The Practicalities of Creating Community Through Hosting

If you haven’t already, read about my journey to prioritize community building and how my family hosted 60+ other families in our first year in a new town: https://ethancopple.com/restoring-a-culture-of-community-and-hosting

The Basics of Hosting

If you take away one thing from this article, let it be this: hosting has to be a priority. Before you stress about what to cook or how clean your living room is, the most important step is a mindset shift. Regular, intentional, meaningful hosting will not happen by accident.

I’m tempted to write a 1950’s-style book about the rules of hosting, a long list of social taboos, and tips for becoming the talk of the neighborhood, but I felt like that would be a bit too much and too cliché for my style. Beyond the stylistic changes, I also think it’s more important to focus on a general approach, knowing that it won’t work for all circumstances and everyone. The hope, though, is that this ten-page ‘quip’ provides you a basis to examine your own approach to hosting and how what I write can be adapted to your circumstances.

I had a conversation with a friend where both he and his wife work full time, they have two kids, live far from family, and don’t host as much as they’d like. Given that my wife only works part time and we have one baby, our ability to cook and prepare during the day is a lot higher. I can’t say that I have a total solution to their or your situation; however, in my experience of hosting 60+ families 3-5 times a week will still, nonetheless, provide some ideas for how to make hosting and community building sustainable for your life!

The Culture and Mindset

Once again, the most important, yet simple advice I can give in this entire article is that it needs to be a priority. Have a conversation with your spouse or roommates about why it is important and necessary to have a practice of hosting.

When I first moved to Oregon, I moved into a house with three guys I had only met once. And yet, that house quickly became a hub. Friday night beers with friends, a full Friendsgiving, and countless casual hangouts became our norm. When I was engaged, we used those same approaches to help my long distance fiancée get connected. It wasn’t fancy, but it became more and more consistent.

From the beginning of our relationship, my wife and I talked very deliberately about our long-term vision for community. With both of our major moves (first to Oregon, then back to Kansas), we didn’t just hope to “find friends.” We built a plan. We set aside week nights, designed the Ferraro model, introduced ourselves to as many people as we could (including literally chasing down couples after Mass), and extended dinner invites to nearly anyone we could. About 30% of people said no or disappeared. But the other 70%? They became friends.

The mindset and culture (that you make and influence) is the key to making hosting work. Here’s the three big pointers reiterated from the first article to make hosting sustainable, reciprocated, and enjoyable:

• Prioritization over perfect. Don’t wait for your house to be clean, the perfect recipe, or your schedule to be empty. Choose to invite anyway. Hospitality is not a performance nor should the goal be to ‘impress’. Rather it should be to invite and build community.

• Consistency over intensity. You don’t need a five-course meal or themed decor. What you do need is regularity. Predictable weekly or monthly routines of connection build trust, familiarity, and friendship. Even just one night a week can change the trajectory of your social life.

• Hosting over entertaining. Hosting is about relationships, not presentation. When you lower the bar for what “good” looks like (toys on the floor, crockpot dinners), you also lower the barrier of entry for others. Your imperfection gives others permission to reciprocate hosting without fear.

The Space

One of the most common reasons people hesitate to host is because they feel like their home isn’t big enough, nice enough, or clean enough. I get it, we haven’t lived in a house built after 1950 yet. Our main hosting area is about 400 square feet for the open dining and living rooms, and the kitchen is a modest but separate space. Still, we’ve regularly hosted groups of 12 adults and 4 kids, and at one point managed to fit 17 adults and 14 kids under our roof. It took some creative furniture rearranging and was quite chaotic, but we made it work.

We’ve learned to treat our space as flexible and dual-purpose. For a larger dinner, we push our sofa out of the center of the room and extend the table using fold-out leaves and about ten folding chairs. After the meal, we collapse the table again and reset the space for conversation. We’ve intentionally bought secondhand furniture from Facebook Marketplace, refinishing pieces to match our aesthetic and save money, also removing the pressure of keeping everything pristine.

As hinted at before, for cleanliness, we aim for moderate, not meticulous. A quick sweep, vacuum, and wipe-down gets the job done. No one’s inspecting baseboards nor fretting if we dusted the top shelf. We’ve hosted plenty of times with laundry baskets tucked behind doors and bits temporarily stored in our bedroom. The point isn’t to impress, but to build relationships.

One thing that helps us avoid hosting fatigue is having a clear game plan for cleanup. After dinner, we put our daughter down for bed, Stephie tackles dishes, and I sweep, wipe counters, and reset furniture. Within 30 odd minutes, our house is back in order and ready for whatever the next day brings. It’s all part of the routine that makes hosting sustainable.

Simply, you don’t need a big or perfect space to host. You just need to be willing to make the space you do have work. Flexibility and hospitality go a long way in turning a modest home into a gathering place.

The Food

Cooking is a common hurdle, both practically and mentally, people imagine when it comes to hosting. Just like with space, the key is breaking free from the idea that hosting means extravagance. Most of our meals are straightforward and repeatable. I have a spreadsheet that lists our favorite meals that we can easily pick from and make our shopping list. Our friends and us regularly use crock and instant pots to simplify the experience. I’ll clean chicken in the morning before breakfast, throw in the other ingredients, and put it on low while I’m at work. It makes timing, prepping food, and cooking far less time sensitive for work days. Occasionally we’ll do something a little more time-intensive, like paella on the grill or a batch of handmade salsas, but those are the exception, not the rule.

Our general approach is to learn a few go-to staples and vary them enough to keep things interesting. Something like chicken with cream, mushrooms, and rice, a veggie on the side, maybe some cookies. It’s nothing fancy, but it feeds a group well and lets you focus more on your guests than on the stove. The point isn’t to wow people with your culinary skill, though with a little seasoning knowledge, even simple recipes can be made quite good!

Budgeting for hosting is something Stephie and I have consciously prioritized. While living off my graduate fellowship, we understand that budgets are tighter and food is more expensive than ever. We treat hospitality as a necessary part of our family spending, not an extra. Simply, we think of it the same way someone else might budget for eating out or date nights. When hospitality is a part of your routine, it becomes easier to plan for, both financially and mentally.

And of course, not everything has to be a full dinner: (instant) coffee bars, afternoon teas, night time beers with peanuts. There’s a lot of options that are fun, simple, and cheap that allow for time for discussion.

The two biggest perceived barriers to food, cost and time, can, thus, be overcome with prioritization and a shift in expectations. You don’t need a crazy menu. You need a meal that feeds without being unsustainable. And once you find a few that work for your family, you’ll be surprised how easy it becomes to gather others around your table.

The People

When it comes to hosting regularly, the people are obviously a critical component. A key distinction or question to guide invitations and the continuations of relationships is: Does time with this person fill our cup, or drain it?

This isn’t about writing people off or making a clique. Not everyone is going to be a great fit for friendship. And some of the most meaningful relationships we’ve built started off awkward, exhausting, or even a little confusing. Especially in a new place, you sometimes have to push through a few draining conversations or mismatched dynamics to find the people who really click. That’s part of the process. But over time, it becomes pretty clear: some people energize you and are easy friends. Others just aren’t the right fit.

The goal isn't necessarily to only host people who are just like you or who always “fill your cup.” That’s not a full community, more so a curated social bubble. But if you want to build a sustainable rhythm of hospitality, you do need to be intentional about balance. It’s good and even necessary to include a mix: people you’re investing in, people you’re getting to know, and people who are already friends. Just make sure you’re prioritizing and protecting your energy by regularly spending time with those who recharge you, to keep hosting sustainable.

Over time, those cup-filling relationships become the backbone of your week and community. They’re the ones who linger for hours, stay to help clean up, bring dessert or a salad without asking, and you can call to jump your car. A year into our new community, we have about a 60-40 split of friends and new or building invitations that we see week to week.

And beyond your own social needs, hosting is also about being a bridge for others. You don’t have to be a natural fit with every person you invite into your home. Often, the goal isn’t to build a lifelong friendship, it’s to create connections between people who might never have met otherwise or would have taken longer to get to know each other. We’ve hosted cocktail nights with three or four new families, or tea times with stay-at-home moms and military families, simply with the intention of gathering people we think might get along together. From there, it’s up to them to water and grow whatever might emerge from this initial seeding. Some friendships won’t take root, and that’s okay. But, in our case, many will and many of our friends reminisce on their first meetings at our house.

Ultimately, healthy hosting balances these two intentions: building deep, mutual friendships that sustain you, and creating open space for new relationships to form, even if they don’t center around you. This is what makes a home a hub of community and invites a communal culture of hosting.

The Invitation

For many people, the hardest part of hosting isn’t the cooking or cleaning, it’s the invitation. Though I’m now known to chase people out of church to introduce myself and strike up random conversations with strangers, I used to be an introvert and quite socially shy. But, recognizing that out of school, few people were going to go out of their way to become friends with me, I recognized the need to grow to have more social courage. There’s always moments of awkwardness and fear in an initial, cold conversation, but there’s not a quicker or more effective way to meet someone new. All it takes is a few minutes of social courage. Now some of our friends in new places “channel their inner Ethan and Stephie” to build that initial courage to strike up a conversation.

It can feel overly forward, too eager, or even a little vulnerable to ask someone into your home. But I can attest that the risk of brief awkwardness is worth it. Honestly, most people won’t understand or fully hear the first words out of your mouth. The invitation doesn’t need to be complicated or elaborate. I usually start with a very simple, “Hi, I’m Ethan – I saw you at Church (or wherever) and wanted to introduce myself and my family.” From there after a bit of chit chat, I say, “We’d love to have you over for dinner – let me grab your number and we can coordinate.” If they want to leave the conversation before that point they can, or they can ghost you after the fact. But it’s rarely uncomfortable and almost always worth it.

We usually take the initiative, especially when we’re new to a place. It’s easy to overthink it, but the truth is, most people are more flattered than anything that you’d go out of your way to get to know them better. Unfortunately, it’s rare that people are invited to a near-stranger's or even a known acquaintance’s home.

Of course, about 30% of people don’t follow up or say no. And that’s okay. It’s not a personal failure, it’s just a reality that not everyone desires a community for one reason or another. A lot of people are busy, unsure, or socially rusty. Nonetheless, the risk of mild awkwardness is absolutely worth it for the relationships that do form. We’ve found that 70% say yes, and many have become lifelong friends.

When people come over, once again, it shouldn’t feel like a performance. If they arrive and you’re still setting the table or finishing up dinner, let them jump in. If they ask to bring something, let them without fuss. Hosting is less about perfection and show and more about shared participation. People feel more relaxed when they can contribute in small, natural ways.

If the first dinner goes well, you can always follow up. Extend a second invite casually to reinvite and signal your enjoyment of the dinner. This kind of low-pressure, sincere follow-up gives people an easy yes and signals your openness to building a relationship.

In the end, invitation is about showing an openness and hospitality before anyone even steps through the door. It can be a big psychological barrier, but the fear gets lessened with each invitation and the friendships built offer the reward necessary to keep going!

The Kids

When our daughter was born last spring, my mom made a comment about how we would need to reconsider our hosting schedule. She was right, the added effort of parenting on top of work and our normal life made us reduce hosting. That is, from hosting 5-6 to 3-4 times per week. A modest cut, but still well above the average.

One of the biggest barriers to hosting for young families is the kids. The effort to leave or clean the house, the schedules, the bedtime chaos, the unpredictability…it can all feel like too much to layer on top of dinner prep and guest interaction. But here’s the truth: if you wait until your kids are old enough to “behave” or until schedules “clear up”, you could end up missing entire decades of connection and community-building.

We’ve chosen to host with our daughter, not in spite of her (see the Family Culture and Hosting Bonus Section). That means we embrace a certain level of mess, noise, and interruption as part of the environment. Our house has one, open main room. There’s no designated play area beyond the floor in between the chairs and couches. So, there’s no hiding the chaos or noise. But at least it makes it easy to keep an eye on everyone!

When families come over with their own kids, we try to set the tone quickly: Our house is lived in. The toys are here to be used. Food will be thrown on the ground. We’re not worried about spills on the table cloth or noise. This tone decreases everyone’s stress and reiterates that we’re not interested in performing or watching a performance of ‘perfect family life’. We know it’s chaotic and there’s no need to apologize for the often messy reality of raising kids.

During dinner or conversation time, we’ll often take turns keeping our daughter and the other kids engaged so one of us can stay in the adult conversation. I’m reminded distinctly of a recent Ferraro night where 4 kids were trying to tackle one of the dads just a few feet outside the circle of adults. It was loud, things had to be repeated, but it was still a good conversation. And when it gets late and bedtime routines begin, we’ve learned to be flexible. People will bring PJs to our house and start routines in our living room that way things are already wound down by the time they’re home. With our group events, we’ll have an ‘official’ end of the night, usually Night Prayer from the Divine Office. People can choose to linger if their kids have a bit more gas, but they also know they’re free to go. If kids melt down, we don’t treat it as a disruption. It’s dealt with, things reset, and the conversation restarts.

The key is creating a space that’s kid-friendly without being kid-dominated. Adults still have meaningful conversation. The atmosphere is still intentional. But the reality of parenting and family life is honored, not hidden.

Why does this matter so much? Because if young families don’t feel like they can host and be parents, they’ll either isolate or wait too long. And if you can model relaxed, grace-filled hosting in the toddler and preschool years, you’re not just giving your kids exposure to community, you’re giving your guests permission to do the same.

Hospitality doesn’t have to (and should not) pause during early parenthood. In fact, that’s often when we need it the most. We’ve learned countless tricks and tips from talking with other parents and observing their parenting. Hosting with kids is messier and a bit more chaotic, sure. But it’s also more joyful, more real, and often more life-giving than the polished version we think we’re supposed to aim for.

The Schedule

One of the most common questions we get is, “How often do you actually host?” And the answer is: It depends. When we first arrived in Kansas, we only had one family we were previously friends with living nearby, and they were moving away a few months after we arrived. In that season, with a baby on the way, a desire to build up a community quickly, and few friends to start with, we hosted 4-5 times a week, with some weeks exceeding 7 events. Now, with our daughter and a thriving community, there’s weeks where we host once and are hosted 3-4 other times and other weeks where we host 4-5 times. That pace isn’t for everyone, but it’s possible because we’ve built systems and expectations around it.

For most people starting out, weekly or biweekly hosting is the sweet spot. Weekly dinners build momentum and connection quickly. They make hosting feel normal, not like a special event, but just “something we do.” If weekly feels like too much, you can always start with twice a month. The key is to pick something consistent enough that it doesn’t fade into the background of a busy life and keep it as a priority!

Practically, we’ve found a few tools that make scheduling easier:

• A shared digital calendar (like Outlook or Google Calendar) helps us avoid conflicts and block out hosting nights in advance.

• We use group texts or message threads to coordinate dates, share reminders, and confirm meals.

• For recurring groups like Ferraro Nights, we’ll rotate hosting responsibilities weekly and create a simple rotation schedule at the start of each season.

Ultimately, the goal is to choose a cadence that’s both realistic and effective. Too infrequent, and connections fade. Too frequent without some structure or rhythm, and it becomes unsustainable. But just the right routine makes hosting a sustainable part of the week, not a disruption to it.

The Tools

You don’t need an Instagram kitchen or a designer dining room to be a great host. Our modest home doesn’t have a dishwasher or a particularly large amount of space. We work with what we have and have slowly acquired pieces to facilitate ease of hosting.

Here are some of our go-to tools that help make hosting go smoothly:

• Folding tables & chairs: Our normal table is a 30 odd year hand me down with space for 4 comfortably. Thus, we keep a small fold-out table (that we also use for camping) and about 10 folding chairs tucked away in a closet. They come out when the guest list grows or when we want to convert the living room into a giant communal table. If we have about 8, we make a giant square. If more, we make a very long table that runs ⅔’s of the way through our house.

• Furniture I can move: Not exactly a ‘tool’ but it allows us to transform our space to fit the needs of the group we’re hosting quickly and clean up without much effort. We got a loveseat off FB marketplace that normally divides our living and dining spaces. I can move it to the side of the room to make space for eating and move back to make space to sit and chat.

• Tablecloths (wipeable and/or washable): They’re a small investment that pays off big for clean up. We use tablecloths that hide our mismatched tables and make cleanup a breeze where we can just dump crumbs outside and throw it in the wash.

• Throwaway plates for big gatherings: Not every meal needs the full dishwashing routine, especially since we have to do it all by hand. For larger groups, paper plates simplify the post-meal chaos and let us focus on people, while not dreading the sink.

• Spotify playlists: For both setup and cleanup, something to keep the energy up and make the mundane a bit fun is key. They also pair well with the next piece! We aren’t huge fans of playing music while people are over, as, often, it’s already loud enough with the kids. But it helps keep things light and fun!

• Disco ball: Yes, really. After dinner and our daughter’s bed time, we’ll throw on a mini disco ball we received as a joke gift. Like the music, it helps transition the mundane task of sweeping and washing dishes to something a bit more enjoyable. Simply, keeping it fun helps to alleviate the drain.

• Automatic-ish Appliances: These range in terms of your individual needs, but a rice cooker (that doesn’t require attention to the stove or stirring), a crockpot (where we can dump and wait to make a good dinner), and electric kettle (to pump out boiling water for tea) have been time and focus savers. Not something we’ve invested in yet, but when we have a bit more space, we’re planning to get food warmers to help alleviate some of the timing stress as well.

As you host more, the more you realize that systems create sustainability. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel each time. Spending a bit of time thinking about your least favorite part of hosting (cooking, cleaning, etc.) and investing in little things that make it easier and easier helps keep it sustainable. A few thoughtful tools and shortcuts reduce friction and give you the freedom to focus on spending time with guests.

Bonus Sections:

Hosting Outside the Home

Not everyone has the space or ability to host at home. If you live in a small apartment or are a student with roommates or a rule on your lease, home might not be a sustainable reality. That’s okay. You can still be a community builder and host, it just needs to adapt to your circumstances.

On nice days, we’re known to plan an outing and take over a picnic shelter or short trail. In addition to hosting from our home, we also help run a married and young families group for our parish, hosting out of the basement of our Church. These spaces may lack the personal touch of a home, but they offer new possibilities: more space, different activities.

You can also create consistent “third-place” routines that foster connection without needing to prep a meal or sweep the floor. A weekly coffee shop meetup, service morning to clean up the Church grounds, a mom’s get-together, or a simple time to get together and walk are all ways to gather people without needing a dining table.

Sometimes, you don’t even have to be the one providing the space, you can serve as a co-host. That might mean initiating the invite, organizing the logistics, setting the tone, or even bringing the food. One of our friends has several older kids and it can become a bit cramped in our house. So, we often come to theirs and bring the food! If someone else is more comfortable opening their home, your willingness to lead relationally still makes the gathering possible. The truth is, many people are hungry for community but assume they can’t be the “host” because of their space and circumstance.

But you can just do things. Take over your local coffee shop or park with your friends. You don’t need a perfect house to be a gatherer of people. All you need is the willingness to go first and the creativity to make use of what’s available.

Family Culture and Hosting

In our journey to restore a culture of community and hosting, we've come to realize that hospitality isn't about entertaining guests. It's about intentionally shaping our family's identity.

As highlighted in our reflections, the decline in regular hosting has contributed to increased isolation and a loss of communal connection. Living with my Godparents in Wichita during the summer of 2020 was a transformative experience. Their home was a hub of activity, with friends and family coming and going, sharing meals, and engaging in meaningful conversations. This consistent rhythm of hospitality wasn't about grand events; it was about creating a space where for friends and family to pop in and out of.

I recognized the profound impact that regular, intentional hosting could have on family dynamics. By making hospitality a regular part of our lives, we're not only countering the trends of isolation but also modeling a way of life that prioritizes connection over convenience. In embracing this approach, we're not striving for perfection in our hosting endeavors. Instead, we're focusing on consistency and intentionality, understanding that it's through these repeated acts of hospitality that we cultivate a family culture that is oriented outwards.

In our home, we see hosting not just as a social activity but as a practice of formation. Our children won’t always want to learn from us or follow our model. But we can surround them with other adults we trust that can be those role models and guides for our children. Our daughter is still small, but she already sees that people come over often. In fact, we entirely skipped stranger danger because she became so used to the range of faces that come through our home. Our friends’ kids know our names and rush over to greet us when we arrive. We’ve become Godparents for one of our friends' kids.

We host, not just because it is personally edifying, but because it is needed in our increasingly isolated culture. Because our family benefits practically, mentally, and spiritually from our hospitality. Because it allows us to pursue depth with people that would have otherwise remained strangers.

If you're overwhelmed by the idea of hosting, or unsure whether it’s worth the effort, zoom out. Think not just about what you're doing for others, but about what you’re building within your own home. Your hospitality, imperfect as it may be, is shaping your family. It’s forming your habits, your values, and your legacy. And in a culture that increasingly retreats inward, creating a home that leans outward is one of the most powerful countercultural acts of all.

Why Host? (Conclusion)

This article got long! It hardly captures the totality of our experience, stories, and thoughts, though it’s a good start. Perhaps I ought to revisit the idea of writing a 1950’s style book to fit it all in…

Hosting isn’t always convenient. It’s rarely perfect. It doesn’t need to be. Over time, it becomes one of the most quietly powerful practices you can build into your life. Not because the baseboards are cleaner or you’ve become a star chef, but because of the relationships that are built through consistency and prioritization.

This kind of life doesn’t build itself. There are likely few people that will pass you an invitation. It requires intention and effort but the relationships are worth it. You don’t need a huge house, endless free time, or a bottomless wallet. You just need a vision for the kind of community you want and the willingness to take the first step.

Hosting will not just shape your social life, but your family culture and enjoyment of the week. It doesn’t need perfection, it needs an invitation to be extended.