The Art of Breaking Bread

Thoughts on faith based Sunday gatherings

Each week, we come together as a church family and practice the long standing tradition of sharing communion. This is a practice that holds so much information that the concepts can not always be held up to the light as we ritualistically go through the motions. But because we continue to break bread each week, it lets us see communion differently and at new angles as we journey through life and allows us time to reflect and share with one another during and afterwards as we go away from church with the benediction.

In my life’s journey I have been traveling down the road committed to hospitality and using my gifts of creating a space for congregations to break bread in a way that allows them to extend their fellowship and experience more time together. 

I came to the Bay Area as a young adult to graduate from Cal with a degree in chemistry and a minor in art. Through my years in college, I put my faith in the Lord and the Spirit led me away from a career in science to a path in culinary arts. With my medium of choice in art class being food, I pursued restaurants to hone my medium and I fell in love with cooking. After another two degrees in culinary school, I spent ten years working in restaurants and became a chef and then a nonprofit chef instructor. 

 Through teaching, I was able to work on explaining why we cook, and from there I left to become a meal ministry hospitality director of the church I belonged to for five years in which that congregation met together each week over a meal.  

There was a determination for a culture to continue worshiping on Sunday after service over a prepared meal.  People traveled from all across the Bay to attend the church and the members wanted their place to remain hospitable long after service was done so that conversations could continue. Programs abounded as there were choices to attend lectures and studies and mingle over coffee.  Quite frankly, I still have yet to find the same format of a church which weekly had a meal offered so that members could enjoy the breaking of bread and fellowship in a manner that is befitting of our ritual of communion. 

Buffet meal set up

 And so with all this knowledge, and all of this experience gained from where the Spirit has led me, I now am here at OCC, a church where by proximity is much closer to where I live. A church in whose community I live amongst, and feel more apart of, not as just a worker or director, but just a simple member who is looking to help out and create a space for use to extend our coming together and share a meal.  

Lunch Buffet line at Oakland City Church

But this vision is not mine alone nor could be sustained that way. For in creating a space to break bread, it will take the whole body to recognize that eating together is important, and vital, and be willing to take part in the effort to maintain the beauty of its creation. Therefore I hope you will enjoy some food while we fellowship and also be apart of its creation by lending a helping hand.  

Chef Peter Callis

The Table Catering