Welcome here! Will you be hosting or guesting with us?

I know I have talked about welcome a lot, and in person I talk about it even more.

In fact, I list it as one of the top values in any work we do with people. It marks our spaces and is one of the biggest critiques of any space we enter whether for work, leisure, or how we do commerce. Welcome, how we feel received, and how we receive another is deeply ingrained in us from a biological perspective and can be traced through countless societies as a way of survival. Just consider how much stress and anxiety is involved in entering new settings or in having others enter your familiar space. We think about these things a lot, and we react to it subconsciously. 

“Is this a safe space for me to walk in?”

“Are you safe for me to allow you in?”

“How will I show you that I am not a threat?”

Those are the basic questions we ask in all kinds of settings. When we endeavour to lead or influence in any group or function, these questions become foundational to how everything we hope to do or be will work out. The interaction of people in a safe space is integral.

Advent season is great for recalling the message of welcome, especially when we consider circumstances that don’t feel particularly safe. In my pastoral work I strove to be welcoming host, not realizing how every person in every setting would actually move into different roles as they gained a sense of safety. Advent, and remembering my transition in perspective, remind me that in even in a space we feel we control we are not always the host. 

People who convene and invite others into a new space assume the role of host. But there is a moment where a good host allows others to host them as well, because this is the beauty of a safe and welcoming environment, and the desire is for others to become a guest. Even if they started as a guest. I discovered that some of the more tragic moments in my ‘hosting’ occurred when I assumed that as a leader I was always to be the host, never giving others the opportunity to host in return. 

You can probably recall a time where you felt the safety in a group, where you let your guard down and you knew others had done the same, and there was a moment of dare we say ‘communion’. Hosting and guesting were simultaneous, given and received, shared and returned, all without someone giving a prompt for it to happen. 

It’s interesting when I consider welcome through the lense of my upbringing. There was an ever present sense that we served one another and people were to feel welcomed into our space. Hosting was a big deal. I recall the humble approach to gathering where everyone tried to help the others feel like they were no trouble, and the humour involved when everyone realized they were all trying to be the best host to everyone else! Imagine a whole group of people trying to hold the door for each other but no one wanting to go through first. 

Some hosts have a hard time guesting.

I have a terrible time guesting. Just ask anyone that tries to host me when I travel. There is an actual visceral reaction deep in my chest when I do everything in my power to not be a guest, to not simply sit in the moment of the other welcoming me into their space as a gift. Burden is a feeling I have struggled with for many years. And it was very enlightening for me when I discovered the word I was replacing was actually ‘guest’. 

In Miriam Toews’ latest book she references someone from outside my cultural upbringing observing this phenomenon in action and giving words to it. To not be allowed to be in need. I resonate with that strongly. 

The beauty of Advent and ultimately the Christmas season is it exposes need, with a backdrop of being unsafe, and the main character being a guest while he is also the host. This is a great reminder for all of us, especially in a position of leading, that when we welcome, when we truly host, we allow others to see our need to be a guest as well. We truly enable others to be a host to us and create an other-worldly space of mutual welcome when we host well. 

The real test of good welcome might be a space where a person can feel comfortable as a guest, but can also easily feel that they are hosting as well. In this Advent season, may you be a host built with humility and need in mind, and may you be surprised by the safe community you develop through it.