Hospitality Including others in the meal preparation. Hospitality is opening your home up for family, close friends, and guests. Inviting them to come into your home and share meals. Such as allowing others to help with the meal. Hospitality is including others in your act of showing hospitality.
Instant way to make others feel welcomed
Allowing your guest to contribute to the gathering is an automatic connecting point. As host or hostess we have been programed or trained to think we have to serve and provide the place, experience, supplies and full meal for us to make our guest feel welcomed.
The focus needs to be more on how we can make our guest feel welcomed. We need to connect even before they come into the home. Just imagine if you asked your guest to bring a dish. She would feel like she is a part of the evening and was able to contribute to the meal. This happens even before walking through your front door.
Hospitality is designed to create a community and it starts with making your guest feel welcomed.
Learn more about your guest by what they choose to add to the gathering.
I don’t know about you but when I get the opportunity to take a dish over to someone elses home, I take time to think through what I am going to bring. Nine times out of ten, I choose something that means a lot to our family, or is a family favorite or maybe a recipe that was handed down over the generations. With this, I have an instant story that I can tell to the host.
This is a perfect way to learn more about your guest. Encourage them, appaude them for a wonderful dish and find out why they chose to make that dish. This is a connection point that will lead to many new conversations around the table.
Being an example of wise hospitality by including others in the meal preparation
Wise, how is it wise to have others help in the meal preparation? It is wise because you are showing you trust others to help. It is wise because you show you can allow others to be a part. As well as, very wise because we all know times are sometimes tough and money is sometimes short.
Allowing others to help with the meal preparation also helps your family with their budget. Especially if you have an open-door policy to guest and entertain often. Someone bringing a dish does not seem like it would help your budget but over time, it adds up. A side dish that possibly costs, $3.50 to prepare over time of hosting 3 times a month for a year would add up to $126 dollars for the year. That is just letting one family contribute to the meal. Think about if you have multiple families bringing a side dish or even the main dish. It is a wise decision for your family budget.
If you struggle with letting go and letting others help, I have a great resource called Who am I in Christ along with printable Scripture cards.