LAUNCHING FAMILY DINNER

Here is a summary of some of the helpful tips listed throughout this FAQ:

• Put together a “Family Dinner Bin”... a big plastic tote or tub that has everything you need for Family Dinner setup:

• Purchase a set of cheap plastic plates, bowls, cups and cheap metal silverware. These are reusable after washing and replaces paper plates so that you do not have a ton of trash every week, but saves your own plates from the inevitable wear and tear.

• Small whiteboard to set up near where the food is served for welcome notes and announcements.

• Have a frozen pizza ready to go if it is a light food night.

• Jot down a "question of the night" on your whiteboard to help get some discussions started".

Enjoy growing in community! Remember, this is “anti-program”. Success is measured in the quality of community, not the numbers. The vibrancy of the community is what is attractive to others.

Focus on investing in the relationships with the host team. The Holy Spirit will provide the numbers and type of community needed for each season. Trust in Him. It is His ministry after all. Be genuinely curious in learning more about them… ask good questions and listen. Be vulnerable in order to inspire vulnerability. Ask for help and give help.

As the communion among your co-host community grows, so will the attractiveness of your community to any newcomers. Begin to challenge each other in the host team to be bold in inviting others. Anyone you run into that lives within 15 minutes, ask the Holy Spirit… “do you want me to invite them?” If the Holy Spirit is pushing your heat to ask, then your job is just to ask. Leave the result up to the Holy Spirit. If someone seems interested, get their number and remember to text them to remind and reinvite them before the next one comes up.

Sometimes a co-host moves away or is unable to commit to coming to Family Dinner regularly. Remember, the host team is really only needed during the launch phase and the first few months to a year of your Family Dinner, in order to have a consistent core to the community from the start. Therefore, first consider if there is a need to have an official replacement.

After you launch, some new households will start to emerge as regulars that were not on your original host team. These are the obvious candidates for being replacement co-hosts. In our experience, we have not really needed to have an official “co-host” list. It generally grows organically and different households start to become more involved replacing the need for an organized host team. Also, if you are regularly having a comfortable crowd, you may not need to replace them.

If you do feel the need to replace them, and you don’t have any obvious choices, consider asking a family that is already coming somewhat regularly to invest in the mission in a more intentional way by becoming a co-host.

As the host, we usually make a main dish (something protein / carb heavy), and encourage the co-hosts to do the same as often as possible. This allows for others to have more flexibility with what they bring and still have enough food for the night. In keeping with creating a “soft-landing, low commitment” environment, it is part of the ministry of hospitality to make it easy for others to come when they can only bring a side or drinks or dessert.

It is also a good practice to have a frozen pizza ready to go if there ends up being a light food night. (frozen pizza is a good thing for members to periodically donate to the host for this reason)

That being said, at the “family meeting” with just adults we try to have periodically, we almost always discuss the need for regulars to bring a substantial dish whenever possible.

Usually this comes up because a particular Family Dinner is just regularly not getting enough real food to feed people. Don’t worry, it happened to us too. This was the impetus for our community's very first “Family Meeting”! (see “Growing in Community” below for more on that) We called a Family Meeting and encouraged everyone to bring larger, more hearty dishes. We still do have to reencourage people about once a year.

If you are asking because your really love to cook and/ coordinated meals just make your heart warm and fuzzy inside… then you are crazy, but you are not alone! There are a small handful of Family Dinners where the hosts just really love to cook, so they prepare a big meal every week and people come over and sometimes bring dessert or a side. All I can say is that you community is uber blessed!

Additionally, it is fun to have some themed nights every now and then. A staple for us is “Mexican Night” for Cinco de Mayo… and we do coordinate some of the dishes. We’ve also done “Bacon Night” where you have to bring something with bacon in it. If done only a few times a year, it usually ends up getting a big draw for those nights.

• Help during the night:

• Be conscious and welcoming to newcomers. Bring them into conversations and make introductions.

• Engage in real conversations. Be genuinely curious about the others at the night and ask questions.

• Move tripping hazards (i.e. abandoned toys left in direct walkways).

• Moving discarded dishes to the sink area. Wash a few dishes at the end of the night. (don’t obsess about this. The focus and priority is still the interpersonal connections between people)

• An extra mile: All members can help clean up before they leave. They can wash some dishes and/or put away some toys prior to leaving. This helps the Hosts to not become overwhelmed each week by prepping the house prior to each dinner and cleaning everything after each one as well.

• Donate supplies. Ask specifically what the Host’s most need, and be conscious of the type of brand they may prefer. Some items we find helpful are:

• Paper towels

• Paper plates (kids sized & dessert sized especially)

• Plastic utensils

• Toilet paper

• Dish washer detergent

• Hand soap

• Frozen pizza

• A really nice gift idea every now and then to give for the Missionary Host:  Get the Family Dinner community to pull together to pay for a deep cleaning or carpet cleaning of the host house.

Adore Ministries asks that all Missionary Hosts and Co-Hosts go through Safe Environment training prior to the start of your Family Dinner. If you have done any volunteer work with a Catholic church in the past few years, you most likely already have completed a training like this. Any of the training classes that diocese, churches, or schools require are sufficient. Many of these classes are online now, and there are usually classes running year round. Please check your local diocese website or ask a minister at your church what training they use and how you can sign up. Many Catholic diocese use CMG Connect. Click to visit their website to see if your diocese is included.

  

You understand your home layout better than anyone, so you’ll need to figure out what works best for your situation. The major key is simply being aware of where people are throughout the night. Situations to be especially sensitive to are:

Think through reasonable, easily communicated and understood rules you might put in place that help deter the situations above. Here are some general guidelines that have helped us:

We had the same experience. About 2-3 years into our Family Dinner, it was great to see and share life with people weekly, but the conversation and connection we were able to have during the nights slowly diminished as more and more of us had kids and those kids started moving into the toddler stage and required more supervision. We needed deeper sharing and connection, and we also desired more formation together. Below are some ideas that have worked for us in an enduring way:

Family Meetings

First off, we needed a way for our community to be intentional about adapting as we grew in size and state in life. We also needed a way to address any challenges that came up. Family Dinner Family Meetings became a perfect avenue for that. We have found they work best when they are very periodic… but at least yearly. We do adults only, on a different night and usually a different house than Family Dinner. They can also be called by anyone in Family Dinner, and usually it actually works best if one of the Co-Host’s initiate and coordinate it.

Discuss things like:

• How is Family Dinner going? Is it meeting people’s needs?
• What is going well?
• What needs improvement?
• How can we support each other better? 
• How do we discipline each others kids?

Have a discussion agenda prepared ahead of time.

Co-host start Men’s & Womens groups

Family Dinner is a safe landing space for people to gather. After awhile, our community desired to grow more in intimacy and vulnerability. For us, Family Dinner is the entry into the community, and the men's and women's groups are the heart of the community. They are where we share deeply and move into the next level of connection. For our community, we need both: to touch base weekly and to go deeper once a month (at least).

  

This is what has worked for our community:

Once a month the men meet on a separate night from Family Dinner - Kings Men has a great format

Once a month the women meet on a separate night from Family Dinner - Blessed is She and Endow both have  great formats and materials.

  

We chose the same night of the week for these meetings. So again, it became part of the routine for Tuesdays (or whatever night you choose) to be the men’s & women’s studies twice a month. Mom stays with the kids one week, Dad on the other. These are optional, and so draw a smaller, more intimate group. We run them similar to Family Dinner: all-are-welcome, come-when-you-can. We let the intrinsic value of the meeting dictate loyalty to it rather than forcing people to commit. However, we do regularly talk about it and invite newcomers to it during the Family Dinner night.

Men’s & Women’s Socials

We also started meeting during the off weeks for men’s and women’s social gatherings: 1st & 3rd weeks would be Women’s group and social respectively. 2nd & 4th weeks would be men’s group and social respectively.

  

The women usually just gathered with desserts & drinks to chat. The men would plan poker nights, or other game nights, or meet at Top Golf, axe throwing (not kidding), racing, you name it.

Couples Groups

A few years after the men’s & women’s groups started, it became clear that, as couples, we really need to lean into a committed group of other couples in order for support and help in navigating the hardest years of marriage… the child-raising years.

  

We found Teams of Our Lady worked best with our group. But Domestic Church has also worked well for many communities. They are very similar. They involve small groups of 5-8 couples that commit to meet monthly together, and renew their commitment annually. They are for married couples only, and the groups stay the same, so it allows for a very deep trust and sharing to develop. We have found this type of group to be an amazing gift of mutual accompaniment  in our practical and spiritual journey as a sacramentally married couple in today’s world.

  

Teams of Our Lady

Domestic Church