Kendall Vanderslice is a graduate of Boston University (MLA Gastronomy) and Duke Divinity School (Master of Theological Studies). This article is based on her book We Will Feast: Rethinking Dinner, Worship, and the Community of God (Eerdmans 2019).

We Will Feast:
Studying New Ways of Congregating

I attended my first dinner-church service on a warm Thursday evening in the summer of 2015. As part of my coursework in Food Studies, I’d just completed a semester-long project on the formation of relationships over a meal – what anthropologists call “commensality.” The invitation to this service intrigued me. My own love of the…