for us. We certainly have all been blessed by it and now I think I'd choose to do it regardless of our church building situation!
Jo
We have people for dinner often because we plan to do it often. We have atleast ten for dinner every second Friday night because it's on the calendar. Luke's congregation are mainly single professional types, so we just gather a bunch, have a meal and play a game. We often also have people in before homegroup, or share a meal as part of marriage prep, but our Friday night dinners are on, regardless of other things.
Friday nights in our house are also pizza and movie nights, and we're fortunate that we're still at a stage that our kids are young enough so we can do both. We put the movie on at about 5.30, and they're in bed by 7.30 (although do often come down to say hello as they hear people arriving!)
We use public holidays to have a bunch over for brunch. And I enjoy having the kids around for this. As all of the guests are childless, I think they really enjoy having the kids around too.
We sometimes do Sunday lunches, but having been at the church for about a year, we realised that we really just had to focus on one group of people - even though the children and I attend one of the family services every week, Luke's focus is night church, so that is who we primarily focus on. Early Saturday night dinners are a good time for us to catch up with families with young kids so it's all over red rover by about 8pm. Aahhh.
In terms of easy dinners, we try and make our meals healthy, fuss-free and we don't serve alcohol. The thinking behind this is that if people are struggling with booze or food, we don't want that to be an issue at our place. If people bring wine, we serve it (not sure how to say thanks but no thanks without making them feel silly for bringing it ... hmmmm ... still thinking about that), but generally now people know that Luke doesn't drink anyway and so often don't bring it. We generally cook some meat on the BBQ, do a big salad, something a bit carby, and a fruit based dessert or a pavlova. We don't eat meat except for when we have friends over (that's a whole other discussion on delicacies and having whatever we want when we want ...) so we look forward to a bit of a meat feast to have with friends. This means that the cost of the meat isn't such an issue at these times.
Another thing that I think has made a difference with having people in our home is that we have a cleaner (Is that scandalous? I feel nervous even admitting it!) I don't work in paid work, but would sacrifice lots of other thing if needed to pay to have someone clean our house every fortnight. It means that our house never gets gross. You know, so gross that I think "I can't have anyone over, I'm too embarrassed". I would hate for that to be a reason for me not to open my home and there are other things that I want to do with my time. I guess it's also my experience - my mum always paid someone to clean our house growing up, so it doesn't seem that extravegant for me. I sweep the floor every night, and keep the kitchen tidy, and that's it. We don't even own a vaccuum cleaner!
If you have any ideas to make hospitality revolving around meals work better, please leave a comment! Next week, I'll share your examples of extended hospitality.
Jo
We have people for dinner often because we plan to do it often. We have atleast ten for dinner every second Friday night because it's on the calendar. Luke's congregation are mainly single professional types, so we just gather a bunch, have a meal and play a game. We often also have people in before homegroup, or share a meal as part of marriage prep, but our Friday night dinners are on, regardless of other things.
Friday nights in our house are also pizza and movie nights, and we're fortunate that we're still at a stage that our kids are young enough so we can do both. We put the movie on at about 5.30, and they're in bed by 7.30 (although do often come down to say hello as they hear people arriving!)
We use public holidays to have a bunch over for brunch. And I enjoy having the kids around for this. As all of the guests are childless, I think they really enjoy having the kids around too.
We sometimes do Sunday lunches, but having been at the church for about a year, we realised that we really just had to focus on one group of people - even though the children and I attend one of the family services every week, Luke's focus is night church, so that is who we primarily focus on. Early Saturday night dinners are a good time for us to catch up with families with young kids so it's all over red rover by about 8pm. Aahhh.
In terms of easy dinners, we try and make our meals healthy, fuss-free and we don't serve alcohol. The thinking behind this is that if people are struggling with booze or food, we don't want that to be an issue at our place. If people bring wine, we serve it (not sure how to say thanks but no thanks without making them feel silly for bringing it ... hmmmm ... still thinking about that), but generally now people know that Luke doesn't drink anyway and so often don't bring it. We generally cook some meat on the BBQ, do a big salad, something a bit carby, and a fruit based dessert or a pavlova. We don't eat meat except for when we have friends over (that's a whole other discussion on delicacies and having whatever we want when we want ...) so we look forward to a bit of a meat feast to have with friends. This means that the cost of the meat isn't such an issue at these times.
Another thing that I think has made a difference with having people in our home is that we have a cleaner (Is that scandalous? I feel nervous even admitting it!) I don't work in paid work, but would sacrifice lots of other thing if needed to pay to have someone clean our house every fortnight. It means that our house never gets gross. You know, so gross that I think "I can't have anyone over, I'm too embarrassed". I would hate for that to be a reason for me not to open my home and there are other things that I want to do with my time. I guess it's also my experience - my mum always paid someone to clean our house growing up, so it doesn't seem that extravegant for me. I sweep the floor every night, and keep the kitchen tidy, and that's it. We don't even own a vaccuum cleaner!
If you have any ideas to make hospitality revolving around meals work better, please leave a comment! Next week, I'll share your examples of extended hospitality.
