The Flow of Dinner Church: What Dinner Church looks like
“So what does this actually look like?” I get that question often from folks who are captivated by the idea of dinner church and are beginning to explore what it would look like to start one. Let’s explore that. What follows is a template for how the community dinner can happen. This is a flow of dinner church we have (currently, we are always adapting) that we have settled into. It’s heavily informed by the Community Dinners in this Seattle network.
Dinner Church Flow
Overview
Prep | The Welcome | Feast | Announcements & Kids Blessing | Jesus Story | Listening Time | Communion & Blessing
Detail
Prep: 4-4:45 PM
Our host teams arrive, set up the space, and help with final food prep. Our music team arrives, sets up rehearses. The team(s) pray together then find greeting stations. Half the host team finishes kitchen prep and prepares to serve, the others post up at the front door, welcome table, and dining space ready to greet neighbors and friends.
The Welcome: 4:45-5:05 PM
The host team is ready to greet neighbors and is tasked with championing the spirit of hospitality (stranger-love). This means they have special attention towards the newcomer and the neighbor. They make genuine connections (no rush to get in and grab a seat before the show starts… that’s not the point) and encourage folks to grab a drink, snack, and/or a seat next to someone and share something they are grateful for.
Pro tip: Have snacks and drinks available right away. People mingle and make connections more easily when they have either food or drink in their hands.
Live music starts right at 5 PM. Music on Spotify is playing before 5 to set the ambiance. This is intentionally both worship music and “secular” music. Choose a playlist that fits your vibe. Our music/worship coordinator gives a brief welcome before playing live music. Our community has been in a habit of starting with the same song every week for a season. Of late the intro song for us has been Come to The River by Housefires.
At 5:05 an Emcee (usually a pastor or staff) will come up and give a formal welcome. At this point, there is a healthy buzz from the conversations in the room. They will introduce themselves, thank people for coming, give a sentence or to on why this community dinner (what we call dinner church most often) is happening, then pray for the food. For us this often sounds like:
“Hey everyone, we are so glad you have come, I’m JD one of the leaders at North City. North City hosts this community dinner because our mission is to love our neighbors in the way of Jesus, and when we look at Jesus’ life he is always inviting people around tables as a way to show he loves them. So that’s why we are coming around these tables tonight. We’ve got bbq sandwiches and yummy dessert tonight so let me pray for our meal and let’s dive in… prayer (brief) and instructions to come up and be served when ready).
Feast - Let’s eat! 5:10-5:30
Here is the main event! After the welcome, neighbors and friends are invited to jump in a serving line and be served a full meal (main dish, side, salad, dessert… etc. —- we are going for gospel abundance!). There is a holy hum in the room. Friends laughing, neighbors making small talk… people’s stories being listened to (maybe for the first time in a while). It’s beautiful… it’s the kingdom.
Live music - Worship and otherwise. What is a feast without music?!? While people are laughing, and connecting our worship coordinator is playing a curated set of music. This set is an intentional mix of worship and secular music centered on the theme of the Jesus story (more on that below). This is live music at a coffee shop meets acoustic worship set. Our worship coordinator often pauses between songs. She will often crack jokes about what’s happening in the room or give a little context for why she chose each song. This environment gives people permission to stop their conversations and just listen to the lyrics.
Upgrade: ART One fun thing to add to the mix is Art. Incorporating art in dinner church can look like an artist doing a live painting during the dinner, or having an art wall where people can bring their own art to hang on that connects with the theme. We did the latter during the Advent season and it was a hit.
Announcements & Kids Blessing: 5:30-40 PM
About the time the kids finish their food and start getting restless we have an Emcee jump on the mic and transition the community dinner into its second act. The Emcee lets everyone know that they are going to take a moment to share about other things the community has going on throughout the week (community or discipleship opportunities). After they do so they invite everyone to fix their attention on a little one that may be at their table for a blessing.
On any given Sunday night our dinner church people under the age of 12 can comprise 30-40% of the community dinner! So for us (not every dinner church) having intentional, developmentally age-appropriate, spaces is important. From 5:35-6:15 Kids under 6 go a separate space in the building for programming led by a family life team. Elementry students shift to a dedicated table in the same space as adults with focused crafts and conversation for their age group. Middle and High Schoolers are full participants in the dinner church experience with adults.
As a way to usher the kids 6 and under to their programing we have the Emcee lead everyone in a prayer of blessing. We invite everyone to extend a hand towards the closest little one and we celebrate and pray over them together.
After the prayer of blessing, we offer a table question that (1) provides something to do in the transition of kids leaving the room (2) helps adults naturally turn back to discussion around tables (3) shifts the vibe of the dinner just ever so slightly into a deeper level of conversational intention. These questions are often “ice breakers” in nature. They range from “what was the best part of your week” to “Who has been a mentor to you in your life?” They often (not required) queue up the Jesus story. For instance, if the Jesus storyteller is going to talk about hope, we may have a table question like “What is something you have been hoping for recently.”
Jesus story: 5:45-5:55ish
I like to call dinner church or community dinner a Jesus table. The space we are creating is ultimately a space where the spirit of Jesus is present and at work. It’s Jesus’ table really, we are all invited. SO, we love to tell stories about the host.
What is a Jesus story? This is a term North City has adopted from the work of Verlon Fosner and the community dinners in Seattle. This is part testimony, part devotional, part “word”, part sermon. It’s kind of its own homiletical entity. The way I coach Jesus storytellers in our context (yes it’s not always me as the pastor, we love a multiplicity of voices) is to “tell us about how a story from Jesus life resonates with your life and can make a difference in our lives.”
Subscribe to this blog and podcast for more on Jesus stories.
Examples of Jesus stories
As the name suggests they are almost always stories from the gospels, though we are open to other bible stories. The intent is to introduce people to Jesus by demonstrating how Jesus can make a difference in our lives.
By sharing how Jesus’ story has shaped our story we set up space to listen to each other’s stories! If this happens it is very natural to transition from 1 person speaking from the microphone to small clusters of people sharing their thoughts and reflections around tables.
Listening time: 5:55-6:10 PM
If there is one thing we are collectively bad at these days it is listening. One of the beautiful things that dinner church accomplishes is creating an environment where people’s stories and perspectives can be heard and shared. By creating space around the community dinner tables to discuss the Jesus story we create this space for listening.
At the end of the Jesus storytime, the Jesus storyteller sets up this environment by encouraging people to turn to the people around them (small clusters of 3-6 people naturally form) and answer the question “what is one thing that you resonated within the Jesus story tonight?” The Storyteller has the liberty to ask more contextualized questions based on the Jesus story. This could sound like “What does it look like for you to see your neighbor?”
We are still learning and adapting this! This is a delicate moment at dinner church. To be honest there have been moments where it has devolved into someone airing their latest political opinion… people spewing out christiannesse…. and people straight up just getting up and leaving. But those experiences are far less than the common experience of rich authentic listening and sharing. This is risky… you are giving a lot of freedom for people to shape their own experience in the conversation.
Here are some things we’ve tried to put some good guard rales on that listening time:
We call it “Listening time” not “discussion time.” Language matters and we do our best to always be using language that actually reflects what we are hoping for instead of just the next best language we have for the thing that’s happening. When you say “discussion time” people hear “bible study” and think “I have to come up with something spiritual to say.” When you promote listening people’s posture changes to one of primarily offering a listening ear rather than thinking about what they can share. This also gives people permission not to share if they don’t want to they can simply listen… and that is a win!
Ask people to keep their sharing to no more than 2 mins. At points, we’ve given these specific parameters to promote mutuality and keep the focus on listening.
Say “make sure everyone has a chance to share if they want to, but if you want to just listen tonight… that’s wonderful.”
We give people permission to flow back into small talk if the deeper conversation fizzles out.
Communion & Blessing: 6:15 PM
These practices are unique to our dinner church. They were not components of the style of dinner church we were trained in but they were important to us.
Around 6:10/15 the Emcee or the Storyteller gets back on the mic and interrupts conversation gently to lead people through a simple practice of communion. For us this means we have juice and crackers on the table and we share a brief thought then someone from within the existing conversation cluster pours juice and passes bread to everyone in the cluster. We then partake together. This is one last way the community dinner ultimately points to Jesus. We practice open communion, so everyone who is comfortable participating is welcome to participate.
After communion, the Emcee “closes” the time with a blessing. We encourage everyone to open their hands in a posture of receiving and we play a blessing over them and their week. After the prayer we let people know that if they would like the prayer we have people who would love to pray with them. We have had spontaneous large group prayers for healing, and small one-on-one prayers in the corner of the room. It’s beautiful to watch the people of God become the priesthood of all believers and care for one another. In the end, we promote lingering. We say “please stay and chat as long as you like, we are going to start cleaning up but no need to rush out.”
And, of course, parents need to grab their kids from childcare :)
That’s a wrap! That’s dinner church for us.
HOW WOULD YOU DO IT DIFFERENTLY? That’s the beauty of the movement of dinner church, it can be highly contextualized and may look different in various locations. Let us know your ideas and questions in the comments.