Showing Hospitality When You Don’t Have the Perfect House

Because I spent so much time staying in other people’s homes during my teenage bluegrass band years, I have watched the beautiful gift of hospitality displayed in so many different ways. Obviously, anyone who lets a family of 7 people stay overnight with them (or sometimes a week or two at a time) is a welcoming, hospitable, long-suffering person. But different people have such different ways of displaying hospitality.

What Does Hospitality Look Like?

For some, hospitality happens out of one’s miraculous talent of always having cookies on the counter, a sparkling clean house, and ingredients in the refrigerator ready for a 5-star meal. (I am not one of those people.) For some, it means they live life with others, which means that others get to see the messiness of their lives. (This sounds more like me.)

I know, though, it can be embarrassing to invite friends or strangers to your home when you are pretty sure there’s dried spit-up in one corner of your living room and a stack of dirty dishes in the sink from breakfast. And I have words of encouragement for those of you who live in that house!

[clickToTweet tweet=”While it’s easier to invite close friends, there’s a special blessing that comes with opening your home to strangers.” quote=”While it’s always easier to just have your closest friends and family be the ‘privileged’ insiders who get to come to your home (and you’re thinking–is it privilege to see all this junk?), there’s a special blessing that comes with opening your home even to people you hardly know.”] I often think of a verse from the book of Hebrews, in the Bible. It says, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Heb. 13:2, NASB)

Do I think I’ve had angels in my home? I doubt it. But I have received such rich blessing from the everyday people we’ve been able to meet through inviting someone home with us soon after meeting him/her. I still am not the greatest hostess. Sometimes I have to disappear for 45 minutes to bathe, feed, and diaper a little boy. Or I’m tired and I say goofy things. Or I burned the chicken. So I’m going to share these tips for showing hospitality in the not-so-perfect house and acknowledge that they come from other men and women whom I have watched and learned from, not from me!

Showing Hospitality When You Don’t Have the Perfect House: 9 Tips for the Overwhelmed

1) Don’t try to hide behind a facade.

You look pretty good at church or work, maybe, with matching clothes (and shoes!) and sparkly family pictures. You look even better on Facebook. And it will all come crashing down if people step foot inside your house. Spiderwebs are drooping from the dining room light fixture, toys are scattered from one end of the house to the other, and you’re pretty sure you just saw your kid drag a dirty diaper into the guest bathroom. Ouch!

If you don’t even try with the facade, you don’t have to worry about keeping up appearances. Be real. Let people know that you aren’t perfect before they can find out for themselves!

Does that mean you spill every personal issue you have online? Or let your girlfriends know when you had a spat with your husband? Absolutely not! It just means: be relaxed and, again, don’t pretend you’re perfect.

2) Don’t stress out about having a small house or apartment.

Unfortunately, I struggled with this “problem” of worrying about space in our last apartment. Our first apartment had 600 square feet, and I was fine with inviting six people to join us for dinner. Our next one was only 500 square feet filled with couches and towers of unpacked boxes. Add to that the fact that I was incredibly sick from pregnancy, and we almost never invited anyone to our messy, tiny, sock-strewn home. (Yes, someone in our family is a dirty-sock-scatterer.)

I’m not sure how much I could have changed considering my health then, but I do know that I stayed lonely and felt friendless for a much longer time in our new city than I would have if I’d asked people to come (even if I had to ask them to eat outside).

3) Serve normal meals rather than waiting until you can afford steak or all-organic food for company.

If potato soup and grilled cheese fill people up and don’t offend their taste buds, then potato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches are an excellent option. (Read my short list of budget-friendly meals to serve friends for more ideas.) You don’t have to spend more money than you can afford. My mom tells a story about when she was a young mother with a very tight budget and very little cooking ability who still invited many others to her home. One of her friends shared that her little boy said one day, “Oh, boy! We’re going to Mrs. Deb’s house? She makes the best hot dogs!”

4) Don’t be intimidated.

Yes, it can be intimidating to invite a more established couple or family to your home. You wonder if they’ll be comparing your sagging couches to their custom-upholstered ones, or if they’ll be unhappy with your meal of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. Granted, there may be a few people like that. But most people may be unwilling to invite those friends. They will probably enjoy refreshing their own memories of just starting out in life.

And for those who are already that couple, established or not, please invite the younger people over so they can learn from you! Even if you don’t have much experience with serving people or it’s too much work to prepare food for so many people, remember that a frozen pizza is fine for most of us younger folks.

5) Overcome laziness.

For me, sometimes the reason my house is in shambles isn’t my baby’s or my husband’s fault. I succumb to laziness for one day (or two days) and the house suffers as a result. Then my mess makes me keep my doors closed. Or, even if my house is in fairly decent order, I don’t really feel like cooking enough food for eight people tonight. So I’m going to skip the invitation.

If you have ever experienced lack of hospitality as a result of your laziness, as well, then this is an encouragement to join me in fighting laziness. It’s okay to relax sometimes. But we don’t want to be at the mercy of our own sluggishness.

6) Overcome fear.

Will people be bored? Will they hate the meal? Is my kid going to throw up on their feet?

Yes, these are all thoughts that have gone through my mind. But we can’t let fear imprison us. I’m sure people have been bored and disliked my food many times, but they came back a second time, or third time, or fourth, anyway. So boredom and bad food aren’t the end of the world, or even the end of a friendship.

7) Don’t feel like you have to have everything ready when guests arrive.

Feeling the urge to have the meal perfectly hot and cooked at exactly the right time will make you less likely to host. For example, I never know when Baby J is going to have a blowout and totally put my meal plans on hold.

My mom was really good about including her guests in preparation and table-setting. I think it sets people more at ease to be included. When my hostess asks me to set plates on the table or grab the meat out of the oven for her, I feel like a part of the family.

8) Set a time frame.

If your plans are to let the evening extend until whenever because you’re a night owl, let people know that. If your kid turns into a pumpkin at 8 PM, ask people if they’d like to come from 5-8 (and tell them the reason for the 8 o’clock)! Don’t let fear of telling people they need to leave now keep you from inviting them over at all. No one should be offended by a time frame, especially if you give your guests a polite heads up.

9) Keep trying.

Maybe one dinner or activity bombed and you felt miserable about how the evening went. That’s okay. Dust off the seat of your pants and try again. Even invite the same people. (You’ll be surprised how many will say yes, even if the first attempt didn’t go well.)

Or, if people keep saying no, try asking them again in another couple of months. This may just be a bad time for them. I am really liable to discouragement in this area. Some acquaintances whom I’ve invited to either large-group parties of a sort (church people kind of parties, y’all!) or just a simple meal have declined several times. I stopped asking, but now I’ve discovered they really want to come over–it’s just always been a bad time for them when I’ve invited them.

Some ideas for entertaining guests:

*Remember that most people enjoy talking.

Ask questions about their jobs, their families, their interests, etc. Be ready to share about yourself, as well, without monopolizing the conversation. (I sometimes greatly fail in this area. I have to remind myself that not everyone cares about J’s latest tooth.)

*Keep simple card games or board games on hand (although some people don’t like games–that’s okay; take them on a walk outside or have them help you with a project).

*After you’ve arranged a good time for both of you to have a meal together, ask about food allergies.

If someone is allergic to peanuts, it’s a good idea to have a non-peanut dish on the table. I’m going to admit, though, I get a little overwhelmed sometimes when I have a guest with multiple allergies/intolerances. In those cases, you may just have to invite a person to a picnic in your back yard or on the balcony and ask her to bring her own food.

Something my mom-in-law taught me to do with people who are just picky eaters is to send them a text with 2 or 3 meal choices. That way, you know you can cook the meal (because you provided the options) and they know what to expect. If they don’t like any of those choices, they may just offer to bring a sandwich for the picky eater(s) in the family. Be okay with that.

Have fun!

I think you’ll discover that showing hospitality is one of the most rewarding things in life. The new person at work you brought home with you, or the new neighbor, may become one of your best friends.

I’d love to hear from others your tips for making people feel comfortable in your home. Graciousness in hospitality is an area where I could definitely improve!

“Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.” Romans 12:13, ESV