If you can’t beat rapid urbanization, join it! That’s what Verlon Fosner of Westminster Community Church in Seattle, Washington, did when he noticed family-value people were being replaced by single apartment-dwellers. “It’s a radical population shift,” says Verlon. “With that leaves a serious disconnect with church ministry that used to work in family-value based groups.”

With this change, it was time for some serious brainstorming to figure out how to reach a different population group. “We asked ourselves what Christ would be doing with his time if he lived on the corner of 145th and Greenwood,” Verlon says. The church tried a few different ways to reach people with only marginal success. But finally they found a winner – redemptive dinner services. “I was actually inspired because I was doing a lot of study on the subject of communion,” says Verlon. “By the time you get to Corinthians, communion was an all-community event.”

Continuing his research, Verlon discovered that these North Seattle urban villages, or walking villages as they’re commonly referred to, were like families. The 1,000 people in the apartments only leave the village a few times a week. “My wife and I decided to figure out what it felt like to be in one of these walking circles and see if my research was true,” Verlon says. “We rented out our suburban home and moved in to one of the apartment complexes. In a matter of months we had hundreds of friends right on the sidewalk.”

The first priority for Verlon and his wife was to plant a dinner service right in the middle of the walking village. During the first week at their Greenwood site, 25 people showed up. A few weeks after that, they were up to 155 people. Only 12 weeks into it, they had maxed out the room they were meeting in.

Eventually 38 neighbors from communities 50 blocks north of the Greenwood site came to Verlon with a special request. “About three weeks ago they came to us and said that they’d love for us to come and do [the dinners] in their neighborhood,” says Verlon.

The team took the Sunday morning worship gathering to the middle of their village and had a service there, with a community brunch service beginning at noon. “It was just a one day test to see if these 38 individuals were right about their neighborhood,” Verlon says. “We had 250 people at the very first test day. It was one of the largest rooms we use and people were spilling out into the lobbies and outside. Now we’ll come back and do this once a month for them.”

Because they sit around the table, which Verlon considers the strength of services, they get to know people before the service happens. “We’ve been able to climb into their lives in a social way,” says Verlon. “That’s what separates them from suburbanites. It creates a different hope and expectation among them.”