Cass City United Methodist Church is well known for the past 20 years in preparing our Wednesday Dorcas Meal where we serve lunch for 150-250 of our community once per month. However, after reading Dinner Church by Verlon Fosner at last fall’s District Conference we wanted to explore how to incorporate Dinner Church into our HOLY C.O.W. (Church on Wednesdays). After exploring this highly recommended book we decided to make it a staple of our HOLY C.O.W.
Within HOLY C.O.W. Wednesday’s we do Dinner Church in two parts: The first we call God’s Kitchen Ministry – where we prepare new meal recipes that we can use for our individual families and then prepare and service a Meal with Jesus which is our offshoot of Dinner Church.
We started the program the first week of January 2019 and now 6 months later we invite the Cass City community, families with children, adults and children to a meal, discussion, bible scripture, children’s time for those in attendance. Some weeks we have 10-15 children in attendance with their families, the average attendance has grown from 25-35 individuals per week and growing.
Dinner church has become a critical part of our HOLY C.O.W. Wednesdays. We have added our Choir practice, we have added a monthly Community healing worship service, we added bible study, along with children’s time concluding with fellowship together and Q & A session. This all takes place from 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm weekly, here is a sample schedule.
HOLY C.O.W. (Church on Wednesdays) Schedule
- 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm Bible Study & Lenten Study
- 4:00 pm – 4:30 pm God’s Kitchen Ministries
- 4:30 pm – 5:00 pm Meal with Jesus – Dinner Church for All and Parents, Children, Adults & Seniors.
- 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm Children’s Bible/Video/Playtime/Games
- 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm Choir Practice
• 5:30 pm – 6:00 pm Healing Worship Service - 6:00 pm – 6:30 pm Q & A and Fellowship and pick-up of children.
Our plans are to continue Dinner Church within our HOLY C.O.W. Wednesdays and possibly add a second Dinner Church – after worship Service on Sunday’s after Sunday Worship in the Fall. We are grateful and thankful to the Central Bay District and DS Rev. David Kim who introduced us to Dinner Church by Verlon Fosner.
