Hosting A Dinner Church

Discover the power and potential of the historic Jesus Table approach for starting new church communities through this interactive experience. Perfect for individuals, churches, or networks, this training is designed to both inspire and equip you for the Dinner Church mission. In the Encounter session, you’ll explore the missional, biblical, theological, and practical reasons behind starting a Dinner Church—laying the foundation for why this approach matters today. Then, in the Launch Training, you and your team will dive into the nuts and bolts of how to bring a Dinner Church to life in your community. You’ll leave with a clear, actionable strategy and the essential steps needed to begin gathering people around a table of grace and belonging.

Dr. Verlon Fosner leads an innovative network of Dinner Churches in Seattle Washington. In 2008, they opened up their first Dinner Church in a sore neighborhood and immediately the room began to fill up with more never-been-churched people than they had seen in years. Soon they were opening up one after another throughout Seattle neighborhoods on different nights of the week, and the results were the same as the first one. They now pour into numerous neighborhoods throughout their city each week with a simple idea – that Jesus still wants to have dinner with sinners and wants his church to set the table.

It soon became obvious that they were not the only ones who needed a new way of doing church. So in 2014, so they founded coaching network centered on Jesus’ dinner table theology (check out: DinnerChurch). Presently, Verlon offers more than half of his time to help leaders throughout the country look at their cities and neighborhoods with new eyes.

In 2016, Verlon joined the Fresh Expressions leadership team and began offering training and conference events:Encounters, Launch Cohorts, and even a graduate program; Dinner Church School of Leadership

Verlon has written several books: Story Priority, Dinner Church, Dinner Church Handbook, Welcome to Dinner, Church and Trowel & Sword (with Jon Davis) which reveals prayer-practices needed for the frontlines of evangelism. Verlon has been married to Melodee for 40 years, and together they have three adult children, seven grandchildren, a variant collection of grand-foster-kids, and two grand-dogs.

Host or Publisher Fresh Expressions US