Uh Kimberly struggled for 10 years in an unhappy marriage filled with conflict, addiction, and so much anger. Kimberly was ready to walk away, but God used our ministry to transform her heart. The podcast and all the focus on the family resources was like the hands and feet of Jesus in that moment, in those moments, because it's like, we're arguing. We don't even know how to pray. We don't know where to go in the Bible.
As Kimberly and her husband rebuilt their marriage, we were part of their healing process. Focus on the Family was like the well of wisdom that we can always go to. I'm Jim Daly. Every day, people reach out to Focus on the Family for help with their marriages, their parenting, and their faith. In their most desperate hour, you can help deliver hope and joy to these families.
Give by December 31st, and your gift will be doubled. Donate today at focusonthefamily.com/slash family. The Surgeon General just wrote a report. One in two of all Americans are suffering physically or mentally from isolation and loneliness, which means somebody's got to get it started, you know? And what a better people to breach that than the people who know God.
That's Annie McCune, and she joins us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And thank you for being here. I'm John Fuller. John, I've always been fascinated with that parable Jesus told in Matthew 25 about the sheep and the goats. On the right were the sheep, on the left were the goats.
And I think in the end, you want to be a sheep, right? And there's a few things that you do to demonstrate that faith in Christ and total. kind of acceptance of Jesus being the Son of God. Everybody probably knows that. But he tells the sheep that they're blessed and will inherit the kingdom.
And the reason they inherit the kingdom in part is because they took care of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger in need, the sick, the imprisoned. It's what the Lord told us to do, right? And then he tells the goats, depart from me, I never knew you.
So how do you land on the side of the sheep?
Well, read the word and do the word. And today we're going to talk about hospitality, which is a lost art of the church. You know, we want to really lean into this. And we have Annie McCune here. She's a teacher, a speaker, a wife, a mom, a grandmother.
And she lives this idea of hospitality and caring for others. She's written about her experiences and her insights in a little book called Practicing Hospitality, The Joy and Grace of Loving Strangers. Love the title. Get a copy of the book from us here at the ministry. We've got details in the show notes.
Annie, welcome to Focus on the Family. Thank you, Jim. Yeah, it's good to have it good to have you here. You also are a supporter of the ministry.
So thank you for the years, 46 years, I think, you and your husband have connected to focus. And that's awesome. It is. And it's really fun because Focus on the Family really has helped us be family and be better family. And I feel at home when I'm here.
No, it's so good. And that's what it's all about, right? And I just so appreciate all the years that we've had a relationship. I'm looking forward to digging into this topic, and we're going to cover it, the idea of hospitality from a lot of angles. But were you just born with this gift of hospitality?
It is a gift. No.
Well. The Holy Spirit, it's a fruit of the Spirit. It's not a gift of the Spirit.
Well, there you go.
So. It's something God has asked all of us to do because it is a reflection of his heart. And if you start in the book of Genesis, where he invites people into the garden, And you end with a feast? where he invites everyone to come to the party, you begin to see his heart is to love strangers as family, invite them all to be part of his family. And I just keep discovering more and more that this is an important part of his very character that as a Christian community, unfortunately, and especially in America, we have let go of.
Yeah, why do you think that is? I mean, that is, you look at the first, second, third centuries. This was a cornerstone of the church. You know, people knew when they came into a city, a town. Especially being Christian, they would know the households that were Christian.
That's right. And they would go and eat there and maybe stay with them. And that was a hallmark of the church. But man, it feels like maybe modernity, you know, this idea that we hit the garage door button and we go in, we close it, we don't even know our neighbors that well. That's exactly right.
What's happened? Why don't we do this better?
Well, and the fact is, you and I, we would not be here at this table. If that early church had not been encouraged to practice hospitality, and they did, and they went out and they kept loving strangers. And 2,000 years later is the only reason why we know this story because people not within the Jewish faith know the story. Those early apostles, disciples, loved on strangers, those that were foreign and uncomfortable, and they just kept telling the beautiful story. God sent out his guys two by two.
Jesus sent them out expecting them to be taken in. And we just don't. Part of it's our individual, like you said, this is my stuff. The pioneering spirit.
Well, the pioneering spirit, but once I've built my castle, I can put the garage door down and just take care of me and not look. To the needs of others, which is what you had started out with in that scripture. And that's a good primer here for what we're going to talk about. The reason for everybody, not just those of us here at this table, but for all the listeners and the viewers, to consider what you can do to open up your home, to help introduce people to the love of Christ. I mean, that really is what we're talking about.
When you were in college, you studied abroad and experienced what you called extraordinary hospitality. I love this, but what happened?
Well, I have a number of crazy stories. The most extraordinary one was: I was alone and without money, and Sometimes college students are stupid like that, and that happens. And I ended up in this town without a train ticket until the next day, and all I had was a traveler's check, and no one would cash it. And there is, you know, there are some stranger dangerous things out there, but the Holy Spirit alerts you to that. And I was in a park sitting alone praying about how am I going to eat for the next 24 hours or where will I sleep and what will I do?
And as this kind of stranger Weird guy approached. I looked. Across the park, and there was this old typical peasant woman sitting on a bench. And I thought, and it was the Holy Spirit just said, Go sit by her. And so I got up and I crossed this park and I sit by this old woman.
But as I'm about to get there, she stands up, and my heart was like, Please don't leave the creepy guys here. And she just threw her arms around me, set me down on this bench. And my French was not good then, it's worse now. But we babbled in our, you know, the gift of tongues, God fordos for such a time as this. And as we talked, she looked over at me and she said, You must be hungry.
And I was like, Well, yeah, but you're this peasant woman sitting on a bench and I'm this stupid college student that just, you know, and and she pulled out a loaf of bread and she broke it in half and I sat there just stunned. Again, hospitality, loving a stranger as family across the culture, across the language. She. Made me feel safe and at home. Yeah, let's insert the lesson.
So, do we make it more complicated than we're doing? We make it so complicated. I mean, again, if we look at our model for everything we do as Christians, it's Jesus. Did Jesus own a home? No.
Right. Did he practice hospitality minute by minute? That love of strangers and that sense of what is our stuff. You know, you don't need the stuff you need to be loving the stranger as family. And that's the heart of it.
That's God's heart. That's what we need to remember. And um Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's not just the stranger.
You had a story in there about the recovery room. Yeah. Which, again, this is aimed, well, it was aimed more for family and the need for family. But describe the recovery room, what it became known as.
Well, we, you know, we had four kids. We had a big house. But then we were always just inviting strangers in and Lee's parents lived in Florida and they wanted to come. And I saw my father-in-law at one point.
So we had a basement area. And, you know, when you're young, steps are no problem. But as you get older, you know, I don't know if you're in that place. You're like, I think it's ouch. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. And then you make it to the top. Yeah. So my father-in-law was standing at the top of the steps. And I'm like, you know, is everything okay?
And I could tell he was just determining, like, do I have enough pain threshold to go down there, get the sweater I forgot and get back up? And I just, that night I said, Lee, we've got to do something. We need a first. Floor guest room where your parents can come and we can just love them better in that place.
So, you know, expanded the house out and made this. Recovery room, and then you build it, they will come.
So, we had parents signing up. I'm having my hip done, I'm having my knee done, I'm having my, you know, I had friends, I'm having dental surgery, they're not letting me go home. We had, you know, then missionaries coming from all over, and it was just people would come in, and it was just.
So fun to have this place where they felt safe. We had a golden retriever, um, that was of course you do, yeah, of course. But um, and Jenny was the most gentle thing. And if you remember, Peter Pan and Nana, the dog that would, you know, take care of the kids, um, Jenny would like sit by the door of the recovery room and just alert us if anybody needed help. I mean, it was um, it was a great setup.
We had the in-house physician geriatrician, which my husband was, and then we had the four kids that entertained constantly. And so it was a full-service family to come and recover. In fact, you open your book with the word phyloxenia. I'm sure there's another way to pronounce that, but what does that mean in Greek and what does it look like?
Well, what's so interesting is that it's a compound Greek word. Phylo, as in Philadelphia, city of brotherly love, and xenia, which we most refer to as xenophobia, fear of strangers.
So loving strangers is. family. And most of the world up to that time, which is interesting, practiced xenia, which is a reciprocal form of loving strangers, hospitality. But the Christians, and what it looked, when I looked in the word biblically, what it means to practice hospitality is this word phyloxenia. Up until that point, Philozenia didn't happen.
Christians brought that in. Loving strangers as family, not just in a reciprocal, like the hospitality industry. You pay me well, I'll treat you really well. But it's really loving strangers as family, which again are We need to recover as God's people. Are we loving our families well?
And that's one of the reasons why it worked with our family because my husband felt well loved. He didn't feel threatened by bringing in strangers. Our children didn't feel threatened. They were well loved. And so, out of that family love, Comes that opportunity to extend that love of God to bring everyone into his family.
You know, Annie, the thing that jumps to my mind is if we can read it in the word where the Lord says, take care of the widow, take care of the orphan, take care of the stranger, take care of the person in prison. Yeah. Really? Really, Lord? You start looking at that, and that is exactly what you're talking about, the phyloxenia.
But I'm we can read it, but what keeps us from doing it? I mean, why what's happening today That wasn't happening in the first, second, third century. I know we got smartphones, but besides that stuff, I mean, attitudinally. Why aren't we embracing this? The early church was so aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
They had seen that fire come down. They knew that God would give them the words to speak to anyone, even if they were a stranger of a strange language. And we have forgotten. We say, Oh, Jesus, I've invited him into my heart. And yes, I'm a Christian, so the Holy Spirit is here.
But we forget. Every morning, to welcome that Holy Spirit into our hearts to give us that courage. God, I've told you I've given you my life, but now today, use my smile. Use my eyes. Use my words of encouragement.
Use my stuff. To bless others and let them know you love them like family.
So, does this carry muster with the Lord to say, oh, yeah, but you don't know my neighbors? Oh, my goodness. The fact is, he does. That's why he puts you in that neighborhood because he needed someone to show them that he loves them. Any, you moved to Atlanta.
You probably moved to a few places in your life. Not too many. Only two or three? Yeah. Okay.
So, in that context, when you moved to Atlanta, you wrote in the book just how the church that you ended up in just was all about hospitality. Yes. Describe that and what it meant to you as newcomers.
Well, it's really beautiful to see a church that is extremely passionate about hospitality. And it's beyond having a hospitality team. They make everyone feel like family, and they are needed, and you're needed to be part of a team if you're here. I thought that was just a southern thing. Yeah, no, it's not.
That's the point, right? That's the point. It really is. But even within that context, I have found even in, I have this beautiful group, small group that meets, and I talk about that in the. Book.
But when it came to actually opening your threshold, Everyone was like, Yeah, no, I've gotten a really good excuse. They did have good excuses. But it takes. A pastor, it takes someone that's just walked over that threshold and been there to then remind everyone: it's okay, God supplies the need. And so we were those people that could say, it's okay.
Yeah, we don't care what our house looks like, come on in. And when they did, We've been together over two and a half years now, and it's so funny. Every week we get a story of, like, oh my gosh, you know, the tree fell in my neighbor's house, and I knew we were supposed to take them in, and we wouldn't have, except we read your book. Or even with things at church, you know, when a pastor, and now for the peace, passing the peace, he is so intentional. He's like, no, this is as important as our communion with God, our communion with each other in this space.
And so you are not allowed to just like. Week handshake with a guy next door. Go introduce yourself to someone, ask a few questions. This is sacred time to. Become a church family.
Now, here's where the line is.
So, in the book, you talk about. Inviting like busloads of people over to the house, and people listening and watching are going, What? That's like hospitality PhD. I'm not ready for the PhD, Annie. But describe that.
I mean, what was that about? Inviting a busload of people?
Well, what was so funny is it started the idea in my head was that we had actually been invited by Focus on a trip many years ago to travel with Ray Vanderlaunt. Oh, that was a good trip. And so, part of that was, you know, we'd follow the rabbi, and one day we just hiked out into the desert, like. High noon, it's stupid. 52 people off the bus.
And we're crossing, and there's camels, and you know, but we didn't see anyone else or anything. And all of a sudden, we show up at this Bedouin encampment of Arab Israelis, and they go, Oh my gosh, these people must need water and food. And the women came out and started making bread, and they started getting us tea and water and sat us down in the tent. And I thought afterwards, oh, Lord, this is the kind of again people that you originally brought your message to. This is what we are supposed to do.
And so I kept thinking, well, God, you know, how would that look like in my neighborhood if some busload of like foreigners showed up? Would I invite them in? And sure enough, we ended up with two busloads of people. You just never know. And the first was a group of Dartmouth College students, and they were on an Ultimate Frisbee tour, and they were going coast to coast.
And they had this big green bus fueled by oil. You know, like they literally go through McDonald's and pick up the fry, the fry oil, and then convert it to fuel. And only Dartmouth would come up with that. Yeah. But, you know, this bus is now parked in front of our neighborhood.
And these 15 guys and girls are out. And they're all, you know, the neighbors are looking like, what is going on? And is this going to be there? But again, just so. Much fun.
The second happened because in Buffalo, snowstorms happen. And this group of Christian ballet troupe and they were performing at our church for the area. And we had offered to take in four ballerinas, which was great. What was really interesting is that we knew that we were actually leaving the next morning because we were going to another focus event to a preview for the Deltackett series. And so we had somebody staying at the house to take care of the four.
Well, this October freak storm dumped four feet of snow on Buffalo.
So the airport closed, and now we're there. And every other home that people were staying in blacked out. And we were the only ones that had power. And so all of a sudden, we got the call: can the whole ballet troop come? Because their bus is actually stuck in the parking lot.
And so we ended up with, I think, 16, 18 people overnight that night. And so much fun. That's making lemonade out of limits. Yeah, but the thing is, if you read scripture, God always provides. And that's where, you know, the widow fed Elijah on stuff she didn't have.
And the 5,000 fed with stuff we didn't. We don't have to have the stuff. Annie, do you think there's personality bents that may work with hospitality a little better? In other words, an extroverted couple, they're more into strangers and wanting to talk with them and share with them. And then you have more introverted people that find that like you would do what?
You would invite a stranger to your house. And there's lots of rationalizations you could come to. That could be dangerous. Yeah, you could just hear yourself tick those off, maybe. Maybe it's just me.
But what about that temperament? approach And what do you coach people to do that may be a little more hesitant? Because of those things. Yeah. Well, actually, introverts are really good at creating.
Connection and space with people in a much deeper way than extroverts are.
So, and in most couples, you've probably noticed, God gives one. On the extrovert side, and one on the introvert side, so that in most families you're going to have both those things. And again, we're not talking about entertainment. We're not talking about somebody who wants or needs to be the big cheese in the room. We're talking about loving the person there to make them feel Loved and felt.
And we have to get rid of this word entertainment, or that it's the gift, somebody's got the gift. Yeah, some people are friendlier than others, that's sure. But again, this is something God gives us all the ability to do when the Holy Spirit is in us. Yeah, that's so true. You know, a mutual friend of ours, Rosaria Butterfield, used to be a professor at Syracuse.
She, you know, she Came out of that through a challenge a pastor had to come and do a Bible study with he and his wife. And over about two and a half years, she accepted Christ. And beautiful story, if you've not heard that broadcast with Rosario Butterfield, linked to it. And because there's so much in common, and she's written a book on hospitality. One of the things that she said that really just got me, she said, you know, when I was in the lesbian community, I could fly to Denver or LA or some city, and I knew five or six houses that I could go hang out with, have a meal, sleep overnight if I needed to.
She said, when I became a Christian, I was shocked that there wasn't something equivalent. That when I went to Denver, I'm on my own. You know, there wasn't a list of Christian homes that I would go stay at. That kind of is the indictment, right? It's like that was what Christianity was about, and we have lost it.
We have, and we have to find it again. And that's. Why I am so passionate. I'm so grateful you allowed me here because it is just the everyday people, and that's all I did. I was not in ministry, I was not, you know, I was just home cooking meals for my own kids and just opening the door.
That's all God asks us to do. And in fact, you don't even need a home again. Jesus didn't have a home. It's that two to three feet of personal space. The woman on the bench at the park.
Would you just be hospitable when he talks about leaders in the church? He's talking to men now, and Titus and Timothy. pick hospitable people. He's not talking about have People with big houses, that spirit, that God's spirit of being willing to love strangers as family, that's who He needs us to rediscover what He wants us all to be. Why is that?
What happens when somebody receives hospitality? What does their crusty heart do? It melts. You know that. It makes you want to be in the room.
It's, again, why the church grew then, and it's why we can make our churches grow again. The church just being the family of God. You know, it doesn't need the buildings, it needs the connection. It needs just like. I just love you and we have Just Muslims and Hindus and you know, just people in our neighborhoods that just love us and because we've loved them.
You know, when you look at so many surveys of twenty-somethings, teenagers and twenty-somethings, what they say their greatest desire is to be known. And to be loved. And hospitality does that. You know somebody in that process. The Surgeon General just wrote a report.
One in two of all Americans are suffering physically or mentally from isolation and loneliness, which means somebody's got to get it started. And what a better people to breach that than the people who know God. Well, you've made the case today.
So hopefully we could all do a little bit more, maybe a lot more, to express the gift of hospitality and to engage it and to know that it's a tool the Holy Spirit uses to melt the hard heart and even the soft heart. Absolutely. Just open the door a little bit. Just open the door a little bit. What a great book, Practicing Hospitality: The Joy and Grace of Loving Strangers, right there out of scripture.
So, Annie, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you. It's just been a joy. Yeah. And let me turn to the listeners.
I hope you know Focus on the Family is here for you. As I said at the top of the program, these kinds of connections are important to God, and we want to help you better understand the heart of reaching out to others, which is so needed in these tumultuous times. Right, and we've got tools and answers for you to have solid, healthy relationships, especially here in the holiday season. We have so much for you. Yeah, and you know, Annie's stories remind me of our new documentary and study, Truth Rising.
If you haven't watched it, let me encourage you to do so. It's free on YouTube and X and at our website, and it's a powerful reminder that you can make a difference for God's kingdom right where you are, just like Annie has done through her gift of hospitality. We also have Annie's great book, Practicing Hospitality: The Joy and Grace of Loving Strangers, which you can get directly from us. It's full of great stories and practical ideas to reach out to those around you. We'd like to send you that when you make a donation of any amount today, and no amount is too small.
When you contribute to the work we do here at Focus on the Family, you're delivering hope and joy to people like Tom, who wrote in to tell us this. I want to thank Focus on the Family for picking up the phone when I called. I told you I'd been using drugs that day and felt so miserable. But you didn't judge me. You helped me.
You showed me how to pray, and I flushed the drugs right then because I wanted a new life in Christ. When I read that God has good plans for me, it gave me hope I've never felt before. Thank you for giving me a Bible and showing me the right way to go. What a powerful story. I'm so glad we could help him.
Man, I'm excited about the ministry that happens here at Focus on the Family. In fact, over the past 12 months, our resources and outreach efforts have helped more than 292,000 people make a decision for Christ. That is an awesome number. But it's only possible with support from friends like you. The Christmas season is the perfect time to deliver hope and joy to families in crisis.
And through your support of Focus on the Family, we can do that. You can continue to provide that much-needed help to folks like Tom when you do ministry through Focus on the Family.
So please donate today.
So donate today and get your copy of Annie McCune's book, Practicing Hospitality, when you call 800 the letter A in the word family. That's 800-232-6459. or click the link in the show notes.
Well, join us again next time as we hear from Kathy Lipp and Sherry Gregory about ways to reduce drama in your relationships, especially during the holidays. I think especially for the holidays, what overwhelms me the most is this sense that I've got to keep everybody happy. Thanks for joining us for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. God is at work and He's calling His people to rise in truth.
Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Coulson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. Visit TruthRising.com today. That's TruthRising.com.
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