What is Open Table Community?
- Open Table Community is the Community Hospitality brand developed by Harveston Mission. It expresses a vision of following Jesus, who entered the everyday lives of people, proclaimed the Kingdom of God, demonstrated God's love through compassion and hospitality, and brought transformation through authentic relationships. Through everyday hospitality, people are invited on a journey from connection and belonging to faith, discipleship, service, and transformed lives.
- Open Table Community provides a framework for Community Hospitality that enables local churches to engage their communities through biblical hospitality, authentic relationships, and sustainable mission. While Harveston uses Open Table Community as its brand, each local church is encouraged to develop its own identity, name, and community expression that reflects its vision, culture, and local context while applying the shared principles of Community Hospitality.
- Through Community Hospitality, local churches and Community Leaders raised from within their congregations create welcoming communities where people build meaningful relationships, discover the hope found in Christ, grow as mature disciples, and contribute to the flourishing of their communities. Community Hospitality complements the church's traditional mercy ministries by recognising that humanity's deepest need is spiritual restoration.
- Built on a biblical and spiritual foundation, Community Hospitality seeks to meet people where they are, responding to everyday lives and real-life needs through Christ-centred hospitality. The local church provides the spiritual leadership, pastoral care, and discipleship needed to equip Community Leaders and ensure that the mission remains faithful to the values of the Kingdom of God.
Open Table Community Pathway
- Initiate Communities Around Purpose: Church members are encouraged to initiate communities around meaningful topics, shared interests, or real-life needs that reflect their gifts, experiences, and passions. The person who initiates the community serves as its Community Leader, nurturing relationships and guiding its development. In the early stages, the community connects and grows primarily through a digital platform before meeting face to face.
- Connect Through Community Channels: Digital platforms enable Community Groups to remain connected beyond physical gatherings. Groups may begin with suitable social media or messaging platforms and develop their own online presence as they grow, providing ongoing communication, shared learning, and mutual support throughout the week. The Community Hospitality Venue then provides a welcoming environment where members can meet face-to-face, deepen relationships, build belonging, and strengthen the life of the community.
- Gather Around the Table: The Community Hospitality Venue provides a welcoming space where people come together through quality hospitality, meaningful conversations, and shared experiences. To support long-term sustainability, the Venue may operate as a limited company with ownership participation from church members, community investors, and strategic partners. A Community Hospitality Board, including Community Leaders, church ministry representatives, professional operators, and relevant stakeholders, provides governance oversight to ensure effective management, accountability, and alignment with the vision of Community Hospitality.
- Discover Hope in Christ: Guided by Community Leaders, participants engage with meaningful topics, shared interests, and real-life needs, discovering pathways toward transformation, restoration, and flourishing together. As they encounter the values of the Kingdom of God through authentic relationships and the ministry of the local church, they are encouraged to grow in faith and become active members of the church community.
- Develop Leaders and Serve the Community: As people mature in faith, some are equipped to become Community Leaders, initiating and leading new Community Groups. Supported by the local church through pastoral care, prayer, and discipleship, they help nurture communities where authentic relationships foster belonging, encourage service, deepen faith, and advance the values of the Kingdom of God.
Harveston supports this integrated framework by working alongside churches to develop the practical systems, digital platforms, resources, and partnerships that enable Community Hospitality to operate effectively, grow sustainably, and strengthen community engagement.
How Do Community Groups Connect, Grow, and Flourish?
The local church's ministry team encourages and equips church members to establish communities that respond to the everyday lives, interests, professions, life stages, and real-life needs of people in the local neighbourhood. Each Community Group is initiated and led by a Community Leader around a particular focus, such as:
- Families & Life Stages
- Business & Professional Development
- Health & Wellbeing
- Community & Social Issues
- Faith & Purpose
These communities foster relationships, mutual support, and a sense of belonging. As Community Hospitality grows, new Community Groups continue to emerge in response to meaningful topics, shared interests, and real-life needs.
The Role of Community Leaders
Community Leaders play a vital role in creating and nurturing communities where people connect, engage, and grow through shared interests and real-life experiences. Their role is to cultivate environments where meaningful relationships flourish and people support one another. While Community Leaders are ideally raised from within the local church congregation, the role may also be fulfilled by members of the ministry team or, in smaller or newly established churches, by the Senior Pastor.
The Role of the Local Church in Supporting Community Leaders
Community Leaders are most effective when they remain connected to the life and leadership of the local church. The church provides the spiritual foundation and organisational support that enables Community Leaders and their communities to grow in healthy, sustainable, and Christ-centred ways. The church supports Community Leaders by:
- Providing pastoral coaching and spiritual encouragement
- Ensuring that communities remain aligned with biblical values and the mission of the Kingdom of God.
- Establishing appropriate governance, safeguarding, and care that protects both leaders and participants while fostering healthy relationships.
- Developing future leaders
- Creating pathways into the wider life of the church
Community Channels for Ongoing Connection
Community Channels provide the digital connection point for each Community Group, enabling members to stay connected, communicate, and support one another between face-to-face gatherings. Each group may choose the digital platform that best suits its purpose and stage of development, with the flexibility to establish its own online presence as it grows.
Digital engagement is not intended to replace personal relationships but to create pathways toward deeper face-to-face connection. The journey follows a natural progression: Shared Interests Online → Ongoing Conversations and Relationship Building → Face-to-Face Gatherings through Community Hospitality Venue → Deeper Relationships, Support, and Community Life → Opportunities for Faith Exploration and Service
How Does the Community Hospitality Venue Function?
The Community Hospitality Venue is designed not as a permanent meeting place for every Community Group, but as a sustainable hospitality business, offline community hub, and mission centre that provides a visible and accessible presence within the local community while connecting and supporting the wider Community Hospitality ecosystem. Through these functions, the Venue serves as a practical platform for building relationships, strengthening community life, and advancing Kingdom mission, extending beyond the traditional role of a café or meeting space. Its key functions may include:
- Hospitality & Community Presence: The Venue operates as a welcoming café and hospitality enterprise, providing a natural place for people to connect through everyday hospitality while creating a sustainable financial foundation for ongoing community mission.
- Community Leadership & Ministry Hub: The Venue provides an accessible offline hub where Community Leaders, church Ministry Teams, and key partners can meet for coaching, planning, training, and collaboration. Community Groups can meet at the Venue when appropriate, but are free to gather in locations that best suit their context.
- Offline Connection & Resource Centre: The Venue provides a place where people connected through Community Channels can meet face-to-face when needed. It also serves as a shared resource point for community information, local services, events, ministry opportunities, community projects, and training resources.
- Mission & Community Coordination: The Venue brings together the local church, Community Leaders, Ministry Teams, and community partners to identify local needs and opportunities and develop practical Community Projects and mission initiatives. Selected meetings, and training sessions.
- A Gateway to the Local Church: The Venue does not replace the local church but creates a natural pathway from community connection to authentic relationships, faith exploration, discipleship, and participation in the life of the local church.
- Financial & Ministry Sustainability: The Venue can also provide a financially sustainable platform that supports ministry and church development. Through its commercial enterprise, it may create funding and service opportunities for financially constrained churches, emerging or expanding ministries, church planting initiatives, retired ministers seeking limited opportunities to serve, and ministry professionals. In this way, the enterprise can help strengthen ministry capacity while supporting the long-term sustainability and growth of local churches.
Jesus did not begin by establishing a large organisation; He began by sharing meals, engaging in conversation, and building relationships with people in their everyday lives. In the same way, Community Hospitality can begin simply and grow over time. As the capacity, space, and resources of the Venue develop, its functions can progressively expand to serve a wider range of community, ministry, and mission needs.
How Does the Community Hospitality Venue Support Sustainable Mission?
Community Hospitality is built upon a biblical and spiritual foundation, expressing the values of the Kingdom of God through practical engagement in people’s everyday lives and local communities. It seeks to create long-term community impact and mission sustainability through Christ-centred hospitality, authentic relationships, and a financially sustainable enterprise that supports ongoing operations, community engagement, and future growth.
At the centre of this model is the Community Hospitality Venue, which operates as a social enterprise, generating commercial revenue through everyday hospitality while creating relational, social, and spiritual value through community engagement.
The Community Hospitality Venue as the Economic Engine of Sustainable Mission
Community Hospitality achieves financial sustainability through a diversified revenue model centred on the Community Hospitality Venue. While the Venue serves as the primary economic engine—generating recurring commercial revenue through everyday hospitality—additional income from Community Programmes, Community Projects, Strategic Partnerships, and Philanthropy & Mission Support strengthens the long-term resilience and sustainability of the enterprise.
This integrated model combines commercial performance with community impact, creating a sustainable financial foundation for ongoing operations, future growth, and long-term mission. Rather than relying primarily on donations or short-term funding, Community Hospitality follows a continuous cycle of:
Revenue Generation
→ Operational Sustainability
→ Profitability & Financial Resilience
→ Reinvestment & Growth
→ Long-Term Mission Sustainability
By continually reinvesting financial resources into community engagement, leadership development, and future opportunities, Community Hospitality strengthens both its commercial viability and Kingdom mission, enabling lasting impact within local communities.
Ownership and Governance Structure
The Community Hospitality Venue operates as a separate commercial entity, providing the financial foundation for the wider Community Hospitality ecosystem. It may be established as a limited company, enabling church members, Community Leaders, community investors, and strategic partners to participate through investment while ensuring professional business management, operational accountability, and long-term sustainability. The participation of church members and Community Leaders extends beyond investment, creating opportunities for active involvement in building community, strengthening relationships, and contributing to the ongoing impact and sustainability of the Community Hospitality mission.
The Community Hospitality Board provides strategic leadership, governance, and accountability for the entire Community Hospitality framework. The Board establishes the vision, values, strategic direction, and governance principles that guide the operation of the Community Hospitality Venue, ensuring that commercial activities remain aligned with the mission, values, and long-term objectives of Community Hospitality.
The Board works in partnership with the local church and is typically composed of representatives from the local church, Community Leaders, the executive leadership of the Community Hospitality Venue, and, where appropriate, strategic partners who contribute relevant professional expertise. Together, they oversee mission alignment, financial stewardship, organisational sustainability, risk management, and healthy collaboration across the Community Hospitality ecosystem.
Through this integrated governance structure, the Community Hospitality Venue operates as the sustainable commercial engine of Community Hospitality while remaining accountable to its Kingdom mission, enabling commercial sustainability and community transformation to strengthen one another.
Harveston works alongside churches to design Community Hospitality Venues that reflect their local vision and context, while helping connect funding opportunities, strategic partnerships, operational expertise, and other resources that contribute to long-term sustainability and growth.
Harveston Support
- Digital Platform Development
Supporting churches in developing digital platforms that strengthen communication, participation, and community connection. These platforms help churches engage people beyond traditional gatherings, build online communities, share resources, and create ongoing relationships that support missional engagement. - Community Hospitality Venue Development
Supporting the development of sustainable Community Hospitality Venues that reflect each church’s vision, local context, and available resources. These spaces provide opportunities for hospitality, relationship building, community engagement, and creating environments where people can experience belonging and the presence of God. - Community Development
Connecting churches with strategic partners, funding opportunities, and practical resources to support community projects and local initiatives. This enables churches to respond to real community needs, collaborate with others, and participate in God’s work of restoration and transformation.
Let's Start the Conversation
Every community is different, and every church has its own vision. Harveston partners with churches to explore practical ways of applying Community Hospitality within their unique context. If you would like to discuss the possibilities, we would be delighted to hear from you.