About Host Collective
Part cookbook, part supper club, part story telling, Host Collective aims to bring people around the table. As former hospitality industry workers, amateur cooks, and Christian pastors, we bring a sacramental imagination to the world of food and hospitality. We hope that Host Collective will inspire you to open your kitchen and make room in your home. We believe that the whole world is a banquet hosted by a gracious God. Let us keep the feast!
Why Host?
In all the ways God revealed himself in scripture, the abiding role he chose was the role of host.
He is the Ancient Host who created an entire universe in order to host a banquet. He is the God who hosted a life-saving meal of roast lamb and flatbread in an Egyptian suburb in order to liberate an oppressed people from slavery. He is the Host who became a man named Jesus of Nazareth who made wine out of water at a wedding in Cana. He fed meals of fish and bread to thousands in the wilderness. And at his last meal in a rented room in Jerusalem, he put his own body and blood on the menu. This same God is planning to host a future banquet of rich food and well-aged wine on a mountain in New Jerusalem for all his chosen guests. God loves to play the host, and that is what he will do for all eternity. There is always room at his table.
Let us keep the feast!
Who is Host Collective?
Mark Grapengater
Mark is married to Stacey, without whom he could not host a single party. His front of the house staff includes his three children, Michael, Evelyn, and Joshua. He is a pastor and church planter at The Table in Denver, Colorado. Before entering into professional ministry, he worked in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants, tap rooms, and pop-ups in Chicago and St. Louis. He recently earned his Doctor of Ministry, focused on hospitality and the pastoral imagination, from The Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary.
“Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself."
—Anthony Bourdain
Joshua Burdette
Joshua is a wannabe pizzaiolo at the imaginary Pizzeria Vesuvius. He worked his way through college and grad school as a barista and baker and fell in love with serving others through hospitality. For many years, he gathered people of all types around the table as an ordained Presbyterian minister, church planter, and pastor of community and counseling. Joshua trained in narrative-focused trauma care from the Allender Center in Seattle, WA and now offers the hospitality of attention as a coach and pastoral counselor. He currently sees clients virtually at Good Shepherd Soul Care. Joshua has walked the arduous path of losing a spouse and raising children as a single father. He now is happily married to Tara, and together they have five children around their table.
“I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work. Let God worry about your modesty; I want to see your enthusiasm.”
― Robert Farrar Capon
Join us.
We hope that Host Collective can be a meeting place for a diverse range of people and ideas, not just our own. We’re always happy to find another seat and make room at the table. If you have something you’d like to contribute to Host, let us know.