You’ve dedicated a time for small group to meet, you have a place prepared, and the material is great and on point. You’re ready for an amazing small group. But then someone asks, are you having dinner together at the meeting? This is a question that occurs with every small group. So share a meal at small group or not.

Should you have dinner together at small group? Yes, having the time together members feel more accountable to come because they need to bring something for the meal, it allows open non-formated conversion, and it offers an ingredient to deep relationships of ‘quantity’ of time.

There are a few things you’ll want to consider and questions you’ll need to ask before you make this decision for your small group. Read on to walk through and consider if you should include having dinner together at small group.

Something special happens in relationships when we share a meal together. Think about your first date, or celebrating an important event, it usually is associated with the meal together. Even Jesus participated in meals and celebrated his last meal, and Passover, together with his disciples. This was not just a casual spur of the moment event. This was a big to do with lots of planning and preparation involved.

Matthew 26: 17 – 19: “On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover? He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.” So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.”

Preparation

One thing to consider before deciding to host a meal at small group is preparation. It takes pre-planning, thought, and effort, on top of already preparing for the small group itself. Here are some of the things to prepare:

Ask about food alergies
Propsed meal plan
Sign up sheet for bringing part of that meal

I’ve found preparation is a lot easier when you have a small group with, how do I say this, slightly more mature members. I hate to put people on a scale or attempt to rate someone’s maturity in Christ. Maybe if I flip this around and say preparation can be more difficult if your small group contains a larger percentage of people new to the small group, or are seekers – people looking for answers about faith and are not yet ‘Christians’. The reason I point this out is in my experience new members and seekers can easily feel overwhelmed by the orchestration of the event, and feel overwhelmed by the additional commitment required by sharing a meal together.

Time

If time frames are already tight it can be a burden to squeeze a meal in. If you’re ‘squeezing‘ you’re probably better off skipping the meal together. Time for small group can feel tight if you’re meeting on a weeknight and there are members trying to make it on time after their work commitments. Sometimes there are members with children that will have to find a babysitter for an extended amount of time and have the ability to feed their children.

What I’ve found is people have to eat anyways, whether they are rushing home from work to eat or coming directly to small group. So why not use that time to eat together and unwind. If people rush home from work to eat, so they can get to the small group on time, and then directly trying to jump into a dialogue about Jesus it can be tense and formatted. By sharing a meal together at small group, even when people show up rushed, they can sit down to a meal together and unwind in casual conversation and food. This really helps ease people into more authentic conversations about faith and what they’ve been studying. After sharing a meal together people turns from inward focus (work stress about them) to outward focus(about relationships).

Resources

It can be expensive to have a meal together. Sometimes people don’t have the financial resources. It’s important for you as a leader to emphasis only bringing what you have. Encourage people to not go outside their means to bring food for the meal. If they don’t have much, bring what you have. And even thoughts that don’t have much, as them to bring something. By them contributing to a small group meal shows they are invested into this group of fellowship.

Matthew 14:16 – 21: “Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Bring them here to me.” he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

Table space not required

When we think of hosting a meal for a number of people in the small group, our minds can quickly start to consider how we’re going to fit all these people around a table, who has enough space, and what we’ll have to buy to make this work. Don’t. If you don’t have a big table, crowd around the one you do have. If you don’t have enough chairs, sit on the floor. The important part is that you’re all together. Recently our small group shared a ‘sadder’ meal together. While preparing for this meal we learned that the Jewish people participating in this event sat on the floor together. It seemed weird at first, and we actually considered skipping that part. Doing things differently is what is remembered. Doing what it takes to share a meal together, whether that is sharing a box of crackers with butter while sitting on the floor together, this will create a unique memorable relationship that lasts.

1. It’s important to be thankful and content with what is offered
2. Some people only come to the small group for the food
3. Find meals work better with a mature small group, where most of the people or contributing and are not new believers or seekers.

Leadership

The last issue you should consider before committing sharing a meal together as a small group is your ability to interrupt conversations and social times and move a group of people from an unstructured time to a structured time. This will be uncomfortable. Leaders push into the uncomfortable. The issue isn’t if you can do this today or not, it’s if you’re willing to practice doing this. Leaders lead by serving their group. You serve by loving, and you love them by respecting them. You can respect them by watching the time and managing your agenda accordingly. If you’re willing to help transition the group from the mealtime to the small group discussion you should proceed.

Summary

Sharing a meal together is an intimate and meaningful time that propels relationships into deeper growth. If people are willing to bring what they have and be content with how they share a meal, you should include this in your small group. You will be acting like Jesus and modeling the fellowship he had with his disciples while growing your faith and obedience and at the same time growing your small group.

Dinner is a great way to increase the depth of fellowship with your small group and it’s highly recommended. It ultimately comes down to one main issue and two sub-issues. The main issue is if the leader has the ability to keep the small group on schedule with the event of dinner. This is much easier said than done. The two sub-issues ar financial abilities of one or all, and space.