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By Greg LeMaster, Graceland Baptist Church in Powhatan, VA
In June of 2018, we started 8 weeks of training with 20 people interested in starting a Dinner Church at Graceland Baptist Church in Powhatan, Va. Previously, a couple of deacons and myself had attended a conference lead by Verlon Fosner about the Dinner Church movement that his church had started. We were very impressed as we all came back to share with our pastor as well as others in our congregation about this great ministry opportunity to plant a Dinner church in our community! Many in our congregation felt our excitement and concurred that we had a great opportunity in front of us to potentially bless and impact our community.
We remembered asking Verlon at the conclusion of the conference about the context of our church at Graceland where we were serving folks with our weekly food pantry. Verlon mentioned that our food pantry could be a perfect place to start as this could be a new congregation that blossoms into a Dinner Church. Indeed, it did!
In June of 2018 we began with some basic training by starting with all 20 folks reading together the book called Welcome to Dinner, Church by Verlon Fosner. After going through that book, we shared the DVD Training Video of Dinner Church with our new team which made up 4 weeks of 2-hour instruction covering many topics of information concerning starting a Dinner Church.
We prayed together at every training for the Lord to show us and guide us in this exciting new plant of our dinner church. We decided initially that we would start slowly with one Dinner Church a month and let the Lord lead us to more weeks as he would determine. So, in August of 2018 we launched our first Dinner Church that we named “At the Table Church” on the last Thursday of that month. We knew that most of our folks at the food pantry always had their biggest need for food at the end of each month, so we felt the last Thursday of each month would be well received for us to share an abundant delicious meal with them. 
We had about 10 people, not including our team, at our launch and it was a very blessed time for all of us. We met some new friends that night as well as got to know our folks from the food pantry even better as God turned strangers into friends at the table. We noticed, as months went by, that many of our folks loved being “At the Table” as we broke bread together, shared in both fellowship and the love of Jesus, heard an awesome Jesus Story along with much discussion, and prayed over the needs of people in this new congregation (See Acts 2:42).
Now, 8 years later with multiple dinner churches at multiple locations, we see how the Lord has led us to so many people who needed to see the love of Christ in action. The dinner church is so relational and authentic as many of these “not yets” are simply drawn to our dinner churches. Currently, we are ministering to over 200 people that not only include food pantry regulars but also special needs individuals and their families as well as veterans, both men and women. It is such a blessing to see folks that, for different reasons, wouldn’t attend our Graceland services on Sundays, come and share with us that “At the Table Church” is their church . . . and it is, indeed!
In conclusion, if we had never stepped out in faith to start our first Dinner Church, we would have not experienced the many folks who are now believers who have come to faith in Christ Jesus and now belong to the family of God. I pray that you and your church will pray about starting a Dinner Church “vine” coming out of the four walls of your church that will reach into your community with the love of Christ, for so many do not know him yet!
Impact Missions is now offering seed grants to help churches interested in starting a Dinner Church. You can learn more and apply at https://impactmissionsmovement.org/impact-missions-fresh-expressions-seed-grants/