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Let’s build a better theology of hospitality.

The King's Table Company aims to help you have a proper theology of hosting and a heart aimed towards Jesus in all your hospitality.

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Welcome to the King’s Table Company podcast. I’m your host, Meg Foster. The King’s Table Company is a place that is absolutely dedicated to helping you develop a good theology of hosting, and to help put that theology into practice. On today’s episode, we’ll be talking about hospitality is anticipation.

So often the word hospitality encompasses so many things that we don’t really even know what it is. But the definition of hospitality is being the friendly, generous, welcoming person to guests, visitors, and strangers.

This can mean several different things. This can mean your personal kindness, the warm behavior of making people feel safe or at home. It could mean providing for people, providing provision through food and drink.

Hospitality means a lot of things, but ultimately it means receiving people. The hospitality sector in business is hotels and restaurants providing lodging and food and drink.

The origin of the word hospitality comes from the Latin word hospice. That means both host and guests. And so hospitality needs both parts. In order to be a good host, you need to have guests.

And so hospitality is about anticipating and preparing for these guests. So let’s talk about how to prepare.

Well, first let’s talk about how God prepares well for us. When God created the world, he spent three days creating the heavens and the land and the water. He created the containers before he created the fish and the animals and the birds of the air, the things that filled these spaces that he created.

So God demonstrates for us that he prepares spaces and then he allows us to come into them.

So when we’re hosting, we prepare spaces that we then allow the guests to come into. That’s what takes it from hosting to being hospitality is the guests coming there.

Anticipation prepares for people. Anticipation notices what would make people comfortable. It notices what people’s limitations are, where people are at, and it prepares for them.

For example, if you have a guest coming over that you know has a certain amount of social anxiety, anticipation is making sure that there is a person who is very friendly, who is going to make sure to make that person feel welcomed all night.

It is making sure that there are several places to sit in case they need to step away and get a moment of alone time.

It is making sure that that person feels like their needs are taken care of because they might be the person who is too afraid to ask, where can I get a cup of water? Where can I get something to eat? Anticipation is making sure the needs of your guests are taken care of before they arrive.

And that requires knowing who your guests are and noticing who they are because God first anticipated us. He first prepared for us. While hosting may be does everything look good? Does everything look right? Hospitality asks, does this person feel seen? And that is the difference.

When you’re hosting, it is all about you. But hospitality, that word encompasses both the host and the guests. And this relates to all of the things that we’ve talked about before.

It relates to delight and really preparing for people and really understanding who they are before they come in, because ultimately you are anticipating to serve people, not to control the night, not to control what happens, but rather to answer a need before someone has to ask.

So let’s talk through some practical ways to do this. If you are hosting a gathering, you need to know what you know and what you don’t know. And this requires a certain level of humility. When you know what you know about your guests and what you don’t know about your guests, that allows you to better prepare. There are certain things that you should reach out to your guests ahead of time.

For example, if you don’t know if someone has dietary restrictions, sending a simple text a day or two before and saying, hey, I just realized, I don’t know if you have any dietary restrictions, if you’re allergic to things that anticipates their needs ahead of time, allowing you to prepare and allowing for them to feel welcomed.

It also allows them to know what to do if they have a dietary restriction that may not always come up. For example, someone who is allergic to nuts may not always think to bring their own food. But if your main dish incorporates a lot of nuts, then that allows you to either change your main dish depending on the severity of the allergy, or providing an alternative by either saying, hey, we’re having this, you may want to bring your own food, but I can also provide X, Y, and Z.

Hospitality being anticipatory allows people to feel more welcomed in because they know what to expect. Because you have taken the work as the host to fill in the gaps of what they might not know already. There’s also different things that you can do to anticipate people’s needs.

For example, if there’s a long gathering that you’re planning, have a few phone chargers out because you don’t know if someone doesn’t know their way back home and they came in without a phone charger, making sure to have blankets out if you were in your living room and you tend to keep your house a little bit cold. Making sure that there are alternative drinks if someone doesn’t drink alcohol, or making sure that there are different things available for people to do.

If it’s a game night and you know everyone you’re inviting doesn’t love games that you have to lie in, that is what makes guests feel really received and really welcome. And that is what makes their needs feel answered. And that really calms people down.

When people know that their needs are taken care of, they feel fully free to be who they are. They aren’t preoccupied with anxiety or the things that might happen, but rather they are like, I can be received here. And when a person feels received well, that really changes things because they will be who they truly are and they can make deeper connections.

And that fellowship that is created through good hospitality, through good host and guest relationships, through those things, that really, really changes people. Because ultimately, one of our greatest apologetics as Christians is how we love each other.

And oftentimes our greatest hospitality comes from the fact that people feel like they can delight in the fact that they didn’t have to request anything, they didn’t have to do the mental load of taking care of themselves when they walked in your door, because you took that mental load off. That allows people to flourish, that allows people to thrive. And that is why God has done that for us. That is why God has prepared places for us.

Psalm 23 says that God leads us beside still waters, and he does that because he knows we thrive in places our needs are taken care of.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, do the flowers worry? Do the birds of the air worry if their needs will be taken care of? And how much more precious are you if God sees us that way? And God takes care of our needs that way, so that we are able to flourish and be exactly who he created us to be? Then a beautiful way we can image God in hosting is by anticipatorily taking care of people’s needs before they have a chance to worry about them.

By taking that mental load off, then we are able to truly go into what is needed in order to love people well. In order to care for people well, and to image the way that God takes care of us to other people, to show them who Christ is and to bring them further into the gospel, further into what God is doing. By receiving them well, anticipating their needs, the way that God has anticipated our needs, and allowing them to delight in the fact that they feel truly received and truly known.

Because you anticipated what they would need, maybe before they even knew that they needed it. And this anticipation goes beyond needs. This anticipation goes to wants. If you know that there is a small thing that people delight in, if you know that someone’s favorite drink is sparkling water, if you as a host have that. That small action can multiply in just how loved a person feels.

So remember that. Remember when you’re hosting the hospitality is about anticipation. Because if we go back to what hospitality is all about, receiving people as the gifts that God created them to be, rather than trying to put on a performance and trying to show people how good we are at putting together something that looks perfect on social media.

If we go back to what hospitality is, and we truly receive people in the way that they were made in the gifts God created them to be, we will anticipate their needs and we will anticipate their wants, and we will create a space where they can delight and they can take off the things that they are worried about and be who they are in order to create better connection.

And that’s all for this week on the King’s Table podcast, and I will be praying that your hosting and gatherings this week go amazingly.

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Thank you. And we’ll see you next week.

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Welcome to the King’s Table Company podcast, where we talk about all things hosting and hospitality from a Christian perspective. I’m your host, Meg Foster, and today’s episode is Hospitality is Attention.

I think one of the ways that we feel the most loved is by being paid attention to.

Think about it. When was the last time you can genuinely say you had someone’s full attention, and how loved did you feel in that moment? When was the last time you felt like you had someone’s undivided attention, and nothing besides the world ending would take it away from you in that moment?

The chances are that’s probably pretty hard to remember, and I think one of the greatest luxuries that you can give another person is your undivided attention.

So often our cultural landscape today is referred to as an attention economy. Who can hold people’s attention for the longest? Who can do the best job entertaining people, making them look at them. We’re all fighting for attention.

So how big of a gift is it as a host, as someone receiving people to give your undivided attention freely, to give your undivided attention, not as something that needs to be earned, but rather is something guests can inherently have just by being there. Just by being present.

We’ve talked about before that hospitality is not about giving a gift to your guests, but it’s rather receiving them as a whole person, receiving them as who God made them to be, receiving them in all of their gifts, all of their quirks, all of their flaws, just receiving them and letting them know that there’s a place here and part of receiving a person is showing them that they are worthy of full, undivided attention, and they are there were three of thought outside of the basic planning.

So let’s talk about a few ways that you can pay attention to your guests. First, before we get into how we can pay attention to our guests, we need to know where attention comes from. And specifically, God is attentive to us. That is a part of his character. He is consistently portrayed as the one who sees us.

In fact, the first name that God is given in the Old Testament is by Hagar, who is the servant of Abraham and Sarah, who Abraham impregnates. She runs out to the wilderness and cries out to God. And in her moment of desperation, God tells her that her son will bear a line of people that will be a mighty people. And in that, she looks at God and she calls him the God who sees me. God who sees me.

We see this throughout the rest of Scripture as well. God notices lilies. He notices flowers and sparrows. Jesus brings it up in the sermon on the Mount that our needs will be taken care of because we do not see the flowers toil, we do not see the birds worry and God cares so much more for us. God knits us together in our mother’s womb. According to Psalm 139, God is attentive to us and therefore the attentiveness we get from God. We can outpour that by being attentive to other people.

Additionally, attention and paying attention to people is different than performance. If there is a beautiful setup you have in your home, but you are worried about people touching it and interacting with it, that may lean more into performance than it does to attention. Guests want to feel comfortable, and receiving people includes giving them the space to sometimes do a little bit more than you would feel comfortable with.

Paying attention to them and not being in a performance state of mind means that you are more concerned with how the guest feels and how the things in your home make them feel, rather than you being worried about it messing them up.

Next, let’s talk about how to do this practically. There are small details that communicate belonging.

For example, if you remember someone’s favorite drink or you remember their favorite food. And so you decide to make it for when they’re coming over. Or if you know that two of your friends who haven’t met have very similar interests, so you seat them next to each other. Those are all ways of communicating attention that do not require you directly paying attention to what someone is saying in that moment.

The truth is, if you are having four or five people over or more than that, you cannot necessarily be paying attention to everyone at once. So preparing these small details in advance beforehand, not as a way of communicating how good of a host you are, but as a way of communicating that you see your guests even when you’re not directly talking to them. Those are a beautiful way of showing that you are paying attention, and those make people feel like they belong.

Ultimately, that is the goal of attention, to show people that they belong and they belong in this environment you created. Another way that is oftentimes the thing we think of when we think of giving attention is conversation is absolutely an act of hospitality and a fundamental part of it.

Things like asking the next question or making sure the quiet person is involved, not immediately relating every story back to yourself, but staying focused on the other person or remembering something that they told you a few weeks ago, and following up on that, those acts of paying attention in conversation make someone feel welcomed and they make someone feel loved and they make someone feel noticed.

While there are things about parties that make them delightful, while there are things about hosting that makes it delightful, and while there are things that give hosting permanence, we talked about those in the past few weeks. Whimsy makes it delightful and memory gives it permanence. But the attention that you give people is what really, really makes them feel loved.

Additionally, hosting requires us to look peripherally. You are simultaneously participating in conversations, but also participating in the whole room. You are watching to make sure that everyone has someone to talk to, that no one is stranded.

You’re seeing who keeps trying to speak. Does someone need another glass of water? Who in the room should meet?

And those things are all very hard to do, but they’re ultimately all the same thing. They’re ultimately all just acts of paying attention. They’re all just acts of not only paying attention to what someone is saying, but the deeper level of what does someone need, what will make them feel taken care of in this moment.

And finally, when you’re looking at what paying attention does, paying attention creates the building blocks for some of the things that we’ve talked about previously. Paying attention creates delight.

Paying attention creates people feeling that small joy of just delight and attention creates remembrance because people remember feeling seen. This is why I always say the most important thing to any gathering is an emotionally present host.

Because if you were not emotionally present, you will never be able to pay attention to people. And people will not come and feel received and feel welcomed. They will feel like they milled about a gathering for a few hours.

So next time that you’re hosting, my challenge to you is to pay attention to people while they’re there, but also prepare yourself in a way that makes people paid attention, feel paid attention to even before they get there.

Lay out people’s favorite candies or favorite snacks. Lay out the things that you know people like. Wear something that communicates that you remembered a conversation you had with your friend about fashion a few weeks ago.

Make sure to remember those tiny details, because those are ways that you can pay attention even when you’re not in conversation. And that ultimately will make people feel loved in gatherings and it will make them feel seen. All right.

We’ll see you next week on the Kings Table Company podcast.

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Transcript:

Welcome to the King's Table Company podcast, where we talk about all things hosting and practicing hospitality from a Christian perspective.

I'm your host, Meg Foster, and today we're going to talk about hosting and hospitality being whimsical. A few weeks ago, we talked about the fact that hosting doesn't always have to be extravagant. Sometimes your limitations can be something that really, really allows you to host well and to host in the way that God needs you to in a season.

However, there is a time for everything.

The Bible tells us that in Ecclesiastes 3:11. And so there is a time for the simple gathering, for just inviting someone in, for receiving people well, but there’s also time for the extravagant and let’s talk about doing the extravagant well in order to talk about the extravagant, I think we need to talk about what God sees as the extravagant.

When God created the earth, he created it with so many different things. He created it with land, sea, sky, and animals for each of those different environments, plants for each of those different environments, God created individual blades of grass and individual flowers.

We see God’s attention to detail just a little bit later in the Bible as well. When an artisan is the first person he imbues with the Holy Spirit, and then God gives extremely specific instructions for the detail of the tabernacle.

God creates beauty through detail, and detail is an act of worship to the creator. We even see this in church history. If you go and you look at cathedrals in Europe, they have beautiful artwork depicting stories of Scripture. These pieces of art were always designed not only to be educational, to show the story of Scripture to people who otherwise wouldn’t see it, but they were also designed to be an act of worship. Nobody would see the nook and cranny in the top of the roof of the cathedral besides God. And so the artist painted it for the glory of God.

So why do these details matter? Details convey attention, and attention is one of the most valuable tools in your hospitality tool belt. There is so much beauty in this world that God created that’s not strictly utilitarian, and it becomes really, really easy to become a utilitarian.

As a host, a guest needs water, a chair, and your undivided attention— divided attention if you have multiple guests— but you get the point. There is so much in hospitality that can be done above and beyond that. And if that is all you have for one day, that is okay. But let’s talk about using detail and using whimsy to communicate attention.

So the point of having details is not to communicate that you found this perfect Pinterest board, or that you can develop the perfect aesthetic. It’s not about being impressive.

Hospitality is whimsy is the overflow of attention and abundance from God to make something delightful. Delightful communicates attention because it is about remembering things about your guests and doing things that you know that they would delight in if you were putting your effort towards hospitality, I would strongly urge you to consider what is important to your guests and what will make your guests feel seen and perceived, because that will go so much further than any Pinterest board, any perfect aesthetic, anything, quote, quote, perfect ever will.

If you remember that one of your friends has a favorite childhood snack and you’re throwing a childhood nostalgia party, make an effort to track that snack down and to set it out. If someone communicates that they love eating some cherries while they’re eating dessert at dinner, make sure to have a bowl of cherries on the table.

Whimsy isn’t perfection. It’s specificity. It is so nice to enjoy something just because it is lovely. And it shows that someone thought about you. And as the host in your planning process, you can communicate that you were paying attention to people.

In fact, that even takes some of the burden off of you at the gathering.

If you know that you’re a person who will be running around the kitchen, grabbing waters, grabbing a bunch of different things for your guests, having these pre-planned details that shows them that you are seen here makes them feel seen, even if you cannot be sitting down having a conversation with them. That’s why it is so, so important to remember them in the details.

Now let’s talk about some details that you can add, because not everything necessarily has to come from the perspective of, oh, I know that they will enjoy this because they’ve mentioned it before. Things can also come from the perspective of, oh, I know that they will enjoy this because I know that it is something that they will find delight in. People can find delight in a lot of variety of things, even things that they haven’t vocalized.

So what is important to know is the essence of your guest and the things that they typically enjoy. There are things that you can do to communicate delight. For example, if you had a candle that you were saving for a special occasion, pull it out when you’re hosting people.

If you have a bunch of ideas for puns on your friend’s name, make a bunch of place cards that use those puns. If you have three or four friends coming and it’s one of their birthdays soon, name a signature drink after that friend, have flowers on the table even though flowers die after a few days.

Hosting and giving people attention is not about the utility of giving people the bare amount of attention, or giving people the amount of attention that you think is necessary. Abundance and delight is about lavishing people with attention and saying, you are fully received here.

You were fully seen here and you are fully loved here. And that includes not being utilitarian and doing things that seem in excess or above. But it is so, so important to make sure that people feel loved and seen when you’re hosting them.

We also have to remember that in the Gospels, Jesus was abundant in the wedding at Cana when Jesus turned barrels of water into wine. Jesus doesn’t turn the barrels of water into the cheap wine. At the end of the party, he turns it into beautiful, lovely wine. When you have the ability, when God has provided for you to be able to provide something good for other people, the answer to that is to often rest in God’s abundance.

Hospitality is an act of abundance.

It is saying, I have the space to receive you. I have all of this abundance and I want you to come fill it. It is saying, I know your cup is empty and I have an overflow in my cup, so I want to fill yours.

That is often what hospitality is about, and that’s why hospitality becomes so whimsical, because it’s not about utilitarianism, it’s about abundance, and it is about delight, and it is about making things fun.

So if you have people coming over feel the freedom to do that ridiculous thing. Another thing I want to address here is it can be so easy to turn whimsy and delight into consumerism, thinking that you have to get new plates and new decor for every single gathering. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to buy a ton of things. There are a lot of creative things that don’t cost anything.

For example, everybody loves a handwritten note. If you write a handwritten note to every guest beforehand, you’re not going to spend a lot of money doing that. But that will be something that makes your guests feel seen, and it will make them feel like they’re reaping in the abundance of your life, and they’re not going to forget that.

It can be making a crazy centerpiece out of all of the fruit that you have in your house. It may feel crazy to do in the moment. It may feel like something that is overly silly, but if you know your guests would look at it and enjoy it, and it would be a talking piece, and it would be something that would increase the joy of people at your party, then it is something worth doing.

It is picking a theme. One theme that I’ve loved lately is the I have nowhere to wear this dinner party where everyone wears an outfit that they otherwise have nowhere to wear. That is an extremely fun theme that doesn’t cost anything on behalf of the host or the guest. Some people may wear a ridiculous vintage dress they have, while other people may wear a full diving suit. There is so much room for whimsy there, and that is something that guests don’t forget.

And the reason I want to say that is because there is a big danger of making hospitality impressive instead of delightful. A question to ask yourself when you’re doing these heart checks is this detail? Is this overflow of abundance designed to make my guests smile and feel seen, or is it designed to make them feel impressed with me. Two people could do the same detail, and one could be designed to serve their guests, and one could be designed to serve them.

Which is why hospitality is really all about heart posture. It is all about am I doing this so that I am more seen, or am I doing this so other people feel more seen?

For a practical challenge, I would like to invite you to add one completely unnecessary act of delight or whimsy to your next gathering. You don’t have to do ten things. You don’t have to overwhelm yourself, but do one thing well that will bring a smile to your guest’s face that will make them feel seen. That will make them feel like you truly know them. Because hospitality asks what would be wonderful, not just what is required.

Thank you for listening and we’ll see you next week.

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Welcome to the King’s Table Company podcast, where we talk about all things hosting and how to have a Christian heart posture in hospitality. I’m your host, Meg Foster, and today we’re talking about how to create conversation that moves beyond small talk and to make your tables really, really meaningful in that meaningful conversation is something that people oftentimes think happens by accident, but that’s really not the case.

A good conversation, one that people remember, one that people feel relaxed during. They feel like it is witty, yet it has emotional and intellectual depth. Those usually happen because of effort and guiding from the host of the conversation. Good conversation is not controlled, rather, the conversation is guided by what it needs, which is then cultivated by the host. So let’s talk about why good conversation matters and how to cultivate it as a host.

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this week’s transcript:

Welcome to the King’s Table Company podcast. I’m your host, Meg Foster. And here we’re going to talk about all the things that you can do to make your home more welcoming, to have deeper theological conversations, and to ultimately make people feel more loved. Hospitality and hosting are ultimately a way to invite people in and really, truly, at the end of the day, to invite people into the Kingdom of God. So we’re so glad you’re here and let’s get into it.

Today’s topic is: Hosting is Not Performing and How to make your Guests feel Truly Welcome.

In the Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok era of hosting we have so often built our hosting backwards, we have built it upside down. Hosting is something that can either fall into the category of entertaining or hospitality, and there are purposes for both.

However, as a Christian host, your bread and butter is going to be hospitality over entertaining. Entertaining is providing stimulation, making something look impressive. Whereas hospitality asks, “does this person who I am seeing here, did they see themselves as the image of God here? Did they feel welcomed in? Did they feel included? Do they feel the love of God in this place? And are we being known by our love for each other in this place?” So let’s talk about it.

Now, I want to start with the caveat that entertaining is not always bad. There is a need for grand events in life and your events that are hospitality. They can also be entertainment. They can also be impressive. They can be something that looks beautiful on an Instagram post or a Pinterest board. The Lord appreciates beauty. He made the tabernacle beautiful. The first person imbued with the Holy Spirit was an artisan. But your hospitality doesn’t have to be. Your hospitality can be as simple as inviting a person over for a cup of coffee in your messy home, where things are always together. You don’t even have to have fresh coffee or fresh snacks. If you can make that person feel welcomed in and invited, and oftentimes people just want to be invited.

So how do we make a person feel safe, included, and cared for? The number one way is by inviting inviters. I always say that when I’m hosting an event, when I’m having people over, it is not just important to invite in the people who I know need to be invited, and I know need to feel like a part of the group, but to also invite in other people who will make them feel welcome. To really make a guest list of people who will love to be around each other, who will welcome each other in and care for each other. And the reason I say this is the entire responsibility of welcoming is not on the host. It is also on the guests. It is on the people who are frequently around. Because hospitality should be infectious. Hospitality should be something that other people are inspired to do, if you’re doing it in a way that glorifies God.

Next, I want to say that perfection can work against connection. Once again, this goes back to the point that people want to be invited. And honestly, people may relax more around a slightly messy, genuinely present host than someone who is incredibly anxious because every detail has to be perfect. A lot of times what people want is your full attention, and you can never give people your full attention if you’re very, very concerned about every detail. So I would encourage you to make people feel welcomed. Let go and look at your guests. Look at the people you’re hosting. Look at the people you’re inviting in.

More so than this: If you are concerned about all of the details in your head, and you are more focused on those than the guests, you are ultimately not going to be able to pay enough attention to your guests to notice what’s important to them. It is very, very important when you host, when you invite people in, when you’re hospitable to truly notice their needs. There are so, so many selfish hosts. There are so many people who want to host in a way that says, look at me. But the best hosts, the ones that glorify God the most and the ones that truly welcome people in, look at their guests. They’re attentive to their needs and It doesn’t matter to them if it comes off slightly messy, as long as they know every person who walks into their home or space will feel incredibly welcome.

And then the third thing is: people actually remember feeling welcomed. They may forget the centerpiece, or the exact dessert item, but they do remember if you open the door, they do remember if you drew them into conversation, or introduce them to a new friend. They do remember feeling either wanted or unwanted there. They remember if they were comfortable. And that can come from a lot of different things, a lot of different practical things. Being comfortable involves having enough seating, making sure you have enough food and drinks, making sure those things are accessible because people remember if they felt awkward taking care of their needs at your house.

People want to feel like they can take care of the things that they need to take care of, and ultimately, if they can, they’re going to be more relaxed and they’re going to connect with people. Because beautiful tables and beautiful decorations can invite someone in, but the way that we see them, the way that we welcome them, the way that we make space for them in a gathering that they may be nervous at, that they may not know what to do at. Those are going to be the things that remember they remember. Those are going to be the things that they want to come back for.

So I would encourage you: host, make it messy. Know what your capacity is for observing people. Know what your capacity is for inviting people, and having enough food, and having enough drinks, and having enough seating. Know what all of those things are. And I would encourage you, just invite someone in. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be a Pinterest aesthetic, but invite someone in, make them feel seen, make them feel welcomed and beautiful. Beautiful things will happen from that.

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