Testimonies from You

The Hospitality of Need is all about caring for one another and seeing our needs, not as barriers or burdens, but as tools to grow deeper in fellowship with one another and with God.

We would love to hear from you! If you have read the book, please take some time to consider how you have experienced the hospitality of need in your own life and community. Then share your story with us here in the comments, and see what others have said as well. If you haven’t read the book yet, we would love for you to pick up a copy and join the conversation. In the meantime, please feel free to read through the comments below. We hope you are encouraged by these testimonies.

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Thank you for being a part of the story!

From your friends,

Kevan Chandler and Tommy Shelton
Authors of The Hospitality of Need

34 responses to “Testimonies from You”

Katie

May 23, 2025

Twenty years ago, and two months after our wedding, my husband and I moved from the Midwest, US to the west coast of Canada to start our life together. While I attended school, Ryan began pastoring at a local church. One of the unexpected gifts of that time was the church parsonage – a modest but spacious house in a very expensive city. Ryan and I were two twenty-something strangers in a strange new place and a five-bedroom house.
One of the things we started doing that fall was to acquire some furniture and host guests. Even as two introverts, we felt drawn to offer a similar hospitality to what we had received. Just weeks before, we had been guests in homes of people we didn’t know. Through their affiliation with my new school, they agreed to take in new students like us until we found housing of our own. Over that time, we lived in three different homes that sheltered us, fed us, and in two cases, gave us their own beds to sleep in. We were weary and wanted to land in our own home, but we also had fun. In addition to a roof and food, these new people gave us their time and their good will.
When Ryan and I began hosting new and prospective students in the parsonage, we made sure to sit with our guests around the breakfast table. We sometimes got to share dinner and stories after they came home from their day of exploring. More than once, those guests became lifelong friends. We gained people.
Since becoming friends with Kevan several years ago after we moved back to the Midwest, I have noted again and again that Kevan’s need produces some wonderful, living thing: a rich crop of people. Friends. Friends for Kevan and friends for friends and friends for me. Friends to enjoy the sharing and meeting of needs during this journey through a strange land toward home.

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Through engaging real-life stories, Kevan Chandler and Tommy Shelton share what can happen when we invite others into our lives—hardships and all. Ultimately, this is a book about friendship . . . the kind that God has called us to live in . . . friendship that goes deep and flourishes, not in spite of our needs but actually through them.

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