Holy Hospitality: Creating Spaces of Welcoming, Beauty, and Safety with Kaylene Derksen

Cultivate the Ordinary

In this episode, Travis and Jess talk all facets of hospitality with their friend and President of the Soul Care Institute, Kaylene Derksen. There's plenty of laughs at the outset as the conversation steers around Northern accents, cows, and reminiscing about growing up on farms in the upper Midwest.

Kaylene and her husband Jimm are gifted in the area of hospitality and see this as a space we can all learn to grow more in. Kaylene powerfully describes "the heart of hospitality" and how God created the world in all its original beauty and goodness as an act of great grace for us. As image bearers of God, she reminds us that we live lives full of opportunities to also create places that are beautifully hospitable and welcoming. Kaylene also reminds of the great lengths Jesus went to demonstrating and valuing hospitality in his earthly ministry.

The conversation later turns to talking about how hospitality and spaces of welcoming and safety are so much part of soul care. Kaylene also describes the importance of hospitality when it comes to times of grief and how important it is to cultivate safe, welcoming spaces to process loss.

Mentioned in the podcast:

Soul care retreats and resources at the Soul Care Institute

Follow on Instagram: @soul_care_institute

Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soulcareinstitute

Song: "Loved" by Leslie Odom Jr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVvEePHJkKk

Additional resources from Travis and Jess:

Guided Pace website: resources for coaching, soul care, and spiritual retreat offerings

Travis' books:

Shiny Eyes: Seeing Better Through the Lenses of Joy, Tears, Beauty, and Hope

Redemption's Echo: Living in the Reflection of God's Grace