Hospitality and Reaching the Lost

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"The Power of Ordinary Hospitality"

"The Opportunity in Your Home"

"A Mother's Absolute Surrender"

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Dannah Gresh: I was far from home and had been for two weeks. Bob and I had just flown deep into the African bush . . . Did I mention I’d taken this flight without a suitcase? Yeah. The plane was too small. So they checked it at the last airport and told me, “You get what fits on your lap.” Whoa! This was going to be a hard way to end a two-week mission trip.

When we arrived, we were greeted by celebration and song. It was a sound I will never forget. But the tired in my bones is also something I still remember. It was suffocating. How was I going to minister to the woman I’d been sent here to encourage. But then, I walked into the missionary’s home and . . .

Sherry: Welcome to our home!

Dannah: "Is that grilled cheese?" I asked.

Sherry: Well, I thought you might be ready for something that tastes familiar. 

Dannah: Was I! That grilled cheese sandwich was the most magnificent pleasure I had known in the longest time. And Missionary Sherry had also plucked mangos from her tree in the backyard and served them up for dessert.

My body . . . and my soul . . . was refueled to serve the Lord by a grilled cheese sandwich and some cut up fruit. And Missionary Sherry became a woman I consider a dear friend.

What if opening your door led to a trusted friendship? What if a pitcher of lemonade on your porch ended in vulnerability that eventually set a shamed heart free? Or what if a meal together around a table could propel the gospel forward just by encouraging someone with something as simple as a grilled cheese sandwich? 

God can use your hospitality in amazing ways! Let’s talk about that, including how opening your home and your heart can reach those who don’t know Christ. 

I’m Dannah Gresh, and I’m so glad you’re here for this episode of Revive Our Hearts Weekend. 

You might be the reason someone comes to know and love Jesus, and it could begin just by extending an invitation, an offer to open your home and get to know someone. 

That’s what happened for Rosaria Butterfield. You might’ve heard her share before on Revive Our Hearts. She has a lot of wisdom and insight, especially when it comes to hospitality. I think you’ll see why after you hear the role it has played in her life. 

Now, a little background: before she became a believer, Rosaria was a lesbian activist, living with a woman. Long story short, she had written an article against Christianity. A pastor named Ken Smith read it, wrote back to Rosaria, and he ended up inviting her to his home for dinner with him and his wife. Well, Rosaria went to Ken’s home, mostly thinking it would be an opportunity for research for her book on the religious right and their policies of hatred against people in the LGBTQ community. Here’s Rosaria sharing with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth what happened next.

Rosaria Butterfield: How do Christians live? I’d never been invited into a Christian home before. I had no idea. Like, “What did you all do in your home? Who knew?” (Laughing)

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Right. When you went to their home that first time for dinner, were you apprehensive about how it was going to go?

Rosaria: I was. I almost cancelled. In fact, all day I was rehearsing the cancellation phone call. So that’s what I was rehearsing all day.

Nancy: But you did it.

Rosaria: I decided, “No, just suck it up. Do it.” I sat in the driveway for a while. I drove to his house, and I sat in the driveway. And I thought, My truck with my National Abortion Rights Action League bumper sticker and my lesbian labras, and all of the other symbols of a world that is so foreign to theirs . . . this is so weird. This is so weird.”

I sat there for a while just taking a deep breath and then reminding myself, “I genuinely have a question.” This was a research project, but it wasn’t just a research project.

Nancy: Right.

Rosaria: There was a deep desire to know why these people hated me, and why they thought that my life was immoral and wrong. And I also had a deep desire, to some degree, to explain to them that I am happy. I am a good citizen. I tried to date men. I went to Catholic schools. I really tried. And when I met my first lesbian lover, life finally came together for me and made sense. I didn’t understand fundamentally why Christians would not leave consenting adults alone.

So it was a genuine question that got me out of my truck and standing at the front door, knocking.

Nancy: And how did that first time in their home go?

Rosaria: It was lovely. It was very disarming—very much like Ken and Floy. They were very sensitive to me. Floy made a vegetarian meal, which she didn’t need to do. I don’t know if she knew that I didn’t eat meat at the time or if she herself was or if that was just an easier meal to make. But it was really, really lovely.

Ken is a deep reader of literature. And they were different. Ken was the humanities guy, and Floy was the scientist. And although they had very much of a “traditional” marriage, where Ken was the head of the household and Floy stayed home and did supportive things, she certainly wasn’t a doormat. They were clearly a team, and they really loved each other and that was compelling. That was really compelling.

We just enjoyed our time together. And that began a two-year friendship. At the end of that first meeting, he omitted two very important rules in the rule book of how Christians deal with their heathen neighbors. Everybody’s read the rule book. I’ve read it. You’ve read it.

Number one: You’ve got to invite her to church. And number two: You’ve got to share the gospel.

Nancy: Especially considering the fact that he was a pastor.

Rosaria: Oh, my goodness. So I was just bracing myself for that at the end, and then he didn’t do it. He just said, “Great. Well, this is a good night for us. We’ll see you next week. Have a nice week.”

And that was just disarming, too, and it made me feel safe. It wasn’t that he was erasing his Christian life. In fact, he spent most of the evening talking about what he perceived to be the differences in our world view. He asked me a lot of questions about my life. He didn’t fall over dead when I actually answered those questions, which was very nice.

Nancy: And he listened.

Rosaria: Oh, yes. He listened, and he didn’t have a heart attack when we talked about . . . I don’t know. He was lovely.

So at the end of that first evening, I felt like it was actually safe to engage in this research project with somebody I considered to be the enemy because he made it very clear I wasn’t a project. I was a neighbor, and he was going to respectfully treat me like that.

Whatever Ken Smith had, I know, and I knew that we needed a lot more of that.

Nancy: In time the Spirit used his kindness and the Word and the gospel to draw you to faith.

Rosaria: Right! Yes! Two years of reading my Bible over and over again, seven times through in all.

Nancy: Wow!

Rosaria: Two years of working through this with Ken, I just had a crisis. I told Ken, “I’m sick of this. I don’t want to talk to you again.” I tried to write him a “Dear John” letter, whatever that was (laughing), “I can’t do this research project. It’s over.”

And Ken said, “Great. Let’s not do a research project, but just get to the bottom of this. Let’s just get to the bottom of this. Just keep reading the Bible for the big life questions.”

And the only reason I did that is because he and I were friends. And what happened was the Bible just got to be bigger inside me than I. I came to a point where I realized that Jesus is who He says He is in the Scriptures. This whole time I really thought I was on the side of peace and social justice and diversity and compassion and care, and it was horrifying to realize that it was Jesus I was persecuting the whole time—not some historical figure named Jesus, but my Jesus, my Prophet, my Priest, my King, my Husband, my Friend, my Savior.

So I did it. I committed my life to Jesus. I think people often assume that that meant my lesbian desires went away. Well, no. No. I committed my life to Jesus, not because I stopped feeling like a lesbian, but because Jesus is who He says He is.

Dannah: Wow, what a beautiful story of the power of hospitality! You can hear the rest if you want. Just find the link at ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend.

God designed us to be in community with others and share with them the good news of His Word. 

The Bible is filled with examples of people who invited others into their homes. Their hospitality was a reflection of God’s kindness, care, and love, and the same can be true of us today. God calls us as His people to be hospitable. Here are a few Bible verses that remind of us this:

Rom. 12:13: “Share with the saints in their needs; pursue hospitality.”

1 Peter 4:9: “Be hospitable to one another without complaining.” Ever have troubles with that one? Yeah, me too.

Nancy’s going to show us a display of hospitality from the life of Lydia in the Bible. To give you some backstory, this is in Acts chapter 16. At the time, Paul and his missionary friends were living in Lydia’s home. One day they encountered a slave girl with a demonic spirit. By the Holy Spirit’s power, Paul commanded that demon to come out of the girl—and it did. Here’s Nancy with more. 

Nancy: The gospel changes everything about us when it comes and takes up residence in our lives. We’re not told what happened next to this girl, but we know that she was set free from that demonic spirit, and we can be sure that Paul and the other believers took her under their wing and sought to introduce her to the salvation that the demon inside of her had been talking about. 

And I can imagine (we don’t know this) that perhaps Lydia brought this woman into her home. I can also imagine that Lydia’s home was in a neighborhood where these kinds of people weren’t necessarily welcome.

But Lydia had an open heart, open home. We don’t know, this is just surmising, but we know that this demon-possessed slave girl came under the influence of the gospel. The gospel also had an effect on the girl’s owners, who had been making a living off of her demonic activities. The effect it had on them was that it made them furious! So look at verse 19, 

When her owners realized that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. 

I’d love to read the whole chapter, but for sake of time I’ll just summarize verses 20–25.

These owners accused Paul and his friends of disturbing the peace, of promoting illegal customs. Christianity was not authorized by the Roman government and for sure it was against the law to proselytize others to the Christian faith. 

So these owners of this slave girl stirred up a mob to join in the attack. And the officials who were in charge at the scene, they tore off Paul and Silas’s clothes, they had them severely beaten, they threw them in a dungeon, they put their feet in stocks. They were secured in an inner prison.

That’s like a maximum security place, where there’s no chance of them getting away. They put their feet in stocks to keep them from escaping. Now, let me just pause there and say, this is a very dramatic scene; it’s very intense.

But I’d like to suggest that when the gospel is publicly proclaimed, Satan and his demons will work against it. I would go so far as to say this: if in the course of your life and ministry—your church’s life and ministry, our ministry—if we’re not seeing some opposition, some clashes between and His power and the power of demons and evil spirits and secularism, if we’re not seeing some battle; it may be that we’re not proclaiming the gospel. Because where the gospel goes, it changes lives! 

Satan had that girl! He had her owners, and he had all the people that she was duping and that were being deceived by this deceiving spirit.

And here comes the gospel. It changes Lydia’s life, changes this slave girl’s life, and the owners are losing their livelihood and people are not going to follow them anymore. Like, it upsets the apple cart! That’s what the gospel is supposed to do in your community, in your neighborhood. 

Now, we should be kind and gentle and winsome, but sometimes the gospel itself is an affront, it causes offense.

Well, verse 25 going through verse 30: Paul and Silas are now in this dungeon in the middle of the night. Paul and Silas are praying, they’re singing hymns, and suddenly God sends a little bit of heavenly accompaniment—percussion.

There’s an earthquake! The prison doors open. The chains fall off. The jailor who knows he’s going to lose his job, if not his head, he’s going to kill himself because he’s thinking the prisoners have escaped. 

Paul yells out and assures him they’re all still there. The jailor falls down trembling and he asks Paul the famous question: “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:29) It took a little bit to get there, but he got there!

Paul and Silas said in verses 31–32: 

"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household." And they spoke the word of the Lord to him along with everyone in his house. 

Notice how many times his household is referenced here.

He took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. Right away he and all his family were baptized. He brought them into his house, set a meal before them, and rejoiced because he had come to believe in God with his entire household. (vv. 33–34)

The gospel was being planted! Sometimes there’s opposition, sometimes it’s ferocious, but nothing can overcome the going forth of the gospel! The gates of hell, and Satan and his demons, will not prevail against the church of Jesus Christ!

Now, this Roman jailor was obviously from quite a different demographic than Lydia, as was the slave girl who had been demon possessed. But there are several parallels I’ve been noticing the last few days between this jailor and Lydia.

In both cases Acts says, “Paul spoke the word to them.” He spoke the gospel. Don’t expect people to get saved if they don’t ever hear the gospel. How are they going to hear unless we tell them? They both heard the word, and in both cases their whole family came to faith at the same time. It doesn’t always happen that way; it did in these cases.

And in both cases, Lydia and the jailor, there was immediate evidence that their conversion was genuine, their faith was genuine. They were both baptized right away, and then both of them opened their home to the Lord’s servant. 

Now Paul had not had any intention of spending any time at the jailor’s home, I’m pretty sure. He was looking forward, probably, to eating his meal at Lydia’s house that day. But God had other plans. God was at work drawing these hearts to Himself, and they both opened their homes for the advance of the gospel.

So verse 40: “After leaving the jail,” where did Paul and Silas go? It says, “they came to Lydia’s house.” This is the second reference to Lydia’s home. In verse 15 it’s called, “my house.” She said, “Come and stay at my house.” And now they returned to Lydia’s house in verse 40. 

After Lydia’s conversion, Paul and his team had spent some weeks, probably, living in her home. It was probably a lovely home by the standard of the times, the home of a probably wealthy woman. They were warmly welcomed in that home.

Then they spent a night in a home that wasn’t quite so comfortable, in this dungeon, in the inner jail. And when they were released from prison what did they do? They headed back to Lydia’s house.

As I was meditating on this passage, it reminded me of that verse in Hebrews 13:2 that says, 

Don’t neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it. Remember those in prison, as though you were in prison with them, and the mistreated, as though you yourselves were suffering bodily. (vv. 2–3)

Now, Lydia didn’t have those Scriptures, but she had the Spirit of God in her heart.

Dannah: That was Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. You know, practicing hospitality won’t always have a dramatic impact on someone’s life. Maybe that person sitting on your sofa just isn't’ ready to surrender to Jesus. This takes patience. You may be planting seeds, the fruit of which you don’t see ever or for a very long time. 

Francine Perry knows this well. You might be familiar with the story of her daughter, Laura Perry. We’ve had both of them on Revive Our Hearts. 

Laura had walked away from her faith and embraced a transgender lifestyle at the age of twenty-five. God ended up bringing Laura back to Himself, but it took time. Francine kept hoping, praying, and inviting her daughter into her home and into her life . . . even when it seemed like nothing was happening. My friend Mary Kassian and I got to talk with Francine about her perspective as the mother of a prodigal child. Here’s her story. 

Mary Kassian: Francine, you had a long period of time, though. I mean, that was the start of the journey, that night that Laura came out. After that point, it was nine years until she turned the corner to come back home, so to speak, to come home to the Lord. And nine years is a long time.

Francine Perry: Yes. Very long.

Mary: There’s a lot of days that go into nine years. Give us a bird’s eye view of what’s going on in your mother’s heart as the days turned into weeks, turned into months, and you saw that your daughter was just getting further and further into the transgender lifestyle.

Francine: God broke me. He totally broke me to where the only place I could turn to was Him.

A friend had given me Andrew Murray’s books, Absolute Surrender, and Humility. And so those two books, plus my Bible, I lived in them for six months. I began to pray a lot of those principles about absolute surrender and humility into my life.

As I began to work on my relationship with Him, I was in the Word six, seven hours a day. My husband and I were attending a home Bible study. I was going to the women’s, and my husband was going to the men’s. I was in their home, going to Bible study, three times a week. I began bringing the DVDs home, the video series, and I was transcribing the notes. We were making notes in notebooks, so everybody had notes and could understand the Bible study better.

I began to pray immediately that God would give me a ravenous appetite for His Word that could not be satisfied, and He did. He put passion and zeal in me almost immediately to study. Then He allowed me the privilege of beginning to teach His Word.

Dannah: And here’s an interesting thing: You’re taking me to a point in the story that I find really intriguing, because God does this healing work in your heart. Now you’re a teacher—you’re teaching the Word—to the point where you need a website set up for your students.

And who do you turn to to say, “Hey, I need to put together this Bible study website.” Who do you turn to? You turned to your transgender daughter.

Francine: Yes.

Dannah: That shocked me when I heard that.

Francine: Well, that’s what her degree’s in—multimedia communications and something. She has a degree in all of that. So I just called Laura and I said, “I would like a website, and I have no clue how to do it, but I know you do. I’ll pay you.”

Well, “I’ll pay you,” was the magic word because she needed the money.

Dannah: What impact did that have on her?

Francine: She didn’t think too much about it. “Mom needs a website. She’ll pay me.” That’s all she really thought about. I had no ulterior motive; I really didn’t. But she began to think as she was doing the website, “I bet it would help people to be attracted to her Bible study if they just had a little summary of the lesson on the website before you see the video and the pdf notes.”

And she said, “I’ll just read a little bit of the lesson. I’ll write a summary—just dangle a carrot out there to see if we can draw people in.”

She began to read the lessons. She began to see that the Bible . . . It just came alive to her, and God really began to work in her heart.

Mary: Francine, what advice would you give? You went through nine years of walking this path where Laura had a partner who was also transgender, and you had to deal with holidays. You had to deal with: “What do you do about having her in your home? How do you interact with her?” What advice would you give to parents who are in a similar situation and are dealing with those things on a daily basis?

Francine: Ours was not quite so difficult as some of them might be. She never allowed us to see her partner because she didn’t want us to know. We offered many times for her partner to come when we would go take her to supper and different things. There was always an excuse. 

If there’s a partner involved, I would have them in the home and hope they see Jesus in me. And I know some that have seen the partner won to Christ because of the parents of the transgender

Dannah: So you’re holding this tension of your convictions and the truth of the Scripture, and one of those truths did create tension because it was the love of Christ, the kindness of Christ. Loving them and having compassion for her and for her partner was an important thing for you.

Francine: Sure. I love one thing that Laura says. When they come to the end of themselves, and most prodigals will come to the end of themselves—it may take a while—but she said they always return to the people that spoke truth to them.

Mary: Laura also mentioned that you called her Laura.

Francine: Absolutely! That’s who she was.

Mary: You didn’t call her Jake?

Francine: Never.

Mary: That must have been hard. It would have been easier, perhaps, to say, “I’ll just do it Laura’s way.” So how did you wrestle through that?

Francine: I really didn’t wrestle because I knew that I had to stand for the truth of God’s Word. He had me in a really good place. He was sustaining me. He was giving me a peace that passes all understanding. I am not going to compromise the truth of God’s Word to satisfy somebody’s sin over here.

I wasn’t ugly about it. I told her, “You cannot expect me to call you a different name when I have known you this way for twenty-five years. I cannot change overnight.”

But then it became, “I will not change because I’m standing by the truth of God’s Word.”

So it was never with anger or malice or anything like that. It was always just, “This is the way it is.” I just resorted to calling her “Honey.”

Dannah: Well, you know what? There’s wisdom in that, isn’t there? Because you don’t need to antagonize and aggravate and prove your point over and over. But you do need to love and hold on to your convictions. I love that. What a good solution.

Francine: I am going to be held responsible for what I say, what I believe, and if I compromise. I am not accountable to God for anyone else, but I am for myself.

Dannah: What good wisdom. Maybe you’ve known heartache like what Francine Perry faced. You have a child that’s walked away from the Lord. If that’s the case, I pray Francine and Laura’s story gives you hope. Even when you don’t see anything happening, remember this: God is at work. 

That also goes for the friend you’ve been hoping will come to know Christ, or the neighbor you’ve continued to welcome. God is using your reaching out, your hospitality, in ways you might not ever see. Just think about the impact your invitation could have on someone’s life now, but especially their eternal life. 

I want to remind you, don’t wait until your house looks perfect or until you have a wide open spot on the calendar to invite someone over. Hospitality is about saying “yes” to God and the ways He wants to work in your life and those around you. Is there something you can do, even today, to reach out to someone in your life and welcome them into your home?

For more about the heart of hospitality, you’ll want to grab a copy of the Bible study, You’re Welcome Here. It’s based on Nancy’s hospitality teachings we’ve been listening to on Revive Our Hearts the last few weeks. You can study on your own or with a group, and you’ll be inspired to practice hospitality right where you are. 

We’d love to send you the You’re Welcome Here study with your donation of any amount to support this ministry. You can request the study and make your gift when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode. 

Think about the way you pray. What do your prayers show about where your heart is? Do you feel stuck, like your prayers are sort of bouncing off the ceiling? Next week we’ll talk about something I know of as “getting out of the prayer box.” I hope you’ll join me.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time, for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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