Victory Dinners

Victory Dinners

A Warm Way of Welcoming New Believers

Marvin Bryant

(From Church Growth, 1st Quarter, 2000)

One month ago, during an evangelism training session, I passed out sheets that contained the names of the people who have come to Christ through our congregation’s ministry over the last few years. I asked class members to randomly select one half of the names on their sheets and mark through them. They began striking through names randomly, not knowing what I was up to. The stage was set for a dagger to pierce their hearts. While they were still marking up their sheets I told them we could expect to lose half or more of our new Christians unless we made a concerted effort to keep them. Only then did they realize the significance of marking through half the names.

You might take out a list of the newer Christians in your congregation and try the exercise personally. The need to nurture and care for them seems much more urgent when you are dealing with the names and faces of real people. Personally, I feel I need to grow a great deal more in my concern for and taking care of the babes born into the faith at our congregation. One aspect of our follow-up care that I do feel good about and want to commend to you, however, is the practice of having victory banquets (or victory dinners).

Victory banquets are lunches or dinners of a few members, done to celebrate the new birth of each adult who becomes a Christian at our congregation. There are several purposes and benefits of these special times together.

Purposes and Benefits

First and foremost, we come together to celebrate. You may have already guessed that Luke 15 provides the inspiration for victory banquets. Whenever someone is baptized into Christ at our congregation, some of those who are present stay around for a while and share Scriptures and words of encouragement with their new brother or sister. My wife often calls attention to Luke 15 and lets the new believer know the angels are having a party at that very moment (cf. vv. 7, 10). I usually add that it takes us a little longer to get our party organized but that we do want to have one to celebrate their new birth. Our father in heaven himself is the example for this. The return of his long lost son was an occasion of great joy that called for celebration (vv. 22-24).

Second, the victory banquet helps the new Christian realize the importance and significance of what has taken place in his new birth. Actions often speak louder than words. Though we will have taught the person how important and special conversion is, the “actions” of a victory banquet underscore our verbal teaching. Aside from birthdays, most people never get a party in their honor.

Third, victory dinners help the older Christians realize the importance and significance of what has taken place. Many of you have probably seen people being baptized into Christ during a church service in such a manner that it appeared to be just another routine part of another routine worship service. If that is the norm at a congregation, members may be lulled to sleep and lose sight of the profoundly significant transaction that takes place when a person comes to Christ. Again, the “actions” of having a celebration banquet speak loudly: conversion is a big deal!

Fourth, a victory banquet is a good occasion for the new Christian to meet additional believers and begin to develop some additional Christian relationships. Most of us are familiar with how vital supportive relationships are to the long-term survival and health of new believers. What better place to develop such relationships than the very biblical place of a table fellowship.

Fifth, victory dinners provide a good time and place to officially introduce other aspects of the congregation’s follow-up program. We usually try to mention and sometimes even begin other aspects of our follow-up before the victory dinner, but we want to make sure these opportunities are understood and in place by the time of the victory banquet at the latest. Sometimes we even have a Bible study at the end of the banquet. Regardless of the exact details, however, it is vital to help new believers see the importance of growing and actually get them started in good growth habits in the very early days of their new lives, while they still keenly feel the importance of it all.

Nuts and Bolts

Normally we have some indication that a person is going to be baptized into Christ before they actually do so. In those situations, the ones who have been teaching the person discuss and make preliminary plans for the victory banquet. We talk about tentative dates, where to have it, and who will organize it. In situations when we did not know someone was going to be baptized, we tell them that we want to have a banquet for them and that we will be contacting them about it soon. In either case, we schedule it as soon as possible after the person’s baptism. Though we are not aware of any magical cut off point, we always try to have the dinner within two weeks of the day the new believer was born again.

We try to host all our victory dinners in members’ homes. A few times we have had to have them at the church building, due to people’s schedules and availability. One could also reasonably have one at a restaurant. The warmth of a home, however, seems greatly preferable. This is a wonderful opportunity for Christian hospitality, and there is simply no place better than a home.

Unless the new believer tells us it is not advisable, we invite their immediate family to the dinner as well, regardless of whether they are believers. The dinner itself may be an important avenue of communicating the good news to them by actions, and we don’t want to exclude them. In addition to the new believer and his or her family, the person who taught the new Christian should obviously attend. Anyone who will be helping out with the follow-up should be included as well. We also invite a few people from the class or group that the new believer will most likely become a part of. These people are key in developing relationships.

What about the menu? Beef of course! (“fattened calf”). Actually, although we usually throw in a joke or two about beef, any menu is fine. If a formal setting is appropriate where you are, that is okay; if a relaxed and simple atmosphere and menu seem to fit better, that is fine too. The banquet is not about the food. It is about people and celebrating, and we certainly don’t want the food to be a burden or distraction. Obviously, the guest of honor is exempt from contributing anything to the meal. If they insisted that they wanted to, I probably wouldn’t fight them, but I would at least urge them to catch the parallel of “graciously receiving a gift.” One more menu idea: A creative woman in our congregation once brought a cake made of Devil’s Food on the bottom and Angel Food on the top! I thought that was a nice touch.

As suggested before, the primary agenda of the time together consists of celebrating, building relationships, and introducing the follow-up work. We usually begin by reading the first half of the story of the lost son (Luke 15:11-24). The latter part of the story makes a poignant point, but the focus appropriate to our purpose is celebration. After the reading, we remind everyone of the wonderful transaction that has taken place and that we have come together to celebrate. We then pray and enjoy our food and time together.

We don’t do any exercises or activities to enhance the relationship-building, although one could experiment with that. We simply let people eat and talk. We do remind the members who are invited that their primary purpose for being there is to begin building a relationship with their new brother or sister in Christ. Unfortunately, such reminders are often needed. On one occasion the new believer went through the food line first and then sat down to eat. All of the next several members who went through the line sat down at a different table, leaving the new Christian alone for several minutes. Part of the ongoing training of members is to help them be aware of reaching out and welcoming new people.

At some point along the way, we usually talk to the new believer about the importance of continuing to grow in the faith, and we describe some of the resources that are available for doing so. Ideally, we will have had an opportunity to mention those things previously so that the follow-up work seems like a natural continuation of their growth. We may publicly discuss this at the victory banquet or take the new believer aside to mention it. This is a judgment call. It is not good to make the person feel put on the spot, but, at the same time, it is beneficial for the older members to hear someone describe the need for new believers to keep growing and how committed the church is to helping them.

I haven’t made any attempt to measure the effectiveness of victory banquets, nor have I felt the need to do so. For me, the mere fact that the Father rejoices and celebrates the return of his lost children is good enough reason for having them. When you add to that the potential for people seeing more deeply the significance of conversion, the opportunity for new relationships to begin, and the benefit of urging the new believer to continue to grow in the faith, it seems clear that the benefit is well worth the investment. Perhaps some form of victory banquets would be a worthwhile addition to your congregation’s outreach as well. It is a warm way of welcoming new believers.

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