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AUSTIN “Hospitality sets the stage for the great commission,” speaker Monica Carpenter told attendees at the Titus 2 Brunch at Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, April 8.
The brunch was one of an ongoing series of events through the church’s women’s ministry, emphasizing the importance of community and discipleship.
A wife and mother of six from Fort Worth, Carpenter said she declared her life and her door open early on in her marriage, and over the years, God has faithfully brought many young women into her home.
“If your door is open, your life is going to open, and if your life opens, you have just given yourself the opportunity to demonstrate and describe the gospel to every single young woman that enters.”
Monica Carpenter
“If your door is open, your life is going to open, and if your life opens, you have just given yourself the opportunity to demonstrate and describe the gospel to every single young woman that enters.”
At the brunch, Carpenter spoke to a room full of women of all ages and life stages about what it looks like to use hospitality as a means of mentorship, drawing from the biblical model found in Titus 2:3-5.
“Lest you think we don’t have a role in the church, your role is to protect the Word of God from being blasphemed. How? By pouring into younger women,” she said.
The concept sounds simple, but too often, Carpenter said, culture has dictated our definition of hospitality, making it easy to get caught up in the details of a well-cooked meal or a perfectly clean house.
“We feel the pressure of presenting things and performance. We need to just move on to a bigger and better picture,” she said. “Imagine being so in tune with what really matters that we actually begin to think less about ourselves and how we appear to other people … and more about the gospel mission we’ve been called to.”
As she lives a life of hospitality, Carpenter said she still sometimes struggles with how to balance her role as a mom with her role as a mentor. For others feeling this tension, she gives the same advice that her own mentor once gave her.
“Keep your hand on the plow. You’re on your field. Keep your hand at that plow and just allow (other women) to step on the field with you and observe and watch you.”
Even in her weaknesses and failures, or on her worst days, Carpenter said she has seen how God weaves beauty in her relationships when she allows people to truly enter into her life, the messiness and all.
“Inviting a young woman in your life is not inviting them to observe perfection. Be vulnerable, open, willing to teach the truth, even if you fall short of it … be willing to be used for your weakness.”
Ultimately, Carpenter said, the key is to remember Christ, who set the ultimate example of hospitality by inviting strangers to come into a relationship with him.
“The call to being a hospitable woman is nothing more than a call to unfold the gospel with your life actions in front of the women you’re dispcipling. If they become more devoted Christ followers, then you’ve succeeded.”
