Youth Progressive Dinner 2026 Recap
This year marked the Fourth Annual Youth Progressive Dinner and this one was our biggest one to date! Our Youth were split up across seven groups and visited three homes in one complete dinner: one home for the appetizer, one for the entree, and one for a dessert. 21 families in our church opened their homes, served our middle and high schoolers a course of a meal, and enjoyed fellowship together!
We are thankful to our Youth Directors, Brad and Stephanie Schmelzer, for arranging all the logistics of the evening. Now, continue reading for brief snippets of the evening from some of our wonderful host homes!
We enjoyed hosting Josiah, Lukas, Evan, and Youth Leader, Dan, for dessert. We had brownies and ice cream. [Our sons] Evan and Eli were intrigued we finally got boys this year. Once our boys realized the older boys knew about Minecraft, they made a fast connection. Josiah played with Evan and Eli which they loved! Lukas and I chatted about traveling the world and different places we have each visited. Evan was laid back and so sweet. It was fun having two Evans who are the oldest in the family.
-Amanda Wood, dessert
This is an event I look forward to each year! It is such a joy getting to share a meal with a smaller group of our youth and get to know them better.
-Jeremy Rhoton, entree
The Myers family had a blast hosting the youth for the Progressive Dinner. Our young children were beyond giddy to meet some of the “big kid friends” from our church. The time went by too fast! It was a blessing to feed a handful of the youth and we were encouraged to hear about their lives.
-Karissa Myers, appz
I really enjoyed having the youth over at my house for dessert. We all shared our favorite types of weather, and we learned about the criteria that makes a snowstorm a blizzard. They were intrigued as to how I became passionate about the weather.
-Jason Mitchell, dessert
We enjoyed having the youth come to our home for some quick cupcakes! We talked about what character from the Bible we would like to have dinner with (& it couldn’t be Jesus), we got answers ranging from Paul, Mary’s mother, and all the way to Goliath!
-Kyle Briggs, dessert
It was really fun getting to have a few girls from the youth group join our family for dinner! My kids loved getting to see some of their fav nursery workers in a different setting, and I believe that little moments like this support each of us as we seek to truly connect with our local church family.
-Hannah Anderson, entree
Participating in the Progressive Dinner is a fun way for our family of younger children to practice hospitality. We discuss what we should prepare, clean the home in anticipation of our guests and set a nice place for them at our table. We encourage the kids to engage in conversation with the youth and talk about what youth activities they can look forward to when they’re old enough. We had a smaller group size this year but appreciated they’re conversation and large appetites! It was also a great time getting to know a “new to us” youth leader. We look forward to this event next year and welcoming more youth into our home.
-Teri Spinnenweber, entree
We had a great time hosting a few of the youth over dessert. We shared lots of laughs together and enjoyed getting to know more about them. It was over much too quickly!
-Scotty Stevenson, dessert
Our time hosting was such a fun and sweet experience especially since it’s not often we get to interact with kids from youth group. We had a quieter bunch of kids who were all very sweet. We talked about a range of things from favorite foods to careers they might want to pursue one day. 25 minutes goes by fast but I’m grateful we got to share in even a tiny part of their night. We were the first stop on the route so I also plan to follow up with them to see how the rest of their night went and what fun foods they got to eat.
-Rebekah Swieringa, appz
The Millers had a great time hosting an entree for our group. As we gathered around our table enjoying some chicken and steak fajitas, we enjoyed hearing about some of the students’ “favorites” (movies, color, tv show) and were able to share ours. As we fellowshipped and caught up a bit with students we already knew, and got to know a few new students, we were impressed with the earnestness and warmth they shared with one another and ourselves. Greg and I were blessed to be able to participate this year.
-Amy Miller, entree
Our family enjoyed spending time with 5 of the high schoolers and their leader, Daniel! We enjoyed appetizers and fun conversations around some questions from Would You Rather Book for Kids. Looking forward to seeing their friendly faces at church each week.
-Tori Keramidas, appz
I am late to the party…Dave and I loved hosting and connecting with kids a couple generations behind us! Great group of young men and ladies who respectfully conversed with us!
-Amy Morris, entree