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Organising a dialogue dinnerOrganising a dialogue dinnerThis page describes the "how" of dialogue dinners. For the "what" and "why", please see the activities - dialogue dinners page of this site. There are two major processes involved in making a dialogue dinner happen. The first is relational: working out who to invite, praying for them, inviting them to the dinner, working at the friendship afterwards. The second process is logistical: setting a date, finding a restaurant, connecting with an evangelist, raising the money. The following 7 steps outline what you need to do in both of these areas to make a dinner happen well. From Go to Whoa - How to make a Dialogue Dinner happen1. Establish your Network, pray and invite, invite, invite...Past experience shows that the best dinners are those where everyone is connected. Get together with about four Christian friends and think about the common non-Christian friends that you have. Again, past experience shows that at least 50% of people you invite will, for one reason or another, not be able to come. This means that between you, you need a list of at least 8 non-Christians who you plan to invite. Get together and pray for your friends. Then invite them as soon as possible to the dinner and remind them often as the date approaches. Make sure that they know where the restaurant is and that they can get there easily. Among your Christian group of four, select one person to be your Facilitator (they need E-mail access), and one person to look after the money (they need to be able to add up!) 2. Nominate a Date and invite, invite, invite...Pick a date that is at least 3 or 4 weeks away and set about inviting your friends. This is easier than you think: just invite them out to dinner with a group of mates. Apart from the details (date, time, restaurant) you only need to remember to mention 2 things:
3. Request an EvangelistAt least 10 days before the dinner date, e-mail the EU and request an evangelist. The time limit is strict. To organise an evangelist takes at least 10 days. Unfortunately if you request an evangelist closer to your date than 10 days, Andrew will not be able to organise it for you and will ask you to pick another date. You need to tell him:
If there is anything else that might help them in selecting an appropriate evangelist (eg. it is an all girls dinner) then let him know that too. Your evangelist will contact you by phone as soon as possible to find out where you have booked for dinner and the time of the booking (see below). He/She will also ask you about your non-Christian friends so that they can pray for them and think about how to talk to them clearly and sensitively. 4. Organising the MoneyAt your dialogue dinner the evangelist and non Christian friends eat for free. This means your group of Christian friends needs to work together to raise the necessary funds. If each Christian pays for their own meal there is still say $100 to cover 4 non Christians and 1 evangelist. (This is based on $20 per person for a meal). You may want to invite Christian parents to help supply the funds or perhaps a wider circle of Christian friends or your small group can commit to financial support and prayer. It may be helpful for one of the Christians to have collected all the money before the dinner, so that just one person pays the bill and the non Christians aren�t embarrassed when others pay and they eat free. 5. Select and Book your RestaurantThere are quite a few restaurants and cafes in the inner city area area around Sydney University which can provide dinner for under $20 and have private function room available. Book your restaurant well in advance and remember to request the private function room (it will be no extra cost). A new list of Recommended Restaurants will be available on this website soon. It is best to book for earlier (6pm) rather than later. An early booking gives you time to chat before you get into the serious conversation, gives your evangelist more time to get to know your friends, and means that people wont have to leave halfway through to get home at a reasonable hour. 6. Your Dinner HappensAfter a while of chit chat, your Evangelist will say something like...well, tonight's dinner was partly designed just for us to have a good time together, but the other main purpose of this evening was to give us a chance to talk about Christian things. Your evangelist may then ask each person what they think a Christian is and why/why not they are/are not one. Be prepared to talk naturally about what a Christian is and what being a Christian means for you in everyday terms. Remember, the dinner is not a performance of any kind, it is simply a chance for friends to chat about the most important of topics. 7. Keep PrayingThe dinner is over. What remains is for you to continue in prayer for your friends, and to continue building your friendship with them so that you can encourage them to submit their lives to Jesus, the Lord.
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