You're Welcome Here—Week 2

Song: 

When your hurts are too much to bear,
I can’t make it disappear,
But I know how to weep with those who weep.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth (on air): You say you have faith in Christ. But if your love doesn’t show itself in the ministry of hospitality to those who have needs, how can anyone know if you have true faith?

Song:

Laugh a laugh and cry a tear.
Say "yes" to trust and "no" to fear.
Do you know you’re welcome here with me?
Do you know you’re welcome here with me?

Erin Davis: Hey there. Here's a travelogue. I'm in the Houston airport after some amazing days. On our last episode, we saw how Stacy Holden and her family show radical hospitality to Afghan refugees. My heart is just so full to think of just the power of opening our lives to others, just the power of somebody saying you're welcome here.

Maybe you're thinking, Stacy has grown kids. She has a flexible job. She has a decent-sized home. If you don't have all those things, are you still called to hospitality? To explore that question, I'm headed to Michigan by way of South Bend, Indiana. I’m eager to see biblical humility lived out even in more spaces.

Hannah Galvin could pretty easily make excuses for avoiding hospitality. In fact, she had good reasons to say no to hosting me.

Hannah Galvin: The week coming up to Erin arriving, my kids started coming down with fevers and runny noses and getting sick. And the day before she was supposed to arrive, three of them had fevers.

Erin: But Hannah still wanted to invite me anyway, and I was okay to risk the germs.

Hannah: Today she's coming over, so I've done the cleaning that I can, and getting prepared. My kids are prepared for her to come over. And thankfully, they were feeling a lot better this morning when everyone woke up.

Erin: I'm headed to visit Hannah because I want to hear some of the things she's learned by opening her home and showing hospitality.

Hannah: God has really refined me and really helped humble me through it, realizing how much more important people are than things and appearances. Through hospitality, we’ve experienced lot of growth in our family and time management for making the time for people and being willing to set aside what we would rather do for the evening, especially if someone's in crisis. It's like, “Alright, they need me tonight, so I'll see you guys later.” So to have an open heart about it.

Getting into each other's lives just does not happen within the four walls of a church. That's where we can meet each other. But then when we come into our homes in the context of a home. That's where we break bread, we break down barriers, and we create a climate for true fellowship and love to be experienced. We say “yes” to trust.

My house is perfect for our family. It is not the biggest house. Sometimes it's a little cramped, especially when we have lots of people over.

Producer: How would you describe your decorating style?

Hannah: I don't think I have one.

Producer: What do you want people to experience when they come to your home? I want them to feel welcomed and loved. But I really just want them to feel comfortable, that we care about them. That doesn't really matter what the little things look like. It's more of my heart about it then what all the details look like at my house.

Erin: Hannah’s husband, Josh, is an associate pastor at a local church. According to First Timothy three that means Josh has to be able to teach, to be above reproach, and not quarrelsome, among many other qualifications.

Did you know that one of the qualifications in First Timothy three is a pastor or elder must be hospitable? It a command in Scripture.

Hannah: Yeah, and so to be hospitable and especially like it's specifically told towards overseers and others to be hospitable as well, I think like there's gotta be a reason for that. Obviously, our church now looks very different than that. The early church and their culture was very different. But I think there's a lot to be had from that having people in your home.

Erin: So in showing hospitality, Hannah is helping Josh fulfill his role as a shepherd. They get together with a group from church each week and lead the discussion. Hannah has discovered it's especially meaningful to host that group in their home.

Hannah: It's a lot harder to keep your walls up when you're at someone's house. It's a lot easier to get to know someone and ask questions. I think it's good for building relationships with people. They get to see how we parent and speak into each other's lives easier. It's just easier to build relationships when you're in a home.

It wasn't hard to invite people into our home. I like having people over. But kids totally changes it, because you could have your home completely ready, and then in five seconds, it's a disaster. So that causes flexibility and growth. We’ve grown a lot and I’m relaxing my expectations for what our house looks like.

Erin: My kids are a little bit older than yours, but we still have a little, and we’re definitely in the “everybody’s at home” years. I just feel like there are a lot of ladies at my church and in my Christian circles that the kids are the reason why they feel like they can’t show hospitality . . . for any number of reasons. 

Sometimes I think they just feel like, “I’m at max, and the thought of adding anyone or anything into the mix is too much for me!”—which I get on some level.

What would you say to that mom, how would you reconcile the demands of motherhood—which are real and daily—and what you see in Scripture (and I do, too) as the command to be hospitable?

Hannah: I think that if you’re not hospitable, or not making time to get together with other believers—even if it’s in someone else’s home and you bring your kids with you—you miss out on a lot of blessings.

There’s a lot of blessings from taking the time for that, connecting with other people. Part of the reason it’s so important for me is all the “one anothers” in Scripture. You should pray for each other, exhort, encourage . . . 

Erin: . . . bear their burdens. 

Hannah: Yes, bear one another’s burdens. You can’t do that if you don’t know people, and you can’t get to know someone adequately ten minutes before church and even staying after.

You can get to know people, but not to the same depth to like, “What are you struggling with and how can I pray for you? I see this in your life and how can we grow in that area together?”

Erin: What are some ways you keep your heart prepared to continue to show hospitality? Because Scripture tells us not to be weary in well-doing, and some days we can start out as young marrieds eager to have our first house, excited to have people over. 

But then, you’re talking about a weekly cycle. How do you prepare your heart to continue to show hospitality?

Hannah: I think your own spiritual growth is always important. If you’re not learning and growing, then you’re going to have a hard time obeying God in different areas of your life.

When I’m not consistent in my devotions and prayer life, then I see that effect in other areas of my life, and I’ll think, I don’t want to do this. But it helps me to think of the bigger picture: what’s the real reason why we have people over? It’s so that we can build into them and disciple and help them grow closer to God. 

Sometimes you do that when you’re tired. Sometimes you’re super excited about it and sometimes you’re not, but still being faithful even when you don’t feel like it.

Erin: I love my mom, and she was great at hospitality. But she was frantic before people came over. I mean, frantic. It stressed us out. We learned from our parents mistakes. I have not wanted my kids to feel stressed. I'm curious what they would say. But do you feel like the stress of hospitality gets passed to your kids? Or how do you navigate that?

Hannah: Some weeks, definitely. I'd say a couple of years ago, when we had the older adult small group—our age—I was just learning a lot about time management and working a couple of days in advance, a couple chunks at a time, and relaxing my expectations.

But yeah, definitely some times where I had to apologize to the children for how I talked to them. There were frustrations, and then later on being like, “Yep, guys, I did not use a kind tone of voice with you. I'm sorry.”

I asked them to forgive me. And yeah, it's a humbling thing. But we also want our kids to know what it looks like to ask forgiveness. I'm not perfect. I learned personally that I need to be kind with them even when it's not meeting my expectations for how fast they should clean.

Erin: It's kind of become an internet or cultural joke how moms can act in the moments before guests arrive and then open the door and we put on a different face. I call that inhospitable hospitality, because it's inhospitable to your own home. Wives and moms are so much the thermometer in a lot of ways of the tone of our home. I've had to apologize.

Hannah: Right Not as often as I should have. By other times I should have apologized

Erin: That's one way I could put a bad taste in our kids mouths for biblical hospitality is that they get the brunt of our stress because of it.

Hannah: Or my husband too. He gets home from work, and he's had a long day, and I haven't gotten to the bathrooms yet. And then it's just the mad dash of trying to get everything done before people come over. We don't have a nice, relaxing evening. So, I’m trying to do better about that, too. So it's not just, “Here's the workload, Honey. Here's what all needs to be done. Here's my to-do list.” Because that's not very kind either.

Erin: Hannah and Josh have both experienced the power of hospitality for themselves. When they were in college, they met another couple who were a few years older than them. This couple invited Hannah and Josh into their home and shared life with them.

Josh Galvin: Their job was to connect with college kids, but they went like three steps above that. They were like, “Oh, we want to connect. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from. We want to get to know you.”

It led to great relationships, even getting the example of how to parent eventually. We learn from our own parents, but we also can learn from folks who are doing it. So, getting to see them raise their boys gave us some insight on what it would look like later in life.

They showed us what it was like to be welcoming in your everyday life, if that makes sense. I never had to wonder if I knocked on their door if they were going to be okay with me coming in because the mess was too bad, or whatever. It was always like their desire to connect and be there for us was greater than their shame of the mess.

Erin: And now the Galvins are doing for others what the mentor couple did for them. Hannah and Josh realized young adults represented one of the biggest needs in their church. So each week, they began inviting young adults to their house.

With young adults, especially, it takes time to get to know people well enough to where if they need somebody, to feel like they can come to that somebody. So, you have lots of informal times, so that in the moment when somebody's like, “Hey, I need somebody right now.” They know that the door’s always open. They know that they can call and we'll make it available for them.

But if we don't spend the time with them, getting to know them, and having fun and playing games and being informal, then in the moment of need, they're going to either look for it elsewhere or look for it nowhere.

Hannah: One of our young adults we've known since he was in seventh grade. One night he came over, and he hadn't had dinner yet. He just commented, “I haven't had dinner yet.” We had a snack out.

I was like, “Do you want dinner? Like, I have leftovers. We've got tacos,” and I don't remember what else. But like, “If you are hungry, I will feed you. Just let me know.”

Now it’s, “Alright, what's for dinner, Hannah.”

I never want to leave God's presence hungry. He wouldn't let me leave hungry. So, I don't want them to leave hungry. I want them to just feel loved because God provides for us in those little things.

For our kids, they have other adults who love the Lord, who are showing them love and attention, and are building into their lives. It is awesome.

Josh: I hope that they love people coming into our home. I hope that later in life it isn't something where they felt like we needed the house spotless every time somebody came in our house, and they hated when people came over. But rather, that they're excited that somebody's coming over, because they have a connection of their own with that particular person.

So as they get older and they're out of the toddler and young kids’ age, I would love for them to want to be the host right along with us.

Erin: There's a story in the gospels about a time when Jesus and His friends just wanted to get away for a break, but this huge crowd followed them. Jesus responded with compassion. The disciples only had a little bit, just a few loaves and some fish. But Jesus multiplied what they had, and they got to serve all of those people.

Instead of focusing on our lack, we should focus on the needs of others and the ability of Jesus to multiply what we have, no matter how little it seems.

I think that's the attitude I see in Hannah and Josh. They don't say we'll invest in others once our house is bigger or once our kids are older, or once our lives settle down a little bit. They saw a need in their community among young adults and they said, “Come enter our real lives. You're welcome here.”

Hannah: I want our home to be a reflection of heaven to my guests. If I can give them a little glimpse of that, God’s love for us is so much greater than anything I could show.

Song:

Do you know you’re welcome here?