3 Tips for Extending Hospitality Without Exhausting Yourself
Extending hospitality isn’t about having a perfect home; it’s about inviting friends into imperfect hearts. Otherwise, we’re just trying to impress rather than bless.
I love extending hospitality when guests come to stay. Guests give me an excuse to abandon the routines, tour my hometown and enjoy board games and long talks late into the night.
As an entrepreneur wife, it may seem counterintuitive to frequently open our home to others when our day-to-day schedule and responsibilities are already difficult to balance well. Why add another stressor to the mix?
As a family, we’ve always strived to practice what we call “radical generosity” as often as possible. We believe that despite the difficulties that come with this unique life, we’ve been blessed with a lot. So, finding ways to share those blessings with others aligns with our core values. It also brings us a great amount of joy. I know that we’re not unique in this.
The key is to tackle generosity and hospitality in a way that doesn’t lead to burnout, which can be especially difficult in the summer season.
What Extending Hospitality Isn’t
Over the years, I’ve had my fair share of houseguests, and as much as I love hosting, I’ve also overdone it from time to time. I can relate to the sense of feeling overwhelmed and unprepared to open my home to more family and friends. This takes on a whole new meaning during summer break. When you add all the busyness of having your kids out of school, extra cleaning, shopping, planning activities, and coordinating with other people’s plans, you can set yourself up for a miserable summer break.
In the past, I’ve often tackled hospitality with excessive expectations of myself. I grocery shopped more times than I’d care to admit and would be inspired to tackle incomplete house tasks. Because weeding the garden and putting up new toilet paper holders are what guests need to feel welcome, right? All the cleaning, shopping, food prep, and housework added a lot of extra stress to my already full schedule, which was a recipe for disaster and tears.
This approach to extending hospitality is not healthy. Hospitality isn’t about having a perfect home; it’s about inviting friends into imperfect hearts. Otherwise, we’re just trying to impress our guests rather than bless them.
I love having a home that blesses many and the opportunity to express God’s character of hospitality through it. So, to make opening our home to others less of a strain on our family, I’ve developed a few tactics to help me prepare.
Three Tips for Extending Hospitality Without Exhausting Yourself
1. Preparing your heart
Before your guests arrive, it’s a good idea to prepare your heart to be open and ready to love on them. For me, that means reading the Word of God and spending time with the author of love Himself. I can’t give what I don’t have, so by taking time to be reminded of who I am in Christ and of His great love and hospitality for me, I’m able to share that love with others.
One of my favourite scriptures to prepare my heart is this,
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:11-13)
I can’t and won’t love perfectly, but that pressure to impress is gone because God, who is abiding in me, will fill me to overflow His love onto others.
2. Preparing your schedule
When guests come to stay, it impacts both your family and schedule. Ahead of their arrival, try adjusting your schedule, if possible, to accommodate your guests. If there are things you can’t move, make alternate plans for your guests to accommodate your absence. For my family, this looks like inviting our guests to watch my child’s game or recommending activities for them to do while we’re out. Your family and guests will feel comfortable and valued when you prepare ahead of time for moments like this. The more you can insert guests into the natural rhythm of your home, the more welcome they will feel.
3. Preparing your home
Preparing your home for guests also means budgeting, so hospitality is a gift and not a financial stress or burden. The main areas I budget for are cleaning and groceries.
When I’m expecting guests, I sometimes get outside help. Having that support may add an extra cost, but when things are too chaotic for me to keep up, it relieves my stress and gives me time to focus on all the other more important things.
In our home, conversation and relationship are often fostered around the table. The experience of breaking bread together is truly at the heart of hospitality. I prepare for this by making a meal plan that services everyone’s dietary needs ahead of time. I’ve learned planning ahead makes grocery shopping and meal prep a thousand times easier. When you aren’t feeling rushed to plan dinner at the last minute, you won’t be as quick to associate stress with hospitality.
The most important part about preparing for guests is to do what you need to make hosting an enjoyable experience for everyone. For me, it’s creating meal plans and outsourcing cleaning. What do you need to prepare ahead of time in order to bless your guests with hospitality? What does hospitality look like for you in the unique busyness of your life?