How the Gospel Creates Space for Hospitality

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Welcome to Grace at the Fray, a podcast that explores the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life. Come explore how God’s grace works to renew your life and send you on mission in His kingdom.

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0:00:22.4 Jim Lovelady: Hello, beloved. Welcome to Grace at the Fray, welcome. I bet, and I’m not certain about this, but I’m fairly confident that if you open your Bible, whatever page you turn to, you’ll find some mention of food. And there is something about a good meal with good company and fellowship that makes you feel like, man, everything is going to be okay. And I bet you could probably tell some really great stories of how you were welcomed into someone’s home and how they treated you like royalty and fed you to the best of their ability and maybe you stayed at their house and you lived with them for a time. And I know I’ve had those experiences many times from people who seem to just have this extraordinary gift for hospitality. When I was in Kenya visiting Serge Missionaries last year, we went from one place of gracious and generous hospitality to another. One day some Kenyans at an orphanage invited me to take water with them. And I thought, “Okay, well, sure, I’m thirsty, I could use some water.” But what they meant by take water together was let’s have a feast together on stewed goat and amazing rice dish and vegetables and the largest avocados that you’ve ever seen. Or recently, we were invited to a friend’s house where she served us this beautiful five-course meal and we finished it off with her husband’s famous homemade ice cream. It was elegant and humble and full of joy to fellowship together around the table. Or like my neighbors who are constantly inviting people over for dinner. And if you need to borrow even the most random thing that you could ever think of, they’ve got it. Oh, and hey, bro, if you’re listening, I still have your chop saw and your axe and your car battery. But think about all the times you’ve been welcomed by someone and how you were treated like royalty. Odds are it involved food. And why is that? I think a good meal is the quintessential symbol for the art of hospitality. And I don’t mean that the food has to be amazing or high quality. I mean, I had a really great meal with friends one time at a restaurant in Madrid where I had beef lung and it was gross. And you may like beef lung, but it’s gross, okay? That food was not good, but the meal was great because it was wonderful fellowship and wonderful conversation and sharing life together. It was the cultivation of shalom. Offering hospitality is literally a taste of the kingdom, and the Bible makes a strong case that a major aspect of what it means to be a Christian is showing hospitality, to welcome the stranger into your world, to help those who are in need. God is a generous and welcoming God. The end of Psalm 18 says this, He reached down from on high. He took me, He drew me out of deep waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me, they confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place, He rescued me because He delighted in me. And of course, Psalm 23 should come to your mind, right? You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. So to practice hospitality is to practice the things of God. If we’ve been invited into this spacious place to experience the delight of God, hospitality is all about building that space for others too. How can we bring others into that spacious place where we’re free to experience the generosity and the delight of God? Well, my guests today have a lot to say about the art of hospitality. They’re Stephen and Karis Rigby, Serge Missionaries in Nairobi who have taken God’s call to show hospitality very seriously and their intentionality in this area has been very helpful for me, and I know it will be for you too. Come get a taste of the kingdom of God in the art of hospitality.

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0:04:33.0 Stephen Rigby: Yeah, Stephen and Karis Rigby, we are missionaries in Nairobi, Kenya. We are team leaders with one of our teams there. Yeah, we’re here hanging out with you for a little bit today.

0:04:47.8 Jim Lovelady: I am so glad that you guys sort of said yes. When we hung out while I was in Nairobi, it was toward the end of my trip, toward the end of my two weeks, and it was this beautiful time where you’re like, “Hey, come over for dinner and then we’ll chat about what we want to talk about for the podcast.” And that evening was wonderful because it was like, okay, here’s this amazing meal. So we eat together and then we pray together and we tell good night stories to the kids, and then we go down and we have a wonderful conversation, which I wish that we had recorded that one. But it was in that evening, where I was like, oh, these people are practicing hospitality, these people have just invited me into their home. You didn’t know who I was, like, does he really work for Serge? [laughter] And you just let Alan and I participate with what y’all were doing in life. It was really cool. I was watching you, I was watching you.

[laughter] Things like, oh, I don’t have anything in the fridge, I’ll figure something out. And you whipped up some like, oh, I got some leftover squash thing, let me go out in the garden and saute it. Do you remember what it was? You sauteed something that you had growing in the garden, it wasn’t the hallucinogenic flowers that are growing back there.

0:06:11.8 Karis Rigby: No.

0:06:12.4 Jim Lovelady: Stay away from those. Don’t touch them.

0:06:12.5 Karis Rigby: Don’t touch those flowers.

0:06:14.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Hey, Jim, don’t touch those flowers.

[laughter]

0:06:16.7 Karis Rigby: I’m so glad you remember the important things.

[laughter]

0:06:21.8 Jim Lovelady: So I want to talk about hospitality because y’all are the team leaders of one of the two teams in Nairobi. And there’s a specific challenge in that and you have a family and you have your specific ministries. I gather that you’re doing it all with this sense of wanting to participate with people, wanting people to participate with you in practicing hospitality, right? 

0:06:50.0 Karis Rigby: Yeah.

0:06:50.8 Jim Lovelady: So I’m going to give you a Rosaria Butterfield quote because when I read this, I was like, “Oh, this is the Rigbys.” I’m going to say it and then you just tell me what you think about this, okay? Ready? Here we go. Hospitality, it’s not entertaining, it’s being welcoming, gathering, being open to people seeing you live life before them. You don’t schedule hospitality, you schedule entertainment like, “Hey, come on over, come on over at this time.” But hospitality is just always.” Alright. What do you think about that? 

0:07:26.8 Karis Rigby: I think it’s true. Yeah. It’s interesting. Over the years, we had come up with our core family values and one is beauty, one is wholeness. And for a long time hospitality was kind of hanging out there and then it eventually we landed on truth as the third one. And, but I say that because hospitality, we found it was so central to who we were and wanting to invite people into that and almost how those paired together of wanting to invite people into those journeys of seeing beauty, of becoming more whole and of pursuing truth. So I think the reason hospitality got removed from the value thing is because it is like a…

0:08:25.8 Stephen Rigby: An outflow.

0:08:26.5 Karis Rigby: An outflow of…

0:08:27.7 Jim Lovelady: Oh, interesting.

0:08:28.5 Karis Rigby: Where those are. So what I like in the quote is we found that to be true, because if we limit hospitality to being event oriented, then it might never happen. Because you’re trying to create an experience instead of invite people to do life with you.

0:08:54.3 Stephen Rigby: Yeah. And I think the welcoming people into like the mess, we’ve got four small kids, you’re coming over, it’s not… Our house is not going to be polished.

0:09:09.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. It was a circus.

0:09:11.7 Stephen Rigby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a circus and hopefully it’s a fun, entertaining circus. I feel like we’ve experienced that from others, we’ve had feedback about that of watching people interact in that I think is some of the beauty. It’s the how do you go with the ups and downs of a three-year-old that has a tantrum but then is the hug monster. That’s our current reality right now.

0:09:35.0 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:09:36.4 Stephen Rigby: And there’s something to be able to invite friends and others into some of that kind of slice of our family. We think is such a rich blessing for our kids, I think it’s a rich blessing for us, I think it’s a rich blessing for people coming in.

0:09:53.7 Jim Lovelady: Absolutely.

0:09:54.0 Stephen Rigby: And it’s deep joys and celebrating. But it’s lots of tears, it’s lots of the heartaches, the… It’s all wrapped up. So it’s not just, yeah, more holistic than like, oh, entertainment, have a nice meal, we have a fun conversation and that’s it. I feel like the richest, warmest meals have been around the aches, like the longing, like the…

0:10:22.7 Jim Lovelady: The real raw.

0:10:23.0 Stephen Rigby: The longing, the groaning for I want this to change or there’s something that we long to see and we’re talking about that. That to me comes out of just kind of opening up your lives and stories and yeah.

0:10:42.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. I love that it was a value, but then it was like, well, actually, these are the values and then the fruit of this is going to be this energy outward to love the other, to love the stranger. And what I think is really interesting is how y’all are sojourning in this place that you weren’t born in Kenya, you weren’t born in Nairobi, you came there and you have been living there for a long time. But the desire is to be a welcoming person like, here we are, here we are, we’re strangers here. We want to welcome the strangers. Do you think… Does that make sense? 

0:11:23.5 Karis Rigby: Yeah, it evokes the memory of… Well, actually we have several memories. Stephen brought up one from ages ago when we first moved into our apartment.

0:11:33.7 Stephen Rigby: Oh, yeah.

0:11:34.5 Karis Rigby: And he’s like, remember when we brought cookies to the Korean family and nobody except the seven year old could speak English. And it was just like, I think one of Stephen’s philosophies is, or things that he shares a lot with when we have younger interns or apprentices or even the coaches, but it definitely translates with our interns. He tells them, “You’ve just got to be awkward,” and it’s like the stepping out and inviting, crossing some of those lines sometimes means embracing that awkwardness. So you never know, someone might feel awkward when you say, oh, the kids want you to come up and help sing the song, or it’s like they don’t know the song or they’ve never had that experience in their family. But I do love how the children, they expect it and they love it and it cultivates, I think of that idea of sometimes we think of a sacred space as being private and instead expanding it to be like sacred space can be communal.

0:12:41.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:12:42.0 Karis Rigby: And inviting other people into that sacred space is like a special thing to do. And it’s part of then using our… Instead of our season being a hindrance to what we want to do, it’s the backdrop for what we want to do.

0:13:03.5 Jim Lovelady: Children don’t distract you from the work, they are the work. There’s something, I feel like, that a mentor of mine was…That makes sense.

0:13:12.7 Karis Rigby: Yeah.

0:13:12.8 Stephen Rigby: Was deeply encouraging, like this is not…

0:13:15.9 Karis Rigby: This is your calling right now.

0:13:16.7 Stephen Rigby: This doesn’t take you away from ministry and your work, like you are living it out and practicing it and experiencing it with your kids and in your family. And it’s just, it’s not separate. But yeah, I think that was…

0:13:32.8 Karis Rigby: So, yeah.

0:13:33.0 Stephen Rigby: That might be the quote.

0:13:34.0 Karis Rigby: I think that and love is not efficient. And for right now, for us, it’s not having elderly parents or people at a later stage, it’s having people at a way younger stage.

0:13:45.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah. How old are your kids again? 

0:13:47.5 Karis Rigby: One, three, five and seven.

0:13:50.7 Jim Lovelady: That’s why what you’re inviting people into is a raw, crazy, crazy thing. Yeah. Like when you came downstairs, “Hey, the kids really want you guys to come up and sing with us.” “Okay. What song? “It’s one that you don’t know.”[laughter] “Just sing it.”

0:14:06.7 Karis Rigby: Just…

0:14:07.4 Stephen Rigby: Yeah. It doesn’t matter.

0:14:08.7 Karis Rigby: Just say watermelon. But yeah. Well, and I think you have the lovely side of the children being like, well, of course, aren’t they going to come? And we have Owen in particular, it’s his wiring to want to include every living person that he encounters into his circle of community. But we have our eldest daughter, it takes her more time. And so you… It’s cultivating these things with your kids while practicing it with others and you can’t control what the end product is. And so I think… So going back to what you said, I think of how when we moved into our… Not our current, but our previous home and we went over to the neighbors and introduced ourselves.

0:15:04.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, where was… So in Nairobi? 

0:15:06.7 Karis Rigby: In Nairobi, in the city, and we were in a four row houses and we went next door and we introduced ourselves and maybe brought over a baked good. They said, “Oh, we should be welcoming you as the new neighbors.” But they were just honest. They’re like, “But we don’t know what Mzungus like. There are just…

0:15:27.7 Jim Lovelady: Like foreigners? 

0:15:28.0 Karis Rigby: Yeah.

0:15:28.7 Stephen Rigby: White foreigner, we don’t know what you’re supposed to do.

0:15:30.5 Karis Rigby: We don’t know what you like. And but really rapidly that was reciprocated and we started that relationship. And I think that that posture of being willing to be awkward, whether you’re with people who don’t speak the same language or whether you might make a faux pas, which I’m sure we have. But because the point isn’t that event it is to invite into each other’s messiness and get to know someone, it releases some of the pressure of having to wait for the perfect moment or organic moment. It’s just knowing, hey, what you said, a stranger is simply another human who I don’t know yet.

0:16:17.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah.

0:16:18.7 Karis Rigby: Who’s longing for connection. And so I think for us practicing that with our kids to cultivate in their own minds and space. And so I think of our daughter who is more overwhelmed with new people, new situations. And we talked early on, because in Kenya there’s a high value for greeting and she didn’t want to greet. And it was that balancing of saying it’s okay that you’re shy and that God has wired you this way, but you can always be kind.

0:16:52.8 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:16:53.5 Karis Rigby: And when we greet someone, it’s identifying that they have been made in God’s image and we’re dignifying them with this hello. And so I think that we because we know it’s not prescriptive, hey, do hospitality as the Rigbys do. We knew that can look different for everybody and it will look different for our children. But we’re inviting them in this season into how we model that and the underlying bigger pictures of beauty, wholeness and…

0:17:27.8 Stephen Rigby: Truth.

0:17:27.8 Karis Rigby: Truth and how we get to be part of doing that and inviting other people into that so.

0:17:35.0 Stephen Rigby: It’s interesting when I think about this of there are people that we are in regular community with. So there were three single ladies that were our dear friends and when Abigail was born, we recognized the significance of their friendship in our lives and our hope for what that would look like with our kids. And I think for me they’re obviously great friends with Karis, but they’re good friends with us and I think I felt this kind of burden of how do I get to honor their friendship? So we like sat down with each of them individually and that like, “We appreciate you, your voice, your presence in our family, in our friendship, in our marriage and with our kids. Will you be an auntie?” And just…

0:18:31.0 Jim Lovelady: That’s your way of…

0:18:32.1 Stephen Rigby: That was like…

0:18:33.0 Jim Lovelady: Figuring out how to welcome her into life.

0:18:37.7 Stephen Rigby: Like a formal, almost like, not ceremony.

0:18:38.3 Karis Rigby: Intentional.

0:18:42.4 Stephen Rigby: But like intentionality of we want to name what’s good, and invite you to fully step into that, and we’re opening up our home for that and that’s not every friend of ours. But for those three friendships in particular, what kind of blossomed out of that have just been some deeply beautiful, meaningful years of friendship and seasons have changed, and two of them aren’t living in Kenya right now, so one’s gotten married and now we’ve got an uncle, so it’s kinda like there’s the ebb and flow and the movement of community.

0:19:23.4 Jim Lovelady: It’s as dynamic as life itself.

0:19:23.8 Stephen Rigby: But still it is just like there’s that intentionality. And then I think there are other evenings that I can think of, and the one that comes to mind is a short term team that was coming through and they had gone into the slums that day, and it was their first exposure ever to that, just that type of poverty, and they’d gone through with some of kind of my colleagues, some of the guys I work with, so they came out and clearly were processing, it’s just all the emotions kind of trying to figure out what to do. So we cooked them this… Karis cooked this beautiful meal that took the heightened emotions, all this that was there, and then brought like comfort and peace that then allowed for this fascinating conversation that was just this space to hear stories and to process and we got to ask questions and they asked us questions. And again, I feel like it’s that cultivating these moments where you really are kind of like encountering beauty and wholeness and truth, like this intersection of these things, but there’s… I think that’s, it was like a one-off evening that never was repeated. But they still will talk about it, us kind of opening up our home, our lives, our giftings and the intentionality of the space even that we’ve created and different things to allow for kind of, let’s see what God does in this space, and we’ve just seen God do some pretty spectacular things.

0:21:07.4 Jim Lovelady: My wife is very introverted. I am 51% extrovert, I love talking with people, love it, and then I going to go sleep or just… So how do you take someone who’s 51% extroverted and with a wife who’s very introverted, shy, like your daughter, and you go, okay, well, we’re still commanded, like there are all these commands in the Bible to be hospitable, to show hospitality, to show kindness to strangers, we’re commanded to dignify people who are image bearers. You bear the image of God, I want to dignify that. Man, this is really hard. So how does the gospel free me to do that regardless of my temperament? 

0:22:00.9 Karis Rigby: I mean, I think the first thing is, I go back to saying it absolutely looks different for everybody, and that’s part of the beauty because someone might be more overwhelmed in our home and less overwhelmed in yours, the way that we host or the way that we engage, or quite simply our tolerance for noise level in the Rigby home is quite high. So I think what you’re talking about is that bigger picture calling of what does it look like to have the eyes to see those who need to be invited into your space. I think the gospel more frees us in that we don’t have to be something that we’re not. And so an introvert might be welcoming another introvert. But extroverted or introverted, having a space where you see another person, you dignify them, some people will be able to stay through bedtime, some people will need to leave right after the meal, whatever it is, it’s fostering that space of connecting as humans in a daily, and I think that’s why I joke and say, what’s one more warm body? I have a hard time saying no, ’cause it’s like, yeah, I’m cooking dinner, I’m sure there’ll be room for one more, or there’ll be, and we had recently a friend, it was, now I can’t remember, but say that, that and we thought.

0:23:43.9 Stephen Rigby: That’s right, yeah.

0:23:48.1 Karis Rigby: We’ve been grown in this in Kenya. She said, “My mother always said there’d be enough, and there always was,” and part of that is because in Kenya culture, you don’t come empty handed, so there is always enough. And so again, I think that we had gifts from our parents who were very hospitable, and we do tend to be more extroverted, so it’s stewarding some of what God has equipped us with, but then we’re in a culture that like if you read scripture and it seems foreign, right? You talked about this in your podcast with Ben Nihart of how some of these stories come to life in Kenya, the stuff about hospitality comes to life. You’ll have people who say, stay the night I’m baking you bread, do not stop, everything stops for the guest in a way that just doesn’t happen in the same way often in western culture. So I think we’ve been pushed in of like what you’re saying, oh, if there’s nothing in the fridge, but there’s always something, we’ll make it work. And so I think that when we start shifting the mindset which I don’t think we intentionally think of it as a performance before other people, but if we’re not worried about what people are thinking about us, and we’re willing even to come and say, oh, I loved to have you, I’m tired, I’ve been talking to people all day, but you know what? Come and be with my tired version, you know? 

0:25:27.7 Jim Lovelady: Come on, yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:25:29.4 Karis Rigby: Then it’s freeing to say, and, and that’s where you start getting into that real life, and I believe whether you’re extroverted or introverted, when you start creating that authentic and transparent space of where we’re not just willing to be with people when we’re the best versions of ourselves, then, oh, lo and behold, other people are welcome to come when they’re not the best versions of themselves, and you get to actually have meaningful communion in that space together.

0:26:06.9 Jim Lovelady: Oh, I love that.

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0:26:09.6 Jim Lovelady: I want to pause this conversation and invite you to join us in prayer for the Serge field workers that we at the headquarters here in Philadelphia are praying for each week. We meet on Tuesday and Friday mornings to pray. And this week and next week, we’re praying for the teams in Peru and Romania. So would you pray with me. Lord we pray your blessing over these folks, give them joy in their work, in your kingdom, and the pleasure of your joy as they follow you. Give them wisdom and let your grace abound in their relationships with one another, with family members and children, and with the people they serve, heal the sicknesses, liberate the enslaved. Protect them from the powers and principalities of darkness and restore the joy of your salvation. Let your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we pray in your name, amen. Now, back to the conversation. The Instagram algorithm, if I go hashtag hospitality, turns into pastels of white tablecloth and lace and teacups. 

0:27:21.0 Karis Rigby: I love a good teacup.

0:27:25.9 Stephen Rigby: That’s true.

0:27:26.0 Karis Rigby: I have the teacups.

0:27:26.6 Stephen Rigby: You know our house, you know our house, yeah yeah, lots of teacups.

0:27:29.7 Jim Lovelady: What I think is wonderful about what you’re describing is you go, “Hey, you know what? The gospel has shaped my understanding of what it means to be a welcoming person in accordance with my gifts, and the good news is that Jesus is going to work in the middle of whatever my gifts are in the context that I’m in, for the benefit of this person that I am freed to seek the benefit of, because I’m not looking for anything from them,” that’s what that destroys hospitality, is when I’m looking for a way to get something out of this person, it’s over. But when you’re free from needing anything, all you want to do is pursue that person. Well, contrast that with the supposed good news of the Instagram hashtag hospitality feeds that say, “This is what it looks like,” and everyone just goes, “I can’t do it,” and you just live in the shame, you live in the disappointment, and then it turns into a fantasy world that you just live in where you’re like, “I’m not actually being hospitable, I’m just staring at teacups all day,” or whatever it may be, and so I love that you’re declaring this freedom where it’s like, “Look, if you’re an introvert, maybe you’re going to attract an introvert, figure out what it means to love others as you.”

0:28:53.5 Karis Rigby: Yeah. And what I would say with that too, and this is where I connected with the story about my daughter. It was really easy for her to look and say, “Oh, Owen’s friendly, I’m shy,” and I’m like, okay, so now you’re pitting two things against each other, so someone might go, oh, so and so’s hospitable, and I just really more of, I’m introverted and I like my space or something. And when we take hospitality away from that biblical context and make it like traits and I’m not saying it’s not that there are some people… There are people who are gifted at practicing it more naturally, but there’s people who are more naturally generous and we’re all called to be generous. And all these different things, and so instead of looking and slating it, like that person has the corner market on that and that, and I’m just not going to shine in that.

0:29:57.9 Karis Rigby: And then that also inhibits, comparison kills community. We all are going to display and engage in different ways that are going to connect with different people in different ways. And so some person, and we have, it’s been, and that’s why I say it’s that hidden role of part of our ministry life, we’ve had a couple of people come and say, “I really didn’t think I ever wanted to get married, and then I hung out with your family for the summer, and I was like, okay, maybe I could do that,” and I was like, “Well, Jesus works in mysterious ways,” ’cause it’s not like we’re putting on anything.

0:30:40.5 Stephen Rigby: Oh, you looked at marriage? 

0:30:42.0 Karis Rigby: We are just invited you in. Or seeing you relate with your kids, and I see a lot of people, hover parenting or helicopter parenting and you just do it in a different way and again, you’re like, praise the Lord that you see something different than it encourages you, but it’s not everybody who comes into our home says that, and someone else goes to someone else’s home and they see something that they really, so it’s like if it’s that mosaic of hospitality and we need all the hues, and so the Rigbys might be deep blues and I pick my favorite color.

0:31:29.1 Stephen Rigby: I was going to say where are you going with that.

[laughter]

0:31:31.4 Karis Rigby: But gosh, what’s blue without the contrast of yellow? And so, you’re right. Get us long enough talking, we will say the word intentional and talk about that all day, because intentional is not necessarily organized, intentional is not getting it right all the time, but it’s that posture, and so I just think Christ invites all of us into this posture, and so for us, we early on knew, oh, we have all these facets of football ministry and the internship and plugging in our church, but it comes back to this transparency of what Jesus is doing in our lives, and of course, loads of those spaces, the best place to talk about that is over a good meal, or would be my hospitality journey an okay meal, that’s what will hang me up, I’ll be like, haha, I’m not prepared. Okay. I can only throw together these things. And there’s people on my team that I have a lot of appreciation for because that won’t hang them up, they’re like, “Well, we’ll just order a pizza.” I’m like, “Okay, I can order pizza.” Permission to not have to cook and still be hospitable, and so we all have our different things of what you would like to have, and if that stuff starts inhibiting us, and 100% I’ll tell you, I want to be known as a good cook, I enjoy being known as a good cook. Am I going to let that inhibit? I’m not prepared, I have to order pizza, now am I going to let that inhibit having that fellowship with people? That’s a real shame, that’s the cart going before the horse.

0:33:12.1 Jim Lovelady: Exactly.

0:33:15.9 Karis Rigby: And we all have those things that we get to… And I’ll tell you what, four kids are going to make you order pizza sometimes.

0:33:21.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah. I love that you see that in yourself because there’s a tendency to, well, you know, we don’t want to admit those things, but it’s worth celebrating. You are a good cook, been there, you know? 

0:33:36.2 Stephen Rigby: Yeah, cheers.

0:33:39.5 Jim Lovelady: And worth celebrating. And then for you to say, “Well I do want to be a good cook, and I do want to be known as a good cook.” We should be celebrating that, and only you before the face of God can know when the line has been crossed into an idolatry, you want to be known as a good coach, you want to be known as a good shepherd. You want to be known as a good team leader, and those are all… None of those are bad things, there’s a moment at which when we go, when we stop being open, open handed with it, that’s when it’s like, oh, you’re going to take this good thing and because of your idolatry, you’re going to miss out on the opportunity to actually be a blessing, so that ordering pizza turns into actually the blessing because you go, oh, well I like that, but it’s not going to rule over me, the Lord is liberating me from this, and here’s that moment where Jesus goes, do you want to practice being liberated? I guess so, order some pizza.

0:34:44.3 Karis Rigby: Yeah, or being known as a good parent.

0:34:47.8 Jim Lovelady: All those things.

0:34:49.5 Karis Rigby: And having good kids, but if we wanted that, then we’d never have anybody invited over.

0:34:52.3 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:34:54.2 Karis Rigby: Because you can’t control little people.

0:34:54.7 Jim Lovelady: That’s right, that’s right.

0:34:58.1 Stephen Rigby: So, and I think on some of those days where I feel like I’m not a good coach or not a good team leader, my desire is to run away from people. And I think those are some of the moments that we’ve learned, and I still think like I’m convinced of it and I still feel that like the discipline of being like, we’re still going to host someone, it’s been a hard day. But again, those have been some of the most precious hospitality moments where it’s like, oh, I thought just being on my own, we’ll watch a couple shows, that will be what actually, I mean, it really is like I want to distract and escape from it, whereas I think we’ve seen that, that actually sometimes journeying through that in community with community has been some of the most life giving, healing processing and as I open up some of that to my friend that comes over, or someone that’s joining our table, well they can relate to it or they might have something, either they see me and know me and I feel kind of loved and encouraged in that space, or there’s a bonding in like, oh yeah, been there, or I’m feeling that as well, and there’s permission to go into that. So I think there’s elements of some of the hospitality as part of that healing journey for me, where again, I feel like my tendency is like, just shut down.

0:36:33.5 Jim Lovelady: It’s very convicting because I think about the rhythms of life and the liturgies that we create as we just kind of, we don’t really think about it, but we have this rhythm of life where, alright, the kids are in bed, throw on the, some. Here’s my liturgy, it’s like, is it that show? Watch the 30 second preview or whatever, move on, is it that show 30 second preview? And Lori’s like, “Are you going to pick something? Are we just going to do this all night?” And I’m like, “This is what we do every night.” I just go, well, maybe I’ll watch that, maybe I’ll put that in my queue, and then it’s like, oh, the evening is wasted, versus, well, it doesn’t have to be wasted because it’s not like that is sinful. But when I do shut off any kind of opportunity, like what you’re saying, where it’s like, oh, this person wants to come over, or there’s an opportunity for this person to come over, or this person’s at my door and I go, I was going to go melt into my sofa. That’s when it’s like, Oh man, there’s a major missed opportunity to see not just like what God could do, but like how… I love that you… How God could bring healing in my own life.

0:37:48.7 Stephen Rigby: Yeah. We had this with a friend a couple months ago before we traveled here, and we were all exhausted, but it was the first night that it wasn’t raining, and I was like, fire pit. And we were kind of discussing it and I was like, Ah, I don’t know. I don’t know. And I was like, again, I feel like it was like this arduous joy. It’s like it took work to get me out of the house, to move the fire pit, to get the wood to light it. And then when it was lit, then Karis and her friend came out and we sat there. And it was…

0:38:24.5 Karis Rigby: It’s your friend too? 

0:38:26.1 Stephen Rigby: Oh, yeah. It’s my friend too. Assume, I said our friend.

0:38:29.4 Karis Rigby: In case she listens to this.

0:38:31.3 Stephen Rigby: She’s one of the aunties. Shout out, I love you. But it was like, we know… Yeah. I just feel like I know, I’m so convinced that these are the things that speak life and posture my heart in the right way. And I still feel that like it feels uphill. So I feel like that’s where… Yeah. We’re trying to practice it more. And that was a really great bonfire.

0:38:57.9 Karis Rigby: And I think again, it just pushes into, when you think of… You asked me what are the words you think of with hospitality? And I a hundred percent think good conversation as part of that. But it also could be sitting around a campfire quietly in community. Right? So if you have someone, that conversation feels really draining. And that’s always linked to hospitality then it’s going to inhibit being hospitable because you’re thinking of it in this programmatic or like way. And I think even with that, we’ve had that in Kenya of when you first move to Kenya and you first start visiting people’s houses, there are… Okay. And again…

0:39:43.4 Stephen Rigby: There’s a liturgy to that.

0:39:45.8 Karis Rigby: We’re not…

0:39:48.4 Karis Rigby: We’re not the… Only know what we know, We’re not Kenyans visiting Kenyans’ homes, but we have gone and we have sat and sometimes there’s conversations, sometimes there’s none. And there’s often a photo book that you look through the pictures. But again, do we feel uncomfortable with silence? Do we feel like we have to fill that in? Are we oversaturating these things when that’s actually like, that’s part of being with people is being there and having the pauses or not always having something to fill. And so, I think getting… the more and more that we have allowed it to be just part of the fabric of life, instead of it being an outside addition, then you have that freedom to be like, Hey, yeah, just come in and be a part of what’s happening. And we find that people across cultures will be attracted to that. I enjoy just being incorporated into your rhythms. There’s something learned. And so it still surprises me sometimes, people will be like, we had such a lovely time. And I’m like, Oh good. ‘Cause it felt chaotic to me. But like, and I think that again, we have it in this higher degree in being cross -culture, but anytime you’re opening your home to someone else, it is a cross-cultural experience.

0:41:30.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah.

0:41:31.1 Karis Rigby: Right? So we just have it overt and there’s that risk, “We’re going to do something wrong. We’re going to say something wrong. I’m going to serve the wrong food.” You don’t know these days someone can’t eat this, they can’t eat that, and all these things. And it’s like, if it’s about getting it right, then you’re going to feel paralyzed at some point.

0:41:54.4 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

0:41:55.9 Karis Rigby: But if it’s about opening up and doing life together, then in doing life, we all make a bunch of mistakes. So why wouldn’t that should be part of hospitality is not getting it right all the time and learning about each other, so.

0:42:12.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. We’re cultivating just a different way of thinking about life altogether when grace is kind of fundamental.

0:42:20.5 Karis Rigby: Yeah.

0:42:21.3 Jim Lovelady: Versus get it right. You better get it right. You better get it right.

0:42:26.3 Karis Rigby: Or we’re not coming back to your house.

0:42:28.8 Jim Lovelady: Or whatever. Yeah. Or else… Yeah. Get it right or else, the or else is just this specter.

0:42:33.6 Karis Rigby: Yeah.

0:42:34.6 Stephen Rigby: Yeah. And that, when that pressure is there, I just feel like we’re worse. We’re like bad hosts. I feel like there’s one side of it of that performance mentality. I think the other side of it is like you’re inviting into what a picture of, I hope is like a glimpse of what heaven will be like.

0:42:52.7 Jim Lovelady: Exactly.

0:42:53.5 Stephen Rigby: Like this feast, this community, this joy of being together. That’s what we want to invite people into. And I think that picture that’s like… It’s a bigger vision. It’s bigger vision than have a good meal. And like, wasn’t that fun? It’s like, Oh man, did… Like, that felt rich. I feel like we talk about that oftentimes of like, that was a rich night. I feel like we were fed not only by the food, but like by the evening, by the presence. And that vision I think excites us and we say, Oh, of course. Why would I not want to be about that? 

0:43:34.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. If the Lord ever called me to plant a church, I’ve had this always kind of, back when I was thinking about planting a church, these are my three values. Go to church on Sunday, come to church on Sunday, whatever, care for one another. You in this church community care for one another. Alright. Number three, go eat meals with people that you don’t know. And that third one becomes this catalyst where you go out and you practice this hospitality. And it beats you up. It’s hard. It requires a freedom in Christ that is new and fresh. It makes context for repentance. It’s just, it’s life on mission. And you’re going to end up needing to come back on Sunday to be reminded that Jesus is alive. And in doing so, you’re going to learn how to care for one another so that you can go back out and talk to strangers and invite them over and then rinse and repeat. Just over and over again, these three things are shaping us into Kingdom of God people, where hopefully Lord willing, they get a taste of heaven.

0:44:50.7 Stephen Rigby: Yeah.

0:44:51.0 Jim Lovelady: I love that.

0:44:53.4 Stephen Rigby: Yeah. Two things that I think Kenya has shaped us with. One is anytime you visit someone or they come to your house at the end, we pray, and they always would pray a blessing over the house, over us. Travel mercies always, there’s always give them travel mercies as they head home. And they usually, they’ll call you to make sure that you got in all right or they’ll message you just to make sure that you got home safely. But there’s an aspect of prayer that I think kind of reminds us of, it’s worship, it’s all kind of in the gaze of our Father. And it’s something, I don’t know if this is Kenyan culture or even just from our journey, but Karis, one birthday or Christmas, printed out from 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘔𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘺 the liturgy, like prayers for evening meals. And we’ve laminated ’em enough for everyone at our table.

0:45:53.7 Jim Lovelady: Oh, nice.

0:45:54.6 Stephen Rigby: So we’ve got eight copies for any day of the week. And oftentimes when people come over, we’ll just hand ’em out. It’s a Tuesday, and like, brilliant. We got these two, like this couple over and we just hand them out and it’s… they’ve never seen this. Like whether it’s teammates, football coaches, pastors from our church, friends from our church, whatever, like neighbors. And we’re just saying, well, welcome to how we do life. And I think that’s some of the sharing the liturgy of these rhythms. We’re inviting people into seeing our rhythms of how we posture ourselves before the king. And we need to remind ourselves of this. We get to invite people into that.

0:46:36.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. And in doing so, you’re reminding yourself all of these things put together is what’s creating a taste of the kingdom.

0:46:45.9 Stephen Rigby: Yeah.

0:46:46.8 Karis Rigby: Yeah. That’s, I mean, for… And I think we told you a little bit about this when you were in Kenya, but what Stephen had mentioned before, we had that journey, we’ve loved to feast and we would do foodie Fridays or scrumptious Saturdays or scrumptious Sundays.

0:47:00.8 Jim Lovelady: Or Mmm Mondays.

0:47:03.8 Karis Rigby: We never got there.

0:47:05.9 Stephen Rigby: We never quite got there.

0:47:06.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah.

0:47:09.1 Karis Rigby: But this idea of like, wow. Right? And you have this table laid in and we did these over, we would do a couple a year and I’d get to cook, and then even people would contribute financially so that we would have enough and we would travel and bring back a nice cheese or a bottle of wine. And it was wonderful. And then we outgrew it. And it was like, it’s not enough to enjoy just the feast.

0:47:45.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:47:45.4 Karis Rigby: Right? And so we shifted to candlelight conversations and there was two points of contention. We wanted to cultivate intentional conversation because we had encountered this, and this went with our ideas of beauty and wholeness that people would sometimes be living and having these deeper, meaningful conversations were not happening naturally in their lives. Or something like poetry is only for some people, and art. And so there was this longing to like, how do we invite people into these spaces? It’s not saying that everyone says, Yeah, that’s my cup of tea, but it is like, this should be part of our regular rhythms. And then the other thing was we wanted to better integrate our communities. We found we had our church community, we had our expat community, we had our Christian worker community and we wanted to bring people together. So kind of like what you’re saying, I love the idea of eating with strangers. I love the idea of incorporating people together. Right? 

0:48:55.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:48:57.7 Karis Rigby: So, because on this side of heaven, we can have a feast and have everybody at the table in the hopes that one day we can all be together at that feast. Right? 

0:49:10.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:49:11.3 Karis Rigby: And so we’re inviting people into that taste of what is to come. And so we had two of them. It was amazing. And then COVID came, which it was an antithesis to having this kind of event.

0:49:25.9 Jim Lovelady: Right. Right.

0:49:26.0 Karis Rigby: And then we also multiplied our family. So we’ve kind of slowed down in this, but we still have these spaces of where, and this is where… What I would say is a Rigby manifestation of a hospitality is not for everybody.

0:49:40.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:49:41.4 Karis Rigby: But because we love doing this, we’re creating this space where we’re echoing of the things to come, but absolutely that we are inviting those… And that’s where I feel like there’s the awkward thing. It’s like you don’t know if you have that person sitting next to that person. You don’t know what kind of conversation is. Or if we have a conversation topic and it’s, we’ve done beauty and we’ve done home, you don’t know what’s going to evoke for people.

0:50:10.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah.

0:50:11.4 Karis Rigby: But it’s going to stir up… Or if someone responds to a quote and it’s a scripture or these things, it’s not all Christian group. It’s a mixture of believers and not yet. And you just get these really good spaces and there’s risk and there’s… But yeah, it’s that foretaste. And so yeah, we’ve… That’s been one way that we see that, Oh, the taste of what’s to come, but we can do it right now. And with others that maybe they don’t have this space, so.

0:50:46.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:50:48.2 Stephen Rigby: It’s interesting to think of the question of your wife being introverted. And I remember you talking about the conversation nooks in your house.

0:50:57.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Oh, that’s right. Yeah.

0:50:58.2 Stephen Rigby: Of the definition of hospitality as welcoming, sharing life, of an introverted fashion. That might be a lot more one-on-one.

0:51:07.1 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

0:51:07.5 Stephen Rigby: We do a lot of parties.

0:51:08.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:51:09.8 Stephen Rigby: Parties that sounds like, Yeah. But just we welcome bigger groups. I feel like. Well, we’re six already when we show up.

0:51:18.5 Jim Lovelady: That’s right, you’re already…

0:51:19.8 Stephen Rigby: Yeah. We’re already a party. Well, but it’s like, it’s hospitality in a different… With a different kind of flair.

0:51:26.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. And I love that there’s this option to do hospitality the way God made you.

0:51:34.4 Stephen Rigby: It should be that way.

0:51:34.9 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:51:36.1 Stephen Rigby: We’re alright.

0:51:36.5 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:51:37.2 Stephen Rigby: It’s not, why aren’t you like the Rigbys? It’s, this is…

0:51:40.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. And…

0:51:40.9 Stephen Rigby: What it looks like for us.

0:51:41.3 Jim Lovelady: And that’s what’s so annoying about Instagram and whatnot. That’s like, no, this is how you do it. And this is how… This is how it has to be. And it’s just overwhelming. I do remember, you’re giving me a tour of the house and you’re like, Yeah, we’re going to do this and that, so we’re going to have this 50 foot table back here, whatever it was, I don’t remember what it was.

0:52:02.4 Stephen Rigby: Not quite, but we’re…

0:52:03.1 Jim Lovelady: Close.

0:52:03.5 Stephen Rigby: We’re working on it.

0:52:03.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah.

0:52:04.0 Stephen Rigby: Yeah, yeah.

0:52:04.2 Jim Lovelady: But just the design and how much architecture plays into this. Because we shape our world around us. I mean, this room, even the way it’s designed, reflects like, if you came in here, you would design it differently, and it, maybe you should design it.

0:52:23.4 Stephen Rigby: But I like the wall color.

0:52:24.9 Jim Lovelady: Well, it’s Serge blue. I mean, I didn’t choose that one.

0:52:29.6 Karis Rigby: I like the Serge blue.

0:52:31.6 Stephen Rigby: But we talk, I mean, we talk about that a lot as coaches of like, when someone comes up to your field, they’re entering your space. So you are setting the tone. And that’s equipment, that’s the look. It’s your posture. It’s the way you talk, it’s your planning, preparation. It’s like all that stuff sets a tone that when someone comes in, they’re at ease. So we talk about that. So from a coaching perspective, like you as the coach have that opportunity. When we do our coaching courses, I feel like we get to set this tone if we want a safe place where people can process deeper things. There’s a lot of intention. There’s a lot of work that happens beforehand to prepare ourselves, the space, the curriculum, all this stuff that gets this organic thing. Well, it is… ‘Cause you don’t know what the spirit’s going to do and how things are going to… Like what conversations or what stories are going to come out. But there’s a whole lot of intentionality. So I think creating a space, I mean, our dining room was the first room finished in our house.

0:53:46.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, of course.

0:53:47.6 Stephen Rigby: ‘Cause it’s like, this is where we do…

0:53:49.4 Jim Lovelady: This is where life happens.

0:53:50.7 Stephen Rigby: Our so much life. And it’s such a life… It fills us up.

0:53:52.0 Jim Lovelady: Your dining room should be called your living room.

0:53:54.0 Stephen Rigby: Yeah.

0:53:55.2 Jim Lovelady: That’s where life happens.

0:53:56.5 Stephen Rigby: Yeah. Yeah. The kitchen and dining room are like that was priority.

0:54:00.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:54:00.6 Karis Rigby: But it’s a combination of you set it up and then you have to be okay not being in control.

0:54:05.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:54:06.2 Stephen Rigby: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah.

0:54:07.2 Karis Rigby: Because it’s like we have our dining room and then our kids have banged their silverware on the wood table. And so it’s like…

0:54:18.8 Stephen Rigby: No more metal knives.

0:54:20.3 Karis Rigby: That was a nice table. And now it has all these markings and there are little list visitors that we can never kick out.

0:54:25.8 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:54:27.2 Karis Rigby: And it’s just like, are you going to, it’s again, are people interruptions to our lives or are they what we do? 

0:54:39.1 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:54:39.2 Karis Rigby: And so that first extension is your kids, and then it… Like when you’re married and they feel like they’re interrupting your flow of life, but they’re changing the trajectory. But we always talked about that of like our kids, you have the newborn phase and you kind of are like reorienting around them. But then after the newborn phase, we were like, we don’t want to change like what we are and who we do because of this. We want to invite them into this. And I feel like that’s just, then that continues to be the posture. We want, we’re inviting people into this, but everybody comes in with their own story, their own thing. So you have to anticipate that inviting people in is going to change you too. And that’s like, do you, like that’s a risk, that’s a loss of control. That’s like, they might do something to your, I mean like…

0:55:39.4 Jim Lovelady: They could break something.

0:55:39.5 Karis Rigby: Yeah. Or you could have someone as we had another Serge worker, come and stay at our house and your son might knock at their door and then they will open it and they’ll see that he pooped in your hallway.

0:55:53.7 Stephen Rigby: That worker said…

0:55:54.8 Karis Rigby: She said, I’ve never been greeted by human feces in the morning in the front door. And I was like, oh my goodness. But her timing was great, she said, and then you popped your head out and go, We’re not going to church this morning. So it’s like being literally messy with people being exposed to the mess of your life.

0:56:13.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what it is.

0:56:15.1 Stephen Rigby: Yeah.

0:56:15.8 Jim Lovelady: That’s so good.

0:56:15.9 Karis Rigby: And so…

0:56:17.7 Jim Lovelady: Alright, well thank you folks.

0:56:19.4 Stephen Rigby: Yeah.

0:56:19.8 Jim Lovelady: Thank you guys. You guys are so fun. I’m really glad that you came in town.

[music]

0:56:32.2 Jim Lovelady: A conversation about the art of hospitality leads us into some really mysterious territory. We think that we’re offering someone a cup of water, but what we’re really doing is experiencing the presence of Christ. We think that we’re being generous to those in need, but we’re actually experiencing the delight of God. We think that we’re hosting guests when we’re actually entertaining angels. Something spiritual is happening when we engage in this very physical practice of hospitality. So maybe hospitality starts with sharing a meal with a stranger, but it extends to all the creative ways in which you can welcome someone into your life to experience life with you, to be re-energized by your life, rejuvenated by you as you give yourself away in service to others. And of course, we as a ministry here at Serge, we want to help you experience the generosity of God. And we want to see how that propels you outwards so that you can help others experience the generosity and delight of our king. One of the ways that we do this is by creating a place for you to explore God’s call on your life to go on the mission field.

Specifically we’ve built two spacious places for you to explore this. Serge has its internship program and the apprenticeship program. The summer internship program is an eight week hands-on overseas experience where you have space to explore cross-cultural ministry. And hey, one of those locations is Nairobi. And the apprenticeship program kicks things up a notch with a two year exploration of cross-cultural ministry. And we have locations for this program all over the world. Both of these programs are fantastic. And I’ll leave links for these in the show notes as well as a link to Rosaria Butterfield’s book that I quoted in the interview, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘰𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘭 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘒𝘦𝘺. It’s a great book. Now, a meditation on hospitality leads me to the story of the woman at the well in John 4. And by the way, go read that story through the lens of the art of hospitality that Stephen and Karis talked about and you’ll see how Jesus’s practice of hospitality creates a spacious place for this woman to experience God’s delight in her and it propels her outward. And it’s the same for you. Jesus has called you into this spacious place where he holds all your mess and gives room for you to invite others into that spacious place where we all together experience God’s delight in us. This is the work of the kingdom, to get a taste of the real life that Jesus offers. And that kind of grace is enough to where we want to set a table, figuratively and literally for a world in desperate need of generous friends who long to experience the delight of God. So as you go be ready to set the table of grace, it’s an ever expanding table. There’s always room for one more. And always remember you go with his blessing. So may the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to smile down on you. May the Lord be gracious to you and turn his bright eyes to you and give you his peace. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God life everlasting. Amen.

[music]

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