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Can a simple dinner party for the neighbors change the world? Karen Mains says, "Yes!" And in Open Heart, Open Home she shows how. In this classic on Christian hospitality, Karen Mains steps far beyond how-to-entertain hints to explore a biblical and spiritual approach to using your home to care for others. This approach to hospitality can literally transform the fabric of your community and your world. If you labor under the illusion that hospitality requires Martha Stewart-like abilities, then Mains will free you from a load of guilt! Instead, she offers fresh and inspiring ideas for using your own resources to serve rather than to impress with new "opening the door" activities in each chapter. You will discover how the Holy Spirit can work in and through you to make others feel welcome and wanted. Whether you are a business executive or a homemaker, a professional minister or a layperson, a seasoned entertainer or an entertaining klutz, you will find here the encouragement and skills you need to reach out with the gospel through daily acts of acceptance, belonging and love.
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"I'm so glad this book is coming back into print. . . . An open heart and an open home are tools for evangelism as well as tools for building Christ-centered community." (Leighton Ford)
"When I was a young mother traveling and singing on the weekends and still trying to be a 'perfect' homemaker, I found Open Heart, Open Home. . . . It helped me to see our home as a real instrument of ministry, not as a showplace for furniture." (Gloria Gaither)
Many of Karen Mains creative works have been birthed out of personal experience. Her first best-selling book Open Heart, Open Home, is considered a classic and deals with the theology of Christian hospitality. It has sold over 600,000 copies. Mains' three books for children, The Kingdom Tales Trilogy, was awarded the Gold Medallion by the Evangelical Press Association These stories are frequently used by pastors as sermon material, have been endlessly adapted in dramatic form for churches and Christian schools, and have been regularly employed for the purposes of deep therapy by Christian counselors. Her book, With My Whole Heart: Disciplines for the Inner Life, was also awarded EPA's Gold Medallion. The Fragile Curtain: A Moving Affirmation of Family Life about the refugee crisis in the world, won The Christopher Award, given to recognize works that uphold the highest in moral values. Mains often offers conference courses in memoir writing and is now involved in developing sustainable income projects with displaced friends in the States and colleagues in Africa seeking to lift themselves out of poverty. She says that the book she hated to write the most, Child Sexual Abuse, co-written with Maxine Hancock, is one about she is most proud.
In my earlier, mostly single, years--a bit younger than the author was when she wrote this book--I practiced a very open hospitality. What made me order this book, after being aware of it for 25 years, is that I was experiencing a current crisis in my own hospitality as a middle-aged woman with a family, grand-family and large community of friends. I didn't like that I had so 'tightened up' with my home. An introduction from the author written in this 1997 revised edition put my current feelings in perspective. She points out that we go through "cycles and seasons in our life of hospitality." Whew, there was hope. I was experiencing a cycle, but I was spiraling down with it. I recognized negative attitudes working against my heart of hospitality that I had to confront. Karen Mains helped me to pinpoint them, in not always so gentle a way. I had internal work to do, which is never pleasant. I have to admit that my house will probably never be as open as it was when I was in my 30s, but I am becoming more relaxed about welcoming guests--particularly unexpected ones--with open arms. The part of the book that helped me the most was to understand the difference between 'entertaining' and 'hospitality'. Over the years, as I increased in creativity in the home and out, much of my relaxed hospitality took on the pressure of 'entertaining'. Mains aptly points out the difference in a way that leads to the type of change I was looking for: being guest centered (serving) instead of self centered (impressing). The book is filled with myriad change-worthy points, both practical and spiritual, that will meet many women exactly 'where they live' to help produce the type of welcome they want their homes to extend.
I actually picked this book up at a yard sale. I love what she had to say so much I bought copies for all the ladies in my Sunday school class. This book isn't as much a how to(I think there are plenty of those)but why. Our homes are a ministry to those around us. The author really challenges alot of what we "think" hospitality is. There is too much to understand(at least for me) in one reading. I see why it can be used as study. I intend to buy copies for all my girls (We have 5 daughters and one daughter-in-law). There is a serious need for the teaching in this book and I'm glad it is in print. Thank you Karen Mains for listening to God and sharing with the rest of us.
I had read positive reviews of this book on a number of sites, but I was disappointed. There is very little practical, specific information in the book. There's a lot of vague talk about Biblical reasons to become more hospitable, and different types of hospitality (from welcoming home family members to fostering children), but very little specific advice about how to carry out this hospitality.
I could sum up everything I got out of this book in five pages or less.
