Open Heart, Open Home: The Hospitable Way to Make Others Feel Welcome Wanted

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.

Karen Burton Mains is co-director (with her husband, David) of Mainstay Ministries, based in Wheaton, Illinois. She is also the director of Hungry Souls, a ministry designed to teach Christians how to establish self-directed spiritual growth. For nearly two decades Mains was a member of the on-air team for The Chapel of the Air radio show and a regular guest on the award-winning You Need to Know television program. She was also a member of the Board of Directors of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, heading a multi-ethnic task force for eight years, and later served as the board's first woman chairperson. Mains has written more than twenty-six books, including The Fragile Curtain (winner of the 1982 Christopher Award), Making Sunday Special, Tales of the Resistance, Tales of the Restoration, Abuse in the Family, Lonely No More and Comforting One Another (Thomas Nelson). Her IVP titles include The God Hunt and Open Heart, Open Home.