How to Furnish a Big, Big House

Back in 1993, the Christian rock band Audio Adrenaline recorded what most would consider their greatest hit: “Big House.”  For years, the song, off of their Don’t Censor Me album (ForeFront Records), played incessantly on Christian radio stations.  The band was huge in the Christian festival circuit–thousands of sweaty, pogo-ing teenagers yelling the lyrics back, word for word in unison, at the stage.  CCM even named “Big House” the “Song of the Decade.”  The basic premise of the poppy song is someone inviting you to come to their Father’s big, big house, which has lots (and lots) of rooms.  Audio Adrenaline sings that there are “rooms for everyone” in God’s house, a line straight out of John 14.2.

The 22nd annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), held in New York in May, could have easily solved the dilemma of how to furnish such a big, big house.  With 590 different exhibitors, from 40 different countries, there were tables, chairs, sofas, beds, lamps, rugs, and yes, even toilets, that would make guests never want to leave your house if you had them.  From neo-baroque plastic chairs to sustainable wood tables in organic shapes, the furnishings were of-the-moment and gorgeous.

Asian Art Imports

Doiz Design

Johnny Swing

Private Cloud

Rachel O'Neill

Valentina Glez Wohlers

Shine Labs

Areaware

If the giant rocking bed from Private Cloud is any indication, God’s mansion in the heavens is going to be pretty awesome.

In the meantime, though, Matt 6:19 tells us not to “store up treasures here on earth.”  To entertain strangers we do not need Prickly Pair Chairs and Shine Labs lamps–or even hi-def TVs and Blu-ray players.  The “big, big table with lots and lots of food” that Audio Adrenaline sings about doesn’t have to be a table from Asian Art Imports piled high with Whole Foods groceries, imported wine, and Mast Brothers Chocolate.  Rather, hospitality is about sharing, communing, listening, and including.  The nights you slumbered on Egyptian cotton sheets in luxury hotels while on business trips are probably not nearly as cherished as the ones you spent staying up all night with your siblings and cousins while camping out under blanket forts on the mildewy basement floor.  Opening up your home, be it to extended family who’s staying for three days or to someone who dropped in unannounced, is less about dust bunnies and more about building relationship.