The Gift of Hospitality: 5 Skills to Cultivate the Gift
When we think of hospitality, most of us think of welcoming people into our homes and sharing meals. However, the gift of hospitality extends far beyond good cooking and decorating. True hospitality is the gift of creating safe spaces where others feel loved and cared for.
This can happen in our homes, but it can also happen in our workplaces, communities, and beyond.
Today, we’ll begin by discussing the gift of hospitality. Then, we’ll explore creative ways to offer the gift in unexpected places. Be sure to read to the end of today’s post for a free resource to help you offer the gift of hospitality without perfection.
The Gift of Hospitality
The gift of hospitality is the gift of being able to create welcoming spaces for others.
This includes welcoming people into our homes. It also extends to creating safe spaces where others feel heard and loved everywhere we go.
More than anything, people long to know they are loved and included. Every time we offer this gift, we offer the gift of hospitality.
Here are some simple insights to practice this gift.
Skills to Help You Offer the Gift of Hospitality Anywhere
1. Listen well.
Our world is in need of people who can listen well and express compassion while listening.
When others talk, listen closely. Offer supportive feedback. Show them you care. Pray while they talk, and ask God to show you how to respond.
Listening well is foundational in offering the gift of hospitality.
2. Be available.
A friend often reminds me that 80 percent of success is showing up.
Are you available to others as you go about the errands of your day? Or are you so hurried that you’re not watching for opportunities to offer the gift of hospitality?
I tend to rush through my to-do list, putting tasks ahead of people.
Imagine how different our lives would be if we slowed down.
3. Listen for whispers of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit will prompt us to interact with those who need an encounter of God’s love.
Again, we will miss these prompts if we are rushing.
We offer hospitality by slowing down and asking the Spirit to lead us. We watch for people who might need to experience his love.
4. Share vulnerably.
A mentor once taught me that if we want others to feel safe sharing their burdens with us, we often need to go first.
This doesn’t mean we dump our troubles onto others without discernment. However, as the Spirit leads us, we share our hearts, and our struggles, with others.
We create safe spaces for others by being vulnerable. Vulnerability is the foundation for all true intimacy in all sorts of relationships.
5. Live slowly.
I touched on this earlier, but it is worth repeating.
We cannot offer the gift of hospitality if we are always rushing.
7 Practical Ways to Offer the Gift of Hospitality Anywhere
Let’s now shift gears and explore some creative ways to offer this gift anywhere. Many of these ideas are geared toward winter, but we can apply most of them to any month of the year!
Hospitality is more than opening your home; it is opening your heart and creating space where others know they belong. #hospitality #Christianhospitality Share on XHospitality is more than opening your home; it is opening your heart and creating space where others know they belong.
This can take place anywhere (for 10 surprising ways to show hospitality, click here).
1. Enjoy a bonfire with friends.
Cook hotdogs or s’mores and enjoy an evening under open skies.
This places the focus of your time outside, which can be refreshing for everyone.
2. Plan a sledding party, swimming party, or picnic at the park.
This activity was a highlight of the year when we were kids.
Led by my dad, we trekked across the pasture field and spent a full afternoon sliding down the neighbor’s hill on our saucers and toboggans. We invited cousins and friends, and the hours of outdoor fun were a blast.
Add a campfire, s’mores, hot cocoa, and snacks, and you can entertain your crew for hours.
No snow?
Go on a hike. Swim in the creek. Meet at the pool. Have a picnic in the park.
3. Plan a night out with friends.
You might be asking, “Can you really offer hospitality by meeting for a meal at a restaurant?”
Yes!
Just check the calendar and coordinate a date that works for your closest friends (this, in itself, might take hours and absolutely counts as an act of service).
Make reservations at your favorite restaurant and enjoy an evening in which you don’t need to wash a single dish or run to the fridge even one time in the course of your meal. Eat, connect, laugh, and catch up.
4. Go on a hike.
Step out of the rushed pace of your everyday life, step into the woods, and embrace the change of scenery with friends.
Again, this is a wonderful place to talk about build connections.
5. Get together to cook or bake.
Christmas cookie exchanges don’t have to end when Christmas is over.
Get together to bake pies, cookies, or bread. Try out a recipe and enjoy dinner together. Cooking together is a unique way to build bonds and have fun!
6. Celebrate a silly holiday.
Why not celebrate Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, National Feed the Birds Day, or National Chopsticks Day?
Invite the neighbors or friends over for a party, and enjoy the hilarity of simple fun. For a list of obscure holidays, click here.
7. Host a card-making or coloring party.
Consider writing cards to elderly or lonely people in your community or making cards to send to a local nursing home.
Color-a-smile is a wonderful organization that accepts illustrations, colored pictures, and greeting cards for soldiers, the elderly, and other people who could use a smile.
Invite your friends to join you with their kids, and visit colorasmile.org to print your own coloring pages. What better way to overcome the winter blues than to make someone smile?
Be the Gift
Remember that one of the best ways to refresh yourself is to make it a practice to regularly refresh others. Be the gift in someone else’s life, and you will likely find that you receive far more than you ever imagined.
Calling all parents and grandparents!
As the parent of two sons and a daughter, I have a heart for helping parents develop deeper relationships with their children and with God. Our kids, ages 6, 11, and 14, share this vision. They have helped me write three family devotionals for parents or grandparents to read with the children they care about.
God’s Warrior: Devotions for Boys Who Want to Grow in Courage and Strength is for boys ages 5-13. Now, more than ever, our world needs men who are willing to courageously carry God’s love into the world. Written with input from our two young sons, Aiden and Caleb, ages six and eleven, this book will help the boys you care about find courage and strength in God. Find this life-changing devotional book here.
Devotionals for Girls
Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith is written for girls ages 7-12. It includes 60 devotions with Scripture, conversation starters, and a shared journaling section for moms and daughters after each devotion. I wrote this book with the help of our daughter, Bekah, when she was eleven. Find this one-of-a-kind shared devotional here.
Heart to Heart: A Mother-Daughter Devotional With 50 Devotions for Teen Girls is for teenage girls ages 13-20. It includes 50 devotions, each with a shared journaling section to help moms and daughters connect through writing. This is a great book for moms who want to communicate about awkward topics—like dating, sexuality, peer pressure, and more—but don’t know where to start. Bekah and I will help you right here.
All three books are available in print and eBook form here on Amazon. They are also free on the Kindle Unlimited plan, which you can enjoy with a free three-month trial! These books make great gifts, and you don’t need to be the parent of young children to read them. Share them with your grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or the young ones you love.
A Free Resource Filled With Ways to Offer the Gift of Hospitality
If you feel inspired to open your heart and your home and offer the gift of hospitality on a more regular basis, click here to receive your free toolkit for Hospitality without Perfection. This kit contains dozens of ideas for ways to show hospitality, easy recipes for groups, games, links to activities for the whole family, conversation starters, and more.
