IM Houston Revives Dinner Dialogues September 10th

IM Houston is bringing back one of its oldest and most personal traditions. The Interfaith Dinner Dialogues, the organization’s signature interfaith conversation series, returns Sept. 10 in the Great Hall at IM Houston after going dormant during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The program pairs a shared meal with structured, small-table conversation among people of different faiths, races and backgrounds. It first launched in 2007 and drew more than 250 participants in its first year, hosted in private homes across Houston. Many of IM Houston’s current board members trace their first connection to the organization back to those early dinners.

That thread runs through the staff as well. Kim Mabry, IM Houston’s Interfaith Relations Officer, found the program 22 years ago, shortly after moving to Houston from Fort Worth, when she read about a Dinner Dialogue in the Houston Chronicle and signed up for one hosted at the home of an Episcopal priest in Pearland.

“Dinner Dialogues is how so many people first learned about the interfaith relations work of IM Houston,” Mabry said. “And it is actually my story as well.”

Mabry said she hopes the relaunch draws back people who share that same history with the program, as well as newcomers who know nothing about IM Houston.

“I hope that people who don’t know anything about IM Houston, but are seeking community and good conversation that we don’t get to have normally in everyday life, will come join us,” she said, “meet new friends and break down the barriers that seem to be so prevalent in our world today.”

Dr. Ann Friedman, who will facilitate the Interfaith Dinner Dialogue on September 10th, said the timing could not be more relevant.

“There’s never been a better time for us to sit down together,” Friedman said, pointing to the divisive use of religion for economic and political gain and the distortions she said often come through media coverage of faith communities.

Friedman cited a recent American Psychological Association poll finding that roughly 62% of respondents feel stressed by the country’s divisions and isolated as a result. She said Dinner Dialogues is designed as a direct answer to that loneliness.

“A meal brings our two greatest needs together,” she said. “We need food to survive and we need community.”

Unlike a lecture or a podcast, Friedman said, dinner conversation is inherently reciprocal. Participants who leave an article or a broadcast with unanswered questions have no one to ask. At the dinner table, she said, someone can respond, and the conversation can go deeper.

Built on three pillars

Each Dinner Dialogue is structured around three themes: belief, story and service. Tables are intentionally mixed by faith background, and guests move through a buffet dinner before settling in for roughly two hours of conversation.

Conversations begin with belief, giving guests a chance to explain the basics of their own tradition, something Friedman said many people have never had explained to them directly. The evening then moves into story, inviting guests to share how faith, or the absence of it, has shaped their lives.

Friedman shared her own example: a difficult period years ago when she felt alone and adrift. A friend, an Episcopal priest, told her, “Anytime there’s dialogue, there’s hope.” She said that conversation helped guide her through the experience and now shapes how she tries to support others going through hard times.

The evening closes on service, with organizers connecting participants to volunteer opportunities with Houston nonprofits, from packing meals to organizing food bank donations.

Friedman said the ground rules are simple: no one is there to debate theology, challenge another guest’s beliefs or attempt to convert anyone. Guests are also never required to speak.

“We’re not here to comment on anybody else’s beliefs,” she said. “We’re here to listen and learn.”

She said a successful evening does not require agreement, only openness.

“Maybe it will challenge a stereotype that they have of a community,” Friedman said of what guests might take away. “Maybe they’re going to come away with a new friend.”

Register Today to reserve your seat for September 10th’s Dinner Dialogue.