The Dinner Church Movement - a podcast by Bruce Davis

 

Verlon tells us how God used 2 dreams in his life to provoke a return to the first century’s approach to reaching others for Christ, the dinner church.  We get a ringside seat to understanding how God brought him into this renewal and what it can mean for us and our churches.

https://dinnerchurch.com/

 

Verlon Fosner

Dr. Verlon Fosner leads a progressive congregation in Seattle Washington, and have done so since 1999. In recent years the congregation transitioned from a traditional proclamation church into a multi-site Dinner Church called Community Dinners (www.CommunityDinners.com). In this decade when more US churches are declining than thriving, Verlon sensed that a different way of doing church was needed for their 93-year old Seattle congregation. After a long season of trial and error (and mostly error), they hearts became stirred by the manner of church that was practiced during the Apostolic Era.

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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. Soon they were opening up another one, in another sore neighborhood, and on another night; the results were the same. They now pour into many 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 (www.DinnerChurch.Com). Presently, Verlon offers half of his time to help leaders outside of Seattle look at the sore neighborhoods in their cities with new eyes.

In 2016, Verlon joined the Fresh Expression US leadership team and began coaching declining churches, leading “Dinner Church Encounters” across the country, and hosting “Seattle Immersions” at their home, which enables a few leaders at a time to observe Dinner Churches in action followed by training conversations around a fireplace.

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 learn how to work with Jesus at one of his dinner tables.

Verlon has been married to Melodee for 38 years, and together they have three adult children, five grandchildren, a collection of grand-foster-kids, and two grand-dogs. 

 

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