DINNER CHURCH Launch Cohort
Join a training cohort to learn the essentials of planning and launching a Dinner Church movement in your community and context.
Based on the theology of the table, Dinner Church embodies the model given by Jesus and that dominated the Apostolic Era, where conversations, ideas, and lives were shared by people while eating a meal together around a table.
The present-day Dinner Church movement is giving leaders and churches a renewed ability to reach people who would never attend their Sunday morning gatherings.
Join a training cohort to learn the essentials of planning and launching a Dinner Church movement in your community and context. This 10-month journey is bookended by 2 seminars; a Pre-Launch and a Post-Launch training day, where the team leader and team members will be equipped with the necessary tools and concepts in the Dinner Church mission.
Between the training days, there will be 10 months of coaching for the team leader by a dinner church professional, someone who has engaged and launched multiple dinner churches in their community. At the end of this cohort, you will have all that is needed for you to successfully begin the dinner church adventure.
Your Guides
Dr. Verlon and Melodee Fosner lead a progressive congregation in Seattle Washington, and have done so since 1999. In recent years they transitioned from a traditional proclamation church into a multi-site Dinner Church called Community Dinners. In this decade when more US churches are declining than thriving, Verlon and Melodee sensed that a different way of doing church was needed for their 96-year old Seattle congregation. After a long season of trial and error (and mostly error), their hearts became stirred by the manner of church that was practiced during the Apostolic Era.
In 2008, they opened up their first Dinner Church in a sore neighborhood some blocks south of their church campus, and immediately the room began to fill up with more sinners, strangers, and seculars than they had seen in years. Other Dinner Churches followed in different communities on different evenings. They are all based on a simple idea – that Jesus still wants to have dinner with sinners and wants them to set the table.
The next steps were to train others in the art of dinner church through; seminars, encounters, immersions and launch cohorts. In 2016 this training expanded in a partnership with Fresh Expressions US. Verlon holds a Doctorate of Ministry from Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, and has written several books: “Dinner Church”, “Dinner Church Handbook”, and “Welcome to Dinner, Church” (which has a nine-week companion video series that enables it to be used as a discussion guide). All of these resources are intended to help leaders and congregations to learn how to work with Jesus at one of his dinner tables.
Verlon and Melodee have three adult children, seven grandchildren, a collection of grand-foster-kids, and two grand-dogs.
Details
When:
Pre–Launch Conference
- Sat. Jan 16th, 9am-2pmET
- Sat. Jan 23rd, 9am-2pmPT
Post–Launch Conference
- Sat. Oct. 9th 9am-2pmET
- Sat. Oct. 16th 9am-2pmPT
How Much:
- Price includes Team leader and all team members
- $99.00 per month 10 months with 1:1 coaching
- $59.00 per month 10 months with group coaching
Where:
On-Line / Virtual Training
Conference Day Schedule
Pre and Post Launch Training Day Schedules:
9:00am - Welcome and Session 1
10:00am - 5 minute class break
10:05am - Session 2
11:05am - 10 minute break
11:15:am - Session 3
12:15pm - 20 minute lunch break
12:35pm - Sessions 4
1:30pm - Q & A / Closing
2:00pm - Dismissal
