Starting A Dinner Church

Pastor Gary Bellis (Revised 6-16-25)

The following information reflects the process Newport AG used to develop and plant our Dinner Church. We launched March 2019. The strategy was for our traditional church to plant a Parent Affiliated Church (PAC) in our existing community.  Setting: Rural Community, town population 1,700, county 46,000. 

The WHY of Dinner Church

• Dinner Church targets a growing group of people who are not interested in traditional church ministry.  Consider four categories of people in our culture to whom we are privileged to minister: the nones, dones, somes and comes.  These groups represent those who have no religious affiliation, have tried church and stopped attending, who attend church sporadically and those who consider themselves regular church attendees.  The fastest growing groups are the nones and dones.  We targeted these two groups.
• Dinner Tables are one of the most important places of human connection. Jesus often ministered to people when eating with them.  This was also the practice of the early church.
• Our strategy is for team members to develop friendships and build community over a weekly meal leading to opportunities to share the gospel.  

A Typical Dinner Church Meeting

• We meet every Thursday at our Family Life Center (gym, stage and commercial kitchen).
• The cooking team begins preparing the meal at a time they determine.
• Set up team prepares the room at a time they determine.
• 5:00 p.m. Doors open to the public.  
• Contemporary Christian background music is played as people enter and while they are eating.
• 5:30 p.m. Welcome and description of The Dinner Table. Three F’s – Food, Friendship and Faith. Food is always free but attendees are invited to partner with us by serving and investing financially.  A donation box is placed at a prominent location each week.  
• 5:35 p.m. A simple gospel message – 8-10 minutes; stories about Jesus and stories told by Jesus. Short, pertinent videos may be used to grab the attention of the audience.  The speaker may distribute talking points or questions to the tables to facilitate discussion of the topic.  
• 5:45 the meal is served.  To avoid long lines, tables are called by number to the buffet table where servers distribute food.  Second helpings are usually offered.  Remaining food is packed in take home containers and provided to attendees as they are departing.
• 6:45 – 7:00 p.m. clean up begins.
• All team members are encouraged to make friends and exemplify the love, grace and kindness of Jesus.
• A large piece of the ministry occurs around the tables through conversation initiated by the Table Host team members. The Table Host will ask for prayer requests and lead the table in prayer each week.  Selected testimonies of answered prayer are shared with the entire room.  
• We do not have a separate ministry for kids.  High chairs, booster seats, Biblical coloring sheets/crayons, simple crafts, are provided at the tables.  We also provide Bible centered word games (find a word, puzzlers, etc.) for adults.
• Name tags (first names) are provided and worn by everyone – ministry team members and guests.  We constantly talk of making friends, building community and becoming involved.  
• Connect cards are placed at each table to obtain contact information. Table Hosts use this info for follow up. We also use this information to celebrate attendee birthdays every week for birthdays occurring that month. The entire room sings Happy Birthday. We give inexpensive birthday gifts each week to the qualifying attendees.  
• Discipleship piece – Table Hosts follow-up individuals receiving Christ and/or those desiring to grow their faith, using the book, “Discover: Your Next Steps with Jesus by Daniel McNaughton and Shane Wilson. Assignments are given and later discussed. In addition, we have a free book and literature table containing specific Christian literature. A couple act as ‘librarians’ and can direct people to specific books for stated needs and challenges. We also provide free memberships to Right Now Media and will suggest additional Christian websites to support growth in Christ. Table hosts are encouraged to monitor and discuss the discipleship assignments.

The HOW of Dinner Church

First Steps 

• Pray – ask God to show you His will as you investigate this ministry opportunity.
• Obtain and read the book “Welcome to Dinner Church” ($9.95, 182 pages)
• Visit and experience a Dinner Church venue.  
• Begin to share your insights and stirrings with staff (or key volunteers), the church board, etc.
• Obtain and view the “Welcome to Dinner Church Video Series” ($22.95, 8 sessions, DVD or Digital Streaming of Video). Obtain streaming video only at https://my.seedbed.com/product/welcome-to-dinner-church/ 

FYI: additional books – “Dinner Church: Building Bridges by Breaking Bread” ($15.00, 182 pages) that dives deeper into the theology behind Dinner Church ministry.  It also describes a declining 85-year-old church that was revitalized by adopting this strategy. “The Dinner Church Handbook” ($18.00) is a guide for leaders and teams who are feeling called to plant a Jesus table in their city. It deals with practical things like where to plant, how to fund it, impressive menus that average cooks can make happen, etc.

Note: Order materials at https://freshexpressions.com/product-category/book.  If you have one or two key church leadership people already interested in this strategy, consider including them in the above steps.

Second Steps

• Recruit a Dinner Church Developmental Team.  Plan an initial meeting with them to explore the possibilities and cast vision. (We started with 15 potential Developmental Team members and ended up with 12 by launch time). 
• Assign the people expressing interest to read the “Welcome to Dinner Church” book.  Provide additional copies to members of your staff and church board.
• Take the entire Developmental Team to visit and experience a Dinner Church venue.
• Schedule the Developmental Team to view the “Welcome to Dinner Church Video Series as a group.  Our Developmental Team met one evening per week for 8 weeks.  We viewed 1 or 2 video segments per week (They average 15-25  minutes each) followed by a discussion time to brainstorm and adapt the content to our church and community context.  
• Schedule additional meetings with the Developmental Team to finalize your strategy.  We designed this ministry considering three pieces: food, friendship and faith. Note – This strategy scales.  You can start and build it as small or large as you desire. Determine how often you will meet – weekly…monthly?  What will ministry look like at your event?  Establish an attendance goal and budget for the first year.  What will you name this outreach?  
• Cast the vision to the entire church body – Present the “Why,” then “What would it look like if our church…”
• We established a clear understanding with the traditional church body – this is NOT a church fellowship event.  (We requested church members who were not part of the ministry team to NOT attend Dinner Table events unless they were bringing a person fitting the target audience).
• Locate and reserve a meeting location. 
• Create simple job descriptions and fill positions from the church body/community: Promotional team, cooks, servers, desserts, set-up (table decorations, materials for kids and adults, etc.), greeters, table hosts, speaking team, dining room clean-up, kitchen clean-up. This is an excellent on ramp for traditional church attendees to become engaged in ministry that is not too far outside their comfort zone.
• Once underway, you can very quickly involve the Dinner Church attendees to promote buy-in.  (Modern-day axiom – “You have to belong to believe.”)  
• Set a start date and begin to put all the pieces in place.
• Promote the ministry.  Use simple invitation cards for team members to hand out. Your local Food Bank is a great place to distribute invitations.  We obtained permission to place large sign boards at key locations in town the day before and the day of the dinner event each week.   
• Strongly consider having a trial run the week prior to your start date.  We invited 25 people from the church and practiced all parts of the event. 

Newport AG Timeline: 

• Our process from recruiting a Developmental Team to launch was 8 months.
• We launched the last Thursday of March 2019 (Trial run held one week prior).
• Our numeric goal was to average 50 attendees per week by the end of 2019 (9 months) and 100 attendees per week by the end of 2020 (21 months).   
• After three months we were averaging 123 attendees per week.  When we stopped meeting one year later (March 2020 – COVID-19) we averaged 158 attendees. We resumed meeting in September 2020.  Currently we are averaging 130 attendees per week. We have an average of 25 to 30 team members serving per week.) 

Additional thoughts:

• You can start a dinner church anywhere, even in the community where you have your traditional church. A Parent Affiliated Church plant (Mother Church led initiative) provides incredible resources for leadership, “vetted”people to serve and finances to effectively launch a dinner church.
• If your target audience is nones and dones consider not using “church” in the name of your outreach.  Our name is “The Dinner Table” 
• Preparing the meals is the most challenging piece to maintain.  We have rotating cooking teams to avoid burnout. Our cooking team coordinators are available if you need assistance regarding developing cooking teams, planning menus and purchasing food and meal related items. 
• “Our current cost ( June 2025) per plate is $1.35.  This includes food, beverages, plasticware, disposable table coverings, paper products and take-home containers. Rent is not included.
• The goal of our PennDel Network  is to structure a Dinner Church Cohort to assist with startups, discover best practices, address challenges, fuel motivation, support and pray for one another. 
• A monthly Zoom call will begin July 17, 2025 and meet every third Thursday at Noon. Dinner Church Grants are available to qualifying AG startups.

Pastor Gary Bellis
Newport Assembly of God
Cell: 717-580-7283
bellisg51@gmail.com  

Pastor Jessica Albright
Faith Assembly of God
Cell: 717-856-5324
jessicaljones86@gmail.com