By Katie Bennett, Contributing Writer

There are so many wonderful opportunities to get involved with ministry, and as Christ-followers, we are called to be about the Kingdom.

However, sometimes, for a variety of reasons (in my case, lots of “little people” underfoot with plentiful needs and nap schedules and emotions), it’s just not very practical to leave the 0.23 acres we call home.

Does that mean I’m disqualified from being used by God in this season of life?

If I’m honest, I have felt that way. Not to mention the fact that my quiet time routine has often been disrupted, and I’ve felt perpetually tired for months on end.

Along the way, I’ve stepped down from multiple ministry roles at church because I just. couldn’t. manage.

However, God is slowly changing my view of ministry and opening my mind to how He is at work, and how He wants to use me, right where I am.

So, what does that look like?

Using Your Home as a Ministry Hub – Ways I’m finding to minister God’s grace without leaving home.

1. Discipling my children and serving my husband

Realizing that homemaking itself is a ministry with eternal implications puts purpose and passion into my daily tasks and hard work.

As wives, we have the privilege of exemplifying the mysterious, glorious relationship between Christ and His Church in how we do marriage well: submitting to, serving and loving our husbands. This is no small assignment!

What’s more, our husbands will be fueled and empowered in their ministry, whatever form that takes, as we hold down the home front. We get to partner in behind the scenes in how God is using them to advance His Kingdom, as we encourage, support and meet practical needs.

Not to mention, I also have the privilege of pouring into my children day in and day out, teaching them about God, and guiding them as they learn to live life in step with Him!

2. Inviting neighbors in

So often our neighbors don’t know what the inside of our home even looks like.

In my polite, middle-class subdivision, there seems to be an invisible barrier at the front door. It’s just easier not to take the risk of inviting someone in our space, is it not? Plus we want them to imagine that we keep it perfectly tidy.

I have an elderly neighbor lady who lives alone. Her friends have passed away in recent years. She’s a Christ-follower. She’s lonely.

I saw a way to minister to and love this neighbor, and I didn’t need a lick of illusive childcare to do it!

She now comes over multiple times per week at my urging, and is welcomed right in to the chaos. She loves it! I don’t entertain her, rather I simply open our lives and invite her to come alongside us. If we need to go somewhere, I just ask her to ride along.

The last thing she cares about is the piles of toys dumped from here to there or the half put-away dishes. She often reads my kids a story or holds a fussing baby. God is blessing me as I seek to bless her!

3. Mentoring within my home

After stepping out of various church ministries, my husband and I had the opportunity to reassess. We prayerfully re-entered a single ministry, one we would have never had margin for if we hadn’t created it. It was premarital mentoring.

We now have these young, eager, engaged couples into our home weekly, at 8pm, after our kids are in bed. We have the privilege of going deep with them over the course of six weeks. It has been SUCH a blessing to minister alongside my husband from our home in this way.

Through premarital mentoring and other church connections, I’ve met a couple of young women that I am now investing in. They come to my home to meet with me for discipleship when my kids are napping or sleeping. Because these young women don’t have kids of their own, it works well!

4. Feeding people

I like to make meals to take to those who need a little help. In fact, my kids can even be involved!

I also enjoy serving lunch to the moms and kids who come over for playdates. It’s a blessing to get to go home and put kids right down for naps, rather than having to make a mess in their own kitchen. By teaming up, there is less work overall!

What’s more my husband and I can still invite couples and families over for dinner regularly, despite not being able to get out of the house to serve easily.

What do each of these ways of ministering have in common?

THE HOME.

God is giving me new vision for the powerful ministry of home and hospitality! This is an exciting realization for me, particularly as I see it’s effects!

Even when we can’t leave the home easily, God still wants to use us as we are able.

What if my home isn’t tidy enough to be a ministry hub!?

For many years, my home was not run systematically, which made hospitality a burden because it took so much work to ready my home! It also made unexpected visitors distressing, and even humiliating sometimes!

However, God put it on my heart to grow in the area of disciplined homemaking. Over several years, through painstaking trial and error, I figured out which simple, basic changes I could make to my home and routine to completely shift its baseline.

I dug deep and, with God’s help, I took my undisciplined, lazy ways and cultivated a very simple, but systematic and disciplined approach to keeping my home under control. This processes completely revolutionized my effectiveness in ministering from my home.

The fruit it bore in my life and ministry was so profound and exciting, I created an online course to teach other women what I learned!

 

Have you ever excused yourself from ministry when getting outside your home was difficult? What would it mean for you to let God use your home as a hub for ministry? How are you already doing this?