6 Creative Ideas to Help You Show Hospitality This Fall
It’s a clear evening overlooking Granite Creek. The sun has slipped behind the canyon walls, and alpenglow paints the West Ridge salmon. I’m not thinking about how to show hospitality this evening – not in the least.
The year is 2001, and I’ve just entered the identity-searching decade of my twenties.
This will be the decade when I stumble blindly in the relentless search for the woman I want to become.
I’ll begin my teaching career in the public high school.
I have no way of knowing these things now, of course.
For now, I’m content with my three-month job of washing dishes in the lodge where the teachers come to earn credits and learn about wildlife and conservation. I’m content to teach archery, lead hikes, mop floors, and spend my free time scaling Wyoming’s surrounding 11,000-foot peaks.
What I did not expect when I embarked on this summer of adventure thousands of miles from my home was a deep sense of loneliness.
I didn’t expect to miss my family quite so much.
I didn’t expect to long for campouts in the woods with the girls, midnight swims in my parents’ pool, or Uncle Mike strumming his guitar on the hay wagon-turned stage in the barn.
A Place to Belong
My heart longs for home as I sit on the front porch of my cabin and watch the sun’s last rays race higher up the mountain.
I sit on this porch every night now. I’m waiting for the friend who lives in this camp with me. We’ve made it a habit to rest on this porch together each evening and talk about life, home, family, hope, and friendship.
I didn’t expect to need a friend in this place, but it didn’t take long to discover that the mountains would never provide the companionship I craved.
And now, as we all prepare to leave the canyon at summer’s end and return to our actual lives, I can’t help but wonder if this summer of adventure was more than an escape from my actual life. Maybe I’ve been living a chapter of my actual life all along.
My friend comes to the cabin after a long day in the field, and we sit and talk on the porch until darkness drifts up the canyon. I’m a dishwasher. My friend is the program coordinator for the entire organization.
Somehow, she saw that I needed a place to belong, to connect, to call home, and she created that place by welcoming me to her porch any time.
You show hospitality when you create a place to belong.
Looking back on it all, I can’t help but wonder if this is what we all need most: a place to call home, no matter where in the world we happen to be.
Home speaks of safety. It speaks of a place where we’re permitted to be ourselves, to let it all hang out, to bring our burdens and our cares and exchange them for comfort and courage.
My friend offers these things. She listens to my struggles, and she shares hers. She’s a dozen years my elder, but the years don’t stop her from reaching out and reaching in and being a friend and a mentor. In doing so, she offers a safe place to be my actual self – the girl I am without the masks of strength and an adventurous spirit.
My friend changes my perceptions about life and friendship as she creates this space for me to show up and be real. She shows me that hospitality doesn’t need to look like fancy snacks or clean floors. Hospitality simply creates space for us to show up and discover the safety of home.
I think of these things as we ease into autumn now – 1,500 miles away from Granite Creek and close to two decades later. How do we create a sense of home for others – a sense of safety? And how can we creatively extend hospitality regularly?
As we prepare to slip from the humid summer months into the colorful arms of autumn, here are a few creative ways to create space where others can step into your life and feel just a little bit at home:
1. Show hospitality by hosting a harvest moon party.
What better reason for a party than to celebrate autumn’s first full moon?
Invite friends and watch the orange moon rise high.
Build a fire.
Step into the rhythms of the natural world, and step out of the pace of your everyday life for just an evening. You might just find that this restores your soul.
2. Host a harvest potluck.
Potlucks are a great way to share food and fellowship without the labor of cooking a full-course meal alone. Host a harvest potluck and invite anyone with a garden to bring a dish made with something from their harvest. If your guests don’t have gardens, any fall foods will do!
3. Invite a friend to join you at the soccer or football field.
This sounds too simple, but many busy parents have no clue when they might fit a fall gathering into the full fall sports schedules that come with being parents. Why not connect with a friend by inviting her to sit with you at your child’s next sporting event?
4. Show hospitality by hosting a corn roast.
Roast corn over an open fire by burning the fire to hot coals, leaving the corn unhusked, and cooking it until tender. This might be a fun way to spruce up your next bonfire.
5. Visit a pumpkin patch or corn maze.
Fun fall activities abound in many parts of the country. Gather a group of friends and meet at a local attraction, and you save yourself the effort of cooking, cleaning, and hosting a big event.
6. Show hospitality with a pumpkin carving party.
Even if your kids are beyond the age of carving pumpkins, getting together with friends to carve pumpkins is a great seasonal activity for all ages.
A Free Hospitality Toolkit for You
Above all else, remember that hospitality is about creating spaces where others feel welcome – where they know they belong. Offer the gift of my Wyoming sister and let someone sit on your porch this fall. You might just impact a life for eternity.
Above all else, remember that hospitality is about creating spaces where others feel welcome – where they know they belong. #Biblicalhospitality #Christianhospitality #hospitality Share on XFor a toolkit of practical ways to extend hospitality in your life, click here to receive your free toolkit for Hospitality without Perfection. The kit includes twenty easy ways to extend hospitality, games, activities, recipes, conversation starters, and more. 
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