HOSTHOST KIT KIT - Amazon S3€¦ · 1 The Host Kit: full of tips, resources and ideas to make this great. 2 Prayer: Your church staff is committed to praying for you more specifically

HOST KITHOST KIT

HOST INFORMATION

WHAT GRACE CHURCH WILL PROVIDE

1 The Host Kit: full of tips, resources and ideas to make this great.

2 Prayer: Your church staff is committed to praying for you more specifically about this hosting experience. Remember: We’re doing this too!

3 Resources: Visit www.grace-church.com/lingerabit to learn more.

YOUR PART AS A HOST

1 Prepare A Meal.

2 Good Host/Guest Communication. Give your guests all the important details.

• Who is invited in to your home? The adults only? The adults and their kids? • Exchange names so that both sides know everyone who will be coming. • What’s your address? Where is this meal going to take place? • When is dinner? What’s the start/end time? Can they bring anything?

3 Read This Host Kit.

TIMELINE 1 Commit to the 30 Day Challenge. 2 Make The Call To Your Guest. 3 Pick A Night. 4 Make It Happen! 5 After You’re Done, Share Your Story With Us! Visit www.grace-church.com/lingerabit and click on “Share Our Story.”

GRACE CHURCH OF GLENDORA • 626-335-4067 EVERY ONE HOST ONE 2016 • grace-church.com/lingerabit

Welcome to Every One Host One! In the next 30 days I believe God wants to do something special in your life through opening up your home to host someone for a meal. The Bible is filled with stories of people eating together. In fact, food plays a major role from beginning to end: the world starts in an orchard (Gen. 2:8-9) and ends with a fruit tree (Rev. 22:1-2)!

My hope and prayer is that God will use this experience (1) to establish and/or deepen connections within the Grace Family and (2) to recover the biblical vision for sharing food at your table with those God has supernaturally and strategically placed in your life. Hospitality is one of the most powerful ways to tear down barriers between people and build bridges that lead to joy and blessing.

Here’s the challenge: Sometime in the next 30 days invite and host someone in your home (house, apartment, trailer, back house, condo, etc.) for a meal. Who should you invite? Answer: Someone that has not yet been in your home.

Now, for some of us this will be relatively easy because we’ve been part of a tradition (cultural, family, etc.) that practiced hospitality in our home. However, for the majority of you reading this, I suspect inviting people over for a meal, especially if they have never been to your home, might bring some stress into your life. So we’ve prepared some tips to help us overcome some of those fears that otherwise would prevent us from hosting someone.

Why are we doing this? At the center of the spiritual lives of God’s people in both the Old and the New Testaments, we find a table with food on it surrounded by people of all different types. When Jesus wanted to explain more of Himself and His plan of redemption, He didn’t lecture His disciples, He shared a meal at the table with them. Blessing, correction, brokenness, discovery, friendship, restoration – these are all things that regularly took place as followers of Jesus shared their tables with other believers, with strangers, with foreigners, with those in need, and with the orphan and widow (Matt 25:35). We are doing this because when we invite others into our home to share our table with them we are extending, in the most practical of ways, God’s gift of belonging and we are inviting Him to grow us through this experience. I can’t wait to hear how God moves in us and through us!Taste and see that the Lord is good,

John


CONVERSATION STARTERS

Before The Conversation It’s important to prepare yourself to lead a meaningful conversation before your guest arrives. A good place for you to start preparing yourself is by reviewing these six principles of developing great communication skills:

1 Become genuinely interested in the other person. 2 Smile. 3 Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most

important sound in any language. Know their name and use it often. 4 Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. 5 Talk in terms of the other person’s interests. 6 Make the other person feel important. And, do it sincerely.

Reviewing these will get you in the right frame of mind: putting your guest first.

5 Lines That Will Keep a Conversation Going: We all run the risk of falling into that awkward silence no matter what questions we ask. The number one conversation killer is asking simple yes or no questions. To avoid the silence, practice asking open-ended questions. Here are 5 suggestions:

1 What’s Your Favorite Cheese? Throw this curve ball to bring in humor and get people laughing. A question like this might result in a story about a beautiful meal in Europe. It might turn into a debate about what the king of cheese is. Or, it might get into a conversation about a local farmers market.

2 Tell Me More About…. This will communicate that you’ve been listening and are genuinely interested in what they are sharing. It’s always flattering to have someone ask you to go deeper into a topic.

3 What’s the Best Part of… Asking this question takes people to their sweet spot, the place that lights them up.

4 How Did You Get Into… People love stories. People have stories. People love to tell their stories. This one is pure gold!

5 What’s The Biggest Challenge You Are Facing? Asking about someone’s biggest challenge not only adds some seriousness to the conversation but also provides some insight into the mind of the person you are speaking with. Listen carefully and ask God to give you words of encouragement that reflect the love of Christ.


CONVERSATION STARTERS

Great Conversation Questions Conversations are really a series of concentric circles. Start with the circle that you have in common, i.e. church, work, neighbor, school, or community organization, and tailor your questions accordingly. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Getting to know the basics: • Find out what city they live in. Where did they grow up? • Do they have siblings? Where are they in the birth order? How did that play out

growing up (oldest is usually in charge, middle is compliant, the baby is spoiled)? • Where are their siblings now? Parents? • What do they do for a living?

For Couples • How did they meet? Get the whole story and listen intently, giving them your full

attention. Everyone loves to talk about how they met and this usually generates good conversation. Be prepared to share your couple-story of how you met.

Spiritual Questions For Everyone • What was their church experience growing up? • What is it like now? This is an especially good question for guests who are not from

Grace, for you to assess where they are spiritually. Be sensitive and be prepared to answer these same questions.

• If you are confident he or she is a Christian, ask when they became a follower of Jesus Christ. This will potentially invite them to share their testimony. Pay attention to where you are in the evening when you ask this question to ensure you give them plenty of uninterrupted time to share their story.

• If you know them from Grace, ask them when they started attending and how they found Grace.

Activities/Hobbies • What do you they like to do for fun/hobby? • Do they have a favorite vacation spot they would recommend? • What do they do to relieve stress?

Saying Goodbye How do you end the evening politely? This can be tricky if guests seem content and give no indication they are ready to go. Here are a few ideas if you find yourself in this situation:

1 Turn the conversation towards your planned activities for the following day and the preparation you need to make. This will hint that you need to either get to bed or start preparing.

2 Start picking up the dishes and head to the kitchen. This is an indicator that the evening is coming to an end.

3 While serving dessert, note that dessert is a great way to end the evening. 4 And when all else fails, put your slippers on!


http://grace-church.com/lingerabit

http://grace-church.com/lingerabit

2 SIGNS THAT YOU ARE A GREAT HOST

Start Here First off, think about this for a moment: What are your takeaways, as a guest, from your most memorable dinner parties? And, now that you’ve thought about it for a bit, think about these two things that every Host needs to be concerned with:

1 You must be prepared. 2 You must be guest centered.

The reality is that true hospitality is subtle. You don't realize you're getting it until after you're already comfortable. One way you can crack the secrets of a superb host is to start with the end result, the good feelings that you want your guests to experience.

Keep These In Mind: Don’t think of this as an aspirational checklist, but simply be aware of these:

1 Your guests should feel relaxed and comfortable.

2 Your guests should be adequately well-fed.

3 Your guests shouldn’t sense that you are rushing through it all.

4 Be a blessing and have fun with this!

5 Remember, you are doing this without any expectation of reciprocation.


THE HOST

3 SIGNS THAT YOU ARE A GREAT GUEST

There's an unspoken understanding that takes place the moment you accept an invitation to someone's house for dinner: The host agrees to make you feel awesome, while you, the guest, agree to be pleasant and appreciative. When both of these things are in sync, great times over great meals happen. So, here are three things to do to be a great guest:

1 Ignore your phone! 2 Show the Big 3: enthusiasm, curiosity, and gratitude. 3 Make the “Goodbye” easy.

YOUR PHONE: There are obviously some exceptions to the phone-thing — your babysitter just texted, or you're having a table-wide discussion on the year Back to the Future came out, and someone needs to Ask Google and set the record straight — but other than that, the coolest thing you can do as a dinner guest is to totally ignore your phone.

THE BIG THREE: Enthusiasm, curiosity, and gratitude are key characteristics to being a most welcome presence at any table! Be enthusiastic about the evening and food; be curious about the host, their home, your fellow guests; and be thankful for everything. And, the same host-guidelines apply to you as well:

• Be a blessing and have fun with this!

• You are doing this without any expectation of reciprocation.

SAYING GOODBYE: As the old saying goes, “All good things must come to an end!” Thank your host genuinely, and then graciously make your exit. You’ll know when it’s time, towards

the end of the night, so start looking for the obvious clues your host has no desire for you to spend the night:

• The dishes are being taken away and cleaned. • They start talking about tomorrow’s plans. • They are standing at the door in their slippers. Hint, hint!


THE GUEST

SHARING YOUR FAITH It may or may not happen, but, you might find yourself in a spiritual conversation. Maybe you know where your guests stand with God, maybe you don’t. But here are some great tips to look over as you think about what a spiritual conversation might look like:

1 Someone’s salvation is usually the result of a series of events in their lives. Sometimes we’re the first link, usually we’re a middle link, and occasionally we’re the last. God did not call us to only be the last link. Let that knowledge take the weight of their salvation off your shoulders.

2 Your primary objective is to gain trust. That trust will result in a future platform to speak into their life boldly about Jesus’ forgiveness and leadership. Halloween is not about forcing a gospel-pitch; it’s about having a relational encounter.

3 Don’t think about evangelism. It’ll distract you. Greet your guests. Ask them simple questions. Keep it simple. Icebreaker questions will come far more naturally to you than opening questions that are overtly spiritual and evangelistic in nature.

4 Don’t avoid the spiritual side of you. This will open the door for deeper spiritual conversation later, but it starts your relationship with the understanding that Jesus, Church, and the Bible are things you would naturally talk about.

5 When possible, talk to your guests personally. Preferably, one on one. This also allows for the conversation to go deeper.

6 Remember to ask God for wisdom to know when to share and when to back off. Remember, the goal of today is simple-basic conversation, moving towards deepening trust.

7 Make the most of this opportunity. Whatever you can do to leave your guests with a positive impression is a win. Don’t underestimate it.

8 God may bring someone to you who has a deeper interest in spirituality than is common. If this happens, it’s a perfect time to share your story: where you were

before God, what happened in order for Him to enter into your life, and how your life has changed because of Jesus Christ.

9 If the opportunity is available, be able to explain the Gospel in under a minute. The shortest and easiest way to remember it is: Believe + Receive = Become. Believe

that Jesus died for you, receive His forgiveness and leadership, and become saved. You can fill in any additional details you feel are important.

10 If you are interested in more information and training in evangelism, Foundations is an excellent resource. It’s a free weekly training course than you can join on Sunday mornings. More information at www.grace-church.com/foundations.


Documents

HOSTHOST KIT KIT - Amazon S3€¦ · 1 The Host Kit: full of tips, resources and ideas to make this great. 2 Prayer: Your church staff is committed to praying for you more specifically