Who We Are

Bake & Pray™ is more than a bread-baking class. It's an invitation to reflect, to connect with God, and to build community through the simple, shared work of making bread.

Bake & Pray™ was developed by baker, writer, and food and theology scholar Kendall Vanderslice to illuminate the spiritual parallels woven into the bread making process, as well as the role of bread in Scripture and Christian tradition.

4 Pillars of the Bake & Pray™ Method

  • Tension

    Every loaf of bread receives its strength through the tension between two differing proteins in the dough. At Bake & Pray, we believe that our differences are the source of our strength—as long as we handle them with care.

  • Rest

    Bread never becomes bread apart from long periods of rest. This rest is essential for tension to become a source of strength. The Bake & Pray method begins from a posture of rest, asking how God might shape and form us when we slow down.

  • Curiosity

    Bread is at once incredibly simple and infinitely complex. If we remain curious, we will always have more to learn. Our goal then is not to master bread baking, but to foster endless curiosity about what God might still teach us as we bake.

  • Joy

    If we come to our baking from a posture of both rest and curiosity, we are freed from the endless quest for perfection. Instead, we can find joy in the process of baking itself, learning more every time we get our hands in dough.
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Commitment to Ecumenism

Here at Bake & Pray™, we are committed to creating resources that honor the great diversity of Christ's church—believing that God gave us bread at the center of Christian worship to mark our unity in Christ's body. Ironically, this very bread has been the source of so much theological division. While the Communion table remains divided, our daily tables and our daily bread are means by which we can foster curiosity about these differences. In all of our materials, we hold to the Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed—the shared declaration of Christians for 1700 years.