The ministry of second breakfasts and the healing power of inviting others into our homes.


By Gianna Soderstrom

Our hostess sat down at the foot of the table—a clear prompt for the few remaining guests to settle in. 

“There is water, wine, and sparkling water,” she offered, and held up her crystal glass, “but if you choose sparkling water, pour it into your cup. We’re using the stemware tonight. No exceptions.” She glanced at me with mock-reproval. I promptly sloshed my sparkling water into a glass and moved the can off the table. Yes Ma’am. 

The table I sat at that night is one of the proverbial groaning tables. Every time I enter their home my hosts have prepared an abundant meal. The table is laden, chairs are crowded around; usually, two or three or ten little hobbitlings are running around underfoot. The Smiths’ home has known grief, but I know it as a place of feasting. 

I never know who I will be dining with when I enter their home, but I know I will enjoy the conversation. Time and again their generous hospitality has drawn together strangers who leave as friends. A welcome that begins as an open door and a long table ends in creating the very fabric of community. 

My hosts are not the only ones who showed hospitality that evening around the table. The woman sitting next to me offered me her friendship in the form of sharing her heartache, and I welcomed her just by listening. The people across the table joined our conversation from time to time, weaving in their stories of grief to make a tender landing place for ours. You can’t leave a feast with new friends if you’re not willing to talk to strangers.

However, it is not only the drinks with stemware and hearty dinner that has taught me about hospitality. Hospitality builds community, but it also requires community. You won’t be able to host if you don’t know anyone to invite. You’ll never end up having friends over for an after-church dinner if you don’t linger long enough to know them. 

One Wednesday morning, out running errands with my youngest, I stopped by a friend’s home to pick something up. I didn’t expect to go past the front door—I’d knock, she’d hand me the book I needed, I’d be on my way. But when I came to the front door, she invited me in for breakfast. I lingered at her kitchen table, a steaming mug of tea in my hands while she made breakfast for her daughters and second breakfast for my own daughter. 

The words hospitality and hospital share a common origin, and I find it fascinating that our words for a place of welcome and a pace of healing are related. Hospitality is healing.  Not only are our individual hearts encouraged and bound up, but the fabric of community is strengthened. From hurting to whole. From strangers to friends. It heals us when we are deeply seen, when we’re invited inside, when somebody sets a place for us at the table. Welcome and healing are in the very nature of Jesus. The virtue of hospitality is a means of loving each other. 

The tenderness of hospitality is not only inward facing. Imagine the ministry of inviting your unbelieving friends into this cultivated web of warmth and welcome. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,” (John 13:35, ESV.)¹ Maybe evangelism looks like welcoming your neighbor inside for second breakfast and lingering conversation. Maybe the Gospel really begins with “Welcome, I’m glad you’re here. I got the stemware out, just for you.”

Gianna Soderstrom is a contributing writer to the Anselm Society and Cultivating Oaks Press, and she serves as Assistant Director of the Anselm Society Arts Guild. She is equally fascinated and challenged by the myriad ways that small and steady faithfulness transform a strange place into a home. She is a writer, dreamer, wife to Grant, mama to E1 and E2, and more than the sum of her parts, just like you. Gianna writes here and everywhere else to mine hope out of our ordinary moments.

¹John 13:35, English Standard Version (Good News Publishers, 2006) 900.