Home
Home
It is nearly impossible to describe the allure of home. Home is where our heart is warm regardless of what is going on outside.
If you have a good and happy home, you understand exactly what I mean. If you have not experienced such a home, you understand what I mean as well; you are lonely for a home like that.
Most of us spend much of our life trying to get home . . . wherever home is. Before I was married, home was wherever my parents were. But for the last thirty years, home is wherever Sharon, my wife, is. Wherever we are, if Sharon is there, I am home.
Hospitable leaders embrace the mystery of home.
We are aware of the need every human being has to be embraced in its inexplicable warmth. I want the people I attempt to lead to feel home in the climate I create with my presence, in the midst of my efforts to influence them, and in every nuance of my communications with them.
“A leader who connects to the subconscious need in each of us for the warmth of home is one who cultivates environments where people and dreams—the dreams of the followers and the leader—can flourish.”
This is not sentimentality. Fostering environments that say “home” in most every leadership sphere makes room for leadership to be more effective. It creates space where relationships can be nurtured around purpose, where the trust necessary for synergistic accomplishment is engendered, and where truth can be spoken in a way it will actually be received.
Jesus made a connection with people on a warm heart level.
That allowed Him to say and do things that were received in a way never witnessed before. Put simply, people felt at home with Jesus. And they were willing to follow Him anywhere.
Remember the story of Jesus joining the disciples on the road to Emmaus? These two were discussing the “rumors” of Jesus’ resurrection when He came up and started walking with them. He didn’t allow them to recognize Him at first. But while they ate dinner together, their eyes were opened to who He was. And after He disappeared, they realized that they had, in fact, been aware of something very familiar in His presence.
They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”1 It’s as if they said, “Oh yeah, we should’ve known that was him. . . . We have felt that before. Our hearts are always warm when we are with him.”
In her fifteenth-century spiritual classic The Showings of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich referred to Jesus as “homely.” 2 She did not mean he was ugly, of course. In the Middle English vernacular in which she wrote, homely referred to “friendliness.” Julian was saying that in her profound vision of Jesus, she felt welcomed—invited in. She was home.
I want to be a homely leader. When people are with me, I want their hearts to be warmed. If I am to lead them somewhere, I believe home is a good place to begin that journey.
Have you followed a homely leader? Drop a comment and tell us about them.
1 Luke 24:32
2 Julian of Norwich, The Showings of Julian of Norwich, trans., Mirabai Starr (Charlottesville: Hampton, 2013), xxi
Adapted from The Hospitable Leader (Baker Publishing Group) by Terry A. Smith. All rights reserved.
“Home” is the first of The 5 Welcomes of Hospitality. If you’ve read my book, The Hospitable Leader, you already know that. If you haven’t, you can learn more about these concepts in this free download.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash