Carolyn Lacey: Extraordinary Hospitality (for Ordinary People)

We forget that loving others is a way in which we love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength.

When we put ourselves out there and show care to someone, even if it's rejected, not received well, the Lord is pleased with us, and we've shown love for Him in the way we love others. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. So my question today is, do you have like a greatest hospitality fail? Yes. You do?

Yes. The time we had the homeless man live with us, and I let him start rearranging the furniture in the house. That could have been a fail. Dude, I didn't set any boundaries. I mean, that's a long story we can get into later, but I was shocked that you invited some stranger sitting beside us on Easter Sunday in church when the pastor said, Hey, say hi to your neighbor. You turn and talk to some guy that looked like he just came off the street again, just because everybody was dressed up and he sort of wasn't. And then you turned to me and said, Hey, he's coming to lunch after church.

I'm like, what? And then when he was eating dinner with us, I thought, oh, he doesn't have anywhere to live. And I remember looking at you like, Jim, you should just live with us. You gave me this look.

And he did. We'll get back to that later. But we're talking about hospitality today because we have on Family Life Today, Carolyn Lacey, her first time ever visiting us on Family Life Today. Carolyn, welcome to Family Life. Oh, thanks so much for having me.

It's great to talk with you. And I can see you're already laughing at our crazy story. Did that bring up anything in your mind?

Yeah, just so many times when you think you're doing the right thing and it doesn't kind of go quite how you think it's going to go. But that's OK. That's right. See, she said it's OK. Well, we could get into more details about our buddy Jim living with us.

It was quite, quite the experience. But you could probably tell, as you heard Carolyn, she's got a little bit of an accent. I'll tell him a little bit about you, but you can tell our listeners anything I miss. You're a housewife, a pastor's wife, a mom of two teenagers. An author. An author that we're going to talk about your book today, Extraordinary Hospitality for Ordinary People.

And you live in the United Kingdom, so you have this unique, beautiful accent. Let's talk about hospitality. Do you have like a hospitality fail story or are you just the master of hospitality? I'm really not the master of hospitality.

My mistakes, they probably sound on a slightly smaller scale than having somebody to live with me. But ones that I can remember when I've thought that I've been doing something really kind, you know, I've gone out of my way to invite someone over who I knew was struggling in a difficult situation and prepared a really, really beautiful meal. And as we sat down, I asked her how she was doing. And she burst into tears and just couldn't eat at all. And then she felt really awful that she couldn't eat this meal that I prepared and just thought, Carolyn, you know, she really just needed to come and have a cup of tea and a hug. And I made this big fancy plan, which actually was possibly more about what I wanted to do for her rather than what she wanted to do for me.

And I guess that's probably something that other people have experienced as well. And Carolyn, I'm glad that you wrote this book because often hospitality may be different than what we thought. And when you pick up a hospitality book, I don't know if you're like this, but I'm like, oh, no, I'm failing. I can't do this. I don't have any time. My house is a mess. My kids are a wreck. I thought we're going to have another guy come live with us.

That's what I thought. But did you ever feel that? Like, have you felt that burden of hospitality?

Yeah, I have. Probably I've placed it on myself by, you know, believing that hospitality has to look a certain way because that's what I've seen or that's what I've read or, you know, that's what Pinterest says. I guess I've experienced it as a ministry wife. I think people perhaps not appreciating that I was, I'm also working part time and have maybe had expectations on me that hospitality should look like me having everybody in my house in one go for a big meal and me not feeling able to manage that. Well, share that story because that did happen to you at church.

Yeah, it did. And I will say it was a really lovely, well-meaning lady. She drew alongside me and I had had quite a morning. I'd got there early. I was playing in the band. My little ones, I think they were two and four, so they were causing chaos and everyone was tired. I'm trying to get them home and she came up to me and she said, I have noticed that you don't seem to have a lot of people around for lunch on a Sunday at one time. You tend to have twos and threes and there's a minister's wife up the road and she always has 10 at a time. And then she said to me, and you know, I know that you've got two small children, but she does have four children.

Oh my goodness. And I will say that I did feel a bit crushed and I know that she didn't mean it critically. I think she thought she was encouraging me.

You can do this, but in the moment that did not feel encouraging to my heart. Did you say, hey, did you see me? I just played in the band.

I was here early for rehearsal. I don't think that mom's doing that. I'm impressed she had two to three people over on Sundays. I was like, we're shutting down the house on Sundays. Go ahead, honey.

Tell them. I mean, Ann was a pastor's wife for 30 years. How many people did we have over on Sundays after church? Not many, but it is true in terms of you're doing so much. You feel so overwhelmed.

And I think that's why a lot of people feel like, I don't have the capacity to do this. And what does it mean? So why did you start writing this, Carolyn? What was on your heart? Why is this important? I think it was that really that I knew it wasn't just me. And I knew that people were feeling burdened and guilty because the Bible says offer hospitality.

So we see it's a command. We see it's part of discipleship. But if it looks overwhelming, you've got to have everybody around for dinner and it's got to be really nice and the house has got to look good and the children have got to behave well.

That just feels out of reach for a lot of people. And in particular, I was struck by friends in my church family who struggle with depression or anxiety or some of those issues that genuinely make it really difficult to have people around in the home. I started thinking, well, what does it look like for them to be hospitable? This must be an area of discipleship that they can tap into, but surely it must look different.

Or friends that are married to unbelieving partners or flat share with non-Christians. What does it look like for them to practice hospitality? So I really wanted to just explore whether we could broaden the definition, broaden the model. Is it just about meals? Is that really all the apostle Paul had in mind? Is it all Peter had in mind? Or did it mean something a bit broader? So that's really what got me started thinking about it. I find it very enlightening because you take this sort of narrow definition of hospitality looks like this and you pull back and say, no, it's much bigger and better.

So help us understand what did you discover? What does hospitality look like? Yeah, well, what I discovered was that hospitality starts right in the opening chapters of the Bible because God creates a world and he creates human beings. And essentially he's inviting humankind into relationship with the Trinity. And that is an act of hospitality. It's an act of welcome. And so that really got me thinking about God's hospitality. If we want to offer hospitality as he commands us to, we want it to look like his. And so I just started exploring the characteristics of his hospitality, not so much the mechanics, what you must do, but rather what we should be cultivating in our hearts and discovering that God is so generous in the way he welcomes people. He's so compassionate. He's inclusive.

He's persistent. Those characteristics seemed suddenly to be much more significant than what you cook or how often you do it. But am I becoming a hospitable person?

Am I becoming like him and reflecting him in those characteristics? And so, yeah, in the book, really, I just take seven characteristics of hospitality that we see in God and try and explore what they look like and how we can start to cultivate them in our own lives. And I discovered that it will look different in practice for each of us. And that's okay, according to our personalities and our circumstances. So we can all, for example, learn to be compassionate welcomeers.

But what that might look like will depend on who we are and who the people we meet are. And I think that's okay. I think that's really good, actually, because I'm thinking about those listeners who are thinking, I'm an introvert. I don't even like people.

Do I need to do this still? But you're saying it's not just about having people over. It's sharing your heart. It's opening more than your home. It's opening your heart.

And that makes it feel different, like you don't have to put on this big spread. I thought it was good when you said God is generous. So we should be generous, too. And as we reflect on his extraordinary generosity in welcoming us, we will find ourselves wanting to become more generous in the way we welcome others.

How do you do that? What does that look like for you and your personality? Yeah, actually, I'm an introvert, too.

Wait, wait, wait. An introvert wrote a book on hospitality. I know, I know. It's funny, but I am in that I do love people, but I've learned to love people. And if I'm feeling tired and exhausted, really, the way for me to recharge is on my own in a room with a book. But actually, learning more about just how generous God is in his welcome has been so comforting to me, but also it's grown a gratitude in me that wants to overflow in welcoming others.

So I mean, just simple things. You know, it's tempting for me at the end of the day to come home and pull into my drive and just run into the house and shut the door without looking around. But actually, as I've wanted to reflect God more in his welcome, I've learned to just take some time and look around. Is there a neighbor out in the street? Could I wave or say hello?

If it's somebody who I know lives on their own, could I just walk across and say, you know, hey, how are you doing? How's your week going? And it's been just little things like that, learning to see past myself to those that God has placed around me and just looking for really small opportunities to show people that I've noticed them and that they matter. Because people don't always feel seen, but God sees us and we can see other people and we want to show them that they're seen and they're cared about.

And yeah, that's partly what it's looked like for me, I guess. We had a snow up in Michigan. I got my snowblower out. I did my driveway. As I'm coming back up to the garage, Ann pokes her head out in the garage and goes, hey, you know, Dean and Nancy are gone. Why don't you do their driveway?

That's our neighbors. So I go over and do their driveway. I come back. I turn off the snowblower. I take all my clothes off. I mean, you know, the winter clothes, my boots, there's snow everywhere. I plop down by the fireplace and Ann walks in and goes, hey, you know, what about Nick and Pam? Well, I just said, oh, no, Pam's outside shoveling and she's just getting over COVID and her husband Nick is having heart problems. Like, oh, Dave, maybe you should go over with that big snowblower.

And I wish I could lie and say, yeah, I was like, of course I want to be Jesus. You know, let's go. I'm like, honey, I'm warm.

I'm sitting by the fire. And then I go and I look out the window and there's Pam, you know, shoveling her bigger driveway than ours. And I'm like, okay, the right thing to do.

And I got to be honest, it wasn't so much I wanted to do it. I was like, I have experienced, Carolyn, what you said, the welcoming of God in my life. And it really was as I looked across the, we're in a cul-de-sac, as I looked over there, I thought, this is not only the right thing to do.

I want to help her. So I put all my clothes back on. I got the boots on. I fired up the thing and I go, you know, marching over there and I can just see her looking at me like, you are a gift from God. You know, it's like, and of course I told her, hey, this is my idea. I just thought I'd come over and help her.

No, I didn't. But as I did her driveway and then her husband, Nick, came out, the next thing I know, we're standing in her driveway talking for 15 minutes and I hear about her life, about Nick being in the hospital earlier, and he couldn't come out and do this because he had a medical condition. And as I came back to our garage, I just felt like that was the best 15 minutes, it's all it took, that I've spent with my neighbors in probably this whole year. And it was just a simple act of hospitality. And the funny thing is I thought I was giving them a gift and I got the gift. You know, I'm the one that felt better about it. Is that typical when you help somebody? Do you often feel like it's more blessed to give than receive, as Jesus said?

I think that's right. I think there's unexpected joy. It's a surprising joy.

You feel as though you're going to be giving out and so you should be depleted in some way of your energy or whatever it is. But as we step out in obedience, I think the Lord honors that and he gives us joy. We get the joy of, particularly if we're feeling a bit weary and not up for it, we get the joy of relying on his spirit and finding out that his grace is sufficient and he does sustain us and he does equip us. But also, yeah, the unexpected, surprising blessing of community.

I mean, we were created to be in relationship and introverts like me are tempted to forget that until we have those meaningful interactions and think, oh yeah, that was great. Yeah, it was the best 15 minutes of the day and I didn't think it would be. I thought the 15 minutes curled up by the fire on my own would be the best 15 minutes and it turns out I was wrong and yeah, I can relate to that. It's a good reminder, isn't it, to pray. You know, when we're out and about, God, just give me eyes for the people that you want me to see and just show me is there some really small way that I can show your care and compassion. And if we pray that, I think he answers and he gives those small opportunities.

I think that that's the key. I was thinking as we were all talking, I thought when I have my eyes on other people, it's because I'm first having my eyes on Jesus. And when he fills us up, we see Jesus doing that, of pulling away, of being with the Father, and the Father fills us. He gives us eyes for those that are needy, those that we can love, those that he wants us to see and hear. And so, I think that's the critical point because when I am running so hard and I'm stressed, I think so many of us are, if I don't take that time to be with Jesus, I want to come in my house, I close the garage door, and I don't want to talk to anybody. And yet, I'm thinking if Jesus lived in my neighborhood, he would have spent time with the Father, and then he would make sure, like, he would be talking to all of us like, Ann, how are you doing? What's going on? He'd want to know and care about all the details of my life. And as we talk about that, Carolyn, I'm wondering, how has that affected your kids?

You have two kids, 19 and 17. What does that look like as you have practiced this in your life and in your ministry? Yeah, well, it's been really nice to see actually. So I think during COVID especially, we had our season of lockdown and then in the UK last summer, we were only allowed for a period of time to have six people in the home, and you still had to be spaced out. So our kitchen table is relatively small, and there were four of us. And so really, for us, that meant having one person at a time.

So we would just try and think of a single friend, somebody we knew at church who was either on their own, or sometimes we had a lady who's married to a non-Christian, and we just have them over. And I think they experienced what I experienced. You think, okay, let's gear up.

This is going to be hard work. Let's put ourselves out there. But actually, they were fun times, and it was good for them to interact. And yeah, I'm seeing them just grow in their ability to talk to people who are not in their peer group, older people. And my daughter's been home, and she was going back to university. She went round and spent some time with a lady from church who's just been widowed. And I just thought, that's really lovely.

That's how you want to spend your last morning, is to just go and visit her and have some time with her. And yeah, so I think I see them growing as well in their desire to welcome others. Now, have you ever found it hard? I mean, of course, I'm guessing you've had some struggles with hospitality, but you write a book about it, and you think, oh, she's the queen of hospitality, and it's always good. Because I know that when we started, we're talking about this guy named Jim, who, as we invited him over for Easter brunch, we find out he is homeless. He had just become homeless. And then he needs somewhere to live, and here we are saying, you can come live with us.

At that time, we had no kids. But when I went later to pick him up that evening, I pull up where he told me he'd be waiting outside a grocery store, and he is outside with a buddy in a wheelchair, and they have a hat out for donations for people to give to his buddy who's paralyzed. So I pull up, and I'm like, hey, Jim, I'm here to take you back to my house.

Here's what happens, Carolyn. His buddy jumps out of the wheelchair, walks into my car, they throw the wheelchair in the back of my car, it was all a scam. They were pretending that he was paralyzed just to get money, and I'm like, this is the guy we just invited to come live with us?

And he did. He came and lived with us for, what, six weeks? And so all I'm saying is, as he came, and we're doing this nice thing, and at first it was wonderful, and then after four or five days, we started to realize... We started changing furniture around. He's moving everything in our house. We catch him in a few lies. And again, a wonderful guy, and we're trying to help him out, but it became hard after a while. Like, what did we just sign up for?

We didn't sign up for this. We're not really helping him. He's sort of using us, and you sort of feel, you know, sort of that kind of thing. So that's my question, because a lot of us get afraid to be too generous, like God has been with us, because it could go that way.

What do you say to that when it gets sort of difficult? You're listening to David Ann Wilson with Carolyn Lacey on Family Life Today. We'll hear Carolyn's response in just a minute, but first, at Family Life, we believe God does some of his most amazing work right in ordinary homes. Whether that's a small group Bible study, or laughing on the floor with your kids, or sharing a meal with neighbors, the home can be the launching pad for God's work in this world.

And if you believe that too, would you help more families experience this by partnering with Family Life? All this week, as our thanks for your financial partnership, we want to send you a copy of Carolyn's book. It's called Extraordinary Hospitality for Ordinary People. You can get your copy when you give this week at FamilyLifeToday.com, or when you call with your donation at 800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word Today. All right, now back to David Ann's conversation with Carolyn Lacey and how to be generous and hospitable, even when it seems difficult. I'll say two things, but I think one of them is part of the problem is sometimes that we see hospitality as a solo sport, and we think, you know, there's this difficult person or difficult people and I have to do it myself. But if we're part of church family, we probably need to draw others in to help us. So, you know, if we're finding that somebody's taken advantage a little bit or just draining us of our energy or conversations hard, whatever it is, I think probably we need to not try and do it on our own and to bring church family in to help. You know, is there a friend or a couple of friends you can say, look, I'm trying to get alongside this person, but it's a little bit tricky.

Can you help me? Can we share the load or can we take them out for coffee together so that we can keep the conversation going? So sometimes I think our struggles are because we're trying to do too much on our own. And perhaps we have to know our limits in that sense.

Of course, the Lord equips us, but one of the ways he helps us is by giving us church family. So we perhaps need to lean on each other a bit more. And then sometimes you just have to persevere, don't you? So I write in the book a bit about, you know, those people that you got a heart for and you're really trying to welcome, but they just either pull away or they're hostile or distant and just making a call about how to persevere. And I had to do that. I share a story in the book about a lady I met at the school gate who just really seemed to dislike me, I think just because I was a Christian and just had to learn how to persist, you know, how to show an interest, how to start small.

Would you like to take our kids to the park together? And I think she thought I was going to brainwash her kids into this cult or something. And so just had to go very slowly. And it would have been much easier, I think, to have said, you know, I'm just going to go somewhere else.

I'm just going to find somebody else who actually is interested in my efforts. But the Lord had placed her on my heart and he did seem to keep bringing our paths together. And over time, the walls came down and actually we became very, very good friends. She's probably my closest non-Christian friend now. And I think just had to learn to press in and to be willing to be uncomfortable, to try not to take offense when she was rude or unkind and to keep reminding myself, Jesus died for me when I was his enemy.

And he's welcomed me with all of my baggage, all of my sin. And if I can, in his strength, I need to try and persevere. So it's not easy, but that doesn't necessarily mean we need to give up.

But we might need a bit of help. That's really inspiring. I love that you kept pushing through, because I think a lot of us as people, we put up walls because of past hurt or pain. And when someone continues to persevere and go after that friendship, that means a lot. And I'm just thinking for all of us, this has been a great reminder for me to get my eyes off of myself and onto other people. I mean, Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.

And sometimes we forget that second part. We kind of bunch in and we gather as our family. But there are people, our neighbors, our people that are at work, at church, that could use a friend, that could use someone to say, I see you, I hear you, tell me, how are you? That can be sharing the gospel in some respect, the beginning of it, to some people. And God's calling us to it, and you've reminded us of that.

So thanks, Carolyn. I think we forget that loving others is a way in which we love God with heart, soul, mind and strength. When we put ourselves out there and show care to someone, even if it's rejected, not received well, the Lord is pleased with us.

And we've shown love for him in the way we love others. You've been listening to Dave and Anne's conversation with Carolyn Lacey on Family Life Today. Her book is called Extraordinary Hospitality for Ordinary People, and we'll send you a copy with your donation today at familylifetoday.com. So I don't know if you have kids like I do, but don't miss this tip as your kids get older. Keep them talking. You want to be the go-to person for the hard stuff with your kids, so pry open the space for conversations that matter. Well, we've got your back with a resource called Passport to Purity. It's a weekend just for you and your preteen to talk about body changes and peer pressure and even dating. So if you have teens, Passport to Purity can help your son or daughter learn how to make their faith their own, uncover their calling and take responsibility. We'll make the talk easier and low prep. So start the conversation with Passport to Purity. It's now 25% off with the code PASSPORT for a limited time at familylifetoday.com. Tomorrow, Dave and Anne Wilson will continue their conversation with Carolyn Lacey about what it looks like to be hospitable with friends and family in our life who aren't Christians. That's tomorrow. On behalf of Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.