How to Show Backyard Hospitality (without losing your mind) This Summer
This is behind our house on our backyard fence. Taking the lead of the Welcoming Your Neighbor Signs before we even attended Immanuel Mennonite (where the signs orginated), we had friends paint this mural facing the apartment complexes.
The first year we had the words and colors, the second year we had a backyard Vacation Bible School Saturday where one of the stations was adding the colorful images like the fruit of the spirit tree, Son rise, and your heart has a home.
We intentionally moved to a neighborhood with an international community of families and over the years, we’ve found ourselves with one to three kids who came over daily and up to 11 kids (plus our three) wanting to play with our swings or sandbox or balls or frisbees.
I know many families like ours who want to offer hospitality to neighborhood kiddos especially during the summer. It can be a way for our kids to feel a part of bringing God’s kingdom here on earth, serving our friends, welcoming others, showing what a family who loves Jesus looks like, working on forgiveness and fun, and introducing our kids to new cultures, both of origin and in terms of family rules/expectations.
I can say from experience, that it can also be overwhelming to open up your home without feeling like you are overrun and running a neighborhood babysitting agency.
Here are a few signs we’ve created over the years that have helped us immensely in building a backyard community with both acceptance and boundaries:
We’ve had kiddos walk into our kitchen while we were downstairs watching a movie or knock seven times while we were taking naps. This simple sign up helped to give a visual reminder of when we needed quiet and space. We worked with our regular visitors to practice knocking and waiting to open the door, and asked that kids knock once or twice but not more if we weren’t answering.
This sign was from the summer we had up to eleven kids visiting our backyard. We had to lay some ground rules and also enforce them so we didn’t have distraught parents who didn’t know their kids had come over, boys showing other kiddos inappropriate magazines, discarded bikes behind our van, or kids asking if they could have salt with the cucumbers I brought out or anything else they could eat instead :)
We laminated these and put them up on our gates. We went over them with kids and when they didn’t follow the rules (like leaving wrappers all over the yard), the next time they asked to play they had to wait one day as a consequence.
We asked our regular friends to explain to new kids who would appear the rules, increasing the ownership of our neighbor friends that we were a team, a family of sorts, who were choosing to relate to each other in specific ways.
COVID and moves because of the volatile housing market has seriously changed the amount and make up of kids who visit us. For a while, we had kids masks, then as school went on, moved to our kids masking only, and finally, without masks. We have had to reacquaint ourselves with families and with less kids, our rules were simpler this past summer and fall. We may change or write a new contract with kids as we see who comes over to play.
Here are my top ten tips for showing hospitality in your backyard this summer:
Keep it simple. You don’t need to entertain the neighborhood with elaborate games and crafts. Your smiling face and genuine interest is what gives kids a glimpse of God
Involve your kids in the vision for why you are being good hosts. Talk about how God invited us to his table. How Jesus sat with people you wouldn’t expect. Ask them how they feel welcome at another person’s house and how they can extend that welcome to new friends
Start small. If welcoming neighbors feels scary or chaotic, try planning one afternoon this summer, or a month, or a week where you commit to being home and available to be present.
Make boundaries proactively, not reactively. Having rules and expectations for everybody from the get-go means no one gets singled out
Let your kids choose what they want to share and what they want to put away or in the house for another time. Let them feel like they have some control over having to share their space and things and that they also are valuable
If this becomes a regular thing, enlist others for help. For one summer, our friends at Harrisonburg Mennonite church would drop off boxes of snacks for us to keep at our house for when kids came to play. It was an easy way to involve others and also take pressure off of me to feed the street
Minister with not just to. One of our favorite memories is a neighborhood pick up day where we collected trash on our street. Kids from all around kept joining in and while there was some hilarity (like pulling an old bike out of the creek), our friends became empowered to also care for our collective home. When our garden is in full swing, neighbor friends like to help weed and pick peas or help my husband chop branches, giving us organic opportunities for play, work, and faith conversations.
Meet parents if you can. Sometimes if kids come to play, I’ll ask to walk with them back home to quick meet mom, dad or caretaker. I’ll sometimes give my number and point out my house and that his/her child comes to play sometimes and they can call me if they need to
Reflect often, with God, with your family, and with your neighborhood friends. What’s going well? What’s uncomfortable? What would make it better for all involved? How do you want your times together to feel?
Be yourself. You don’t need an education degree or expensive yard toys. Kids are craving presence and a break from screens during the summer. Our kids have the opportunity to watch us and join us in making friends and telling others about the good news. The ways we live with delight and kindness and curiosity tell our neighborhood more than a perfect speech ever could.
How do you like to show hospitality in your neighborhood in the summer? What feels exciting about this idea? Overwhelming?
