The Importance of Hospitality and Overcoming Loneliness Through Community Connection

Hospitality vs. Loneliness Cheerfully sharing food, shelter, or conversation to benefit others.

Hospitality or not? Hospitality looks friendly, acts friendly, and sounds friendly without getting anything in return. Hospitality is not a way to make friends, it is a way to be a friend, a way to inspire etiquette and good communities through sharing one s life with someone else.

Reality check Communities do not know each other. Where are the grange halls for our neighbors to meet? How well do you know your neighbor where your child is visiting? How safe is your neighborhood if you are not getting to know one another?

Hospitality breeds leaders. To be a leader, one must be a server, given to hospitality. A person that is hospitable can take a person s weakness and turn it into a strength, their negatives and turn them into positives, their disasters into teachable moments, loneliness into friendliness.

You are watched People will look at this character with envy because of the way that it carries itself. They will admire the humility that you have to serve others. The strength that you have to keep your house in guest mode, always welcoming people with a smile even when it s inconvenient.

Influence This character quality in a person can influence the rich and the poor. The learned and unlearned, the humble and the proud. It has effect on the heart of man. It allows you to speak into people s lives because they know that you care. It changes homes, communities, cities, states, and countries when the leaders learn hospitality.

Loneliness Being alone-feeling alone. Most people that are lonely don t have people coming to their house all the time. Thus, they miss out on the opportunity of hospitality. People need people. Anyone saying they like to be alone all the time is probably sick, hurt, rejected, neglected, abused, or mentally ill. Even the Bible said It is not good for man to be alone.

Loneliness builds walls, not bridges. The objective of hospitality is to build bridges between people and communities rather than separate ourselves. The reason that so many successful people are lonely is because they sacrificed too many friends to get to the place where they are.

Hospitality vs. Entertainment. *Entertaining says, I want to impress you with my home, my clever decorating, my fancy cooking, and my beautiful family. Hospitality seeking to minister says: This home is a gift from God. I use it as he desires Hospitality aims to serve.

Whats the difference? *Entertainment subtly declares, This home is mine, an expression of my personality. Look, walk around, and admire. Hospitality whispers, what is mine is yours.

Entertainment can have alternative motives. *Entertainment looks for a payment--the words: My, isn t she a remarkable hostess,and her house is so beautiful With no thought of reward, hospitality takes pleasure in giving, doing, loving, serving.

Whats our example? *The model that we use for entertainment is the women s magazines with their attractive pictures of food and rooms and families. The model for hospitality is servanthood. Servanthood sets us apart and through serving people, builds better homes, communities and relationships.

Corrie Ten Booms family was torn apart by the Nazis, with most of her friends and close relatives dying in concentration camps because they harbored Jews in their home. It was a sacrifice they were willing to make because God had given them the gift of hospitality and a heart to serve. In her book In My Fathers House, Corrie writes about her family s ideas for taking in guests as she remembered from her childhood: Many lonesome people found a place with us, where there was music, humor, interesting conversation, and always room for one more at the oval dinner table.

Oh, its true that the soup may have been a little bit watery when a lot of guests came, but it didn t matter. Mother loves guests. Her lovely blue eyes would brighten, and she would pat her dark hair into place when she knew that we would be squeezing another visitor around the table. Already having four children, three aunts, herself, and papa. With a flourish she would place a little box on the table, and spreading her arms wide, she would say to our visitor, You are welcome in our home, and because we are grateful for your coming, we will add a penny to our blessing box for our missionaries. Years afterward on my trips around the world, when I have been dependent upon the hospitalities of others, I believe I have enjoyed the reward for the open doors and hearts of our home.

What do you need to be Hospitable? S-Serve without being attached to results. E-Entertain with grace and gentleness. R-Resist getting irritated over people. V-Volunteer your efforts without grudge. E-Environment needs to be loving, clean. What can you do to improve in Hospitality?

Groups What do you do on a daily basis to show hospitality? What do you want to accomplish by having people over for coffee, dinner, etc ? What can you change about yourself that would make you a better host or hostess?

Mark Your Calendars! Next Leader s Character Breakfast: "Sensitivity" vs. Callousness Thursday, December 12, 2002 Ironhorse Restaurant, Cd A Every 2nd Thursday of each month, 7:00am-8:10am, $8.00