Bread of Life Mission, Vision, and Core Values

Mission

Bread of Life cultivates spiritual practices that invite people to slow down, listen deeply, and live with courage, compassion, and purpose, recognizing the sacredness of everyday life. 

Vision

Communities transformed by people living deeply into the sacred wholeness of life.

What We Offer

Bread of Life offers spiritual direction, programs, and gatherings for those with a desire to discover the dimensions of a deeper life explicitly connected to “Something More.” We use an adult learning model that provides context and facilitates reflection on a topic’s relevance to one’s own life. Our hope is to offer a window into a generous and generative way of experiencing what it means to be fully human and beloved. We have a heart for “serving those who serve” in faith communities, non-profits, healthcare, public and social services. Those who come share a desire to explore with others their personal human story for meaning and purpose as part of a larger spiritual story in which the living Spirit of God is fully present.

Guiding Principles for Our Way of Working

These five principles are the foundation of Bread of Life’s evolving identity. Together, they describe what grounds us, how we approach spiritual life, how we engage across differences, how we understand belonging, and how contemplation shapes our relationship with the wider world. 

1. Rooted and Open 

Bread of Life honors its roots in the Christ-centered contemplative tradition while remaining open to the wisdom, practices, and lived experience of diverse spiritual traditions and paths. We seek to be rooted without becoming rigid and open without becoming ungrounded. We allow our history to provide depth and continuity while holding a space of questioning and discovery, or the process of living the questions.  

2. Contemplative Attitude

At the heart of Bread of Life, a contemplative life looks like practices of deep listening, silence, reflection, discernment, curiosity, and attention. This contemplative attitude provides a way to encounter ourselves, one another, our environment, the sacred, and the deeper questions of life. Contemplation invites us not toward certainty, but toward greater awareness, humility, compassion, and responsiveness. 

3. Interspiritual with Integrity 

For Bread of Life, interspirituality means creating meaningful encounters among people and wisdom from diverse religious, spiritual, and philosophical paths. We honor both what traditions share and the real differences between them, approaching each with curiosity, respect, and care for its origins and integrity. We do not seek to erase distinctions or require shared beliefs; rather, we create offerings where people can learn across differences, deepen their own spiritual journeys, and discover how the wisdom of others may expand their understanding of themselves, the sacred, and the world.

4. Belonging Without Conformity 

Bread of Life welcomes people across religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions, as well as those who are questioning, searching, or do not claim a particular spiritual identity. Belonging does not require conformity of belief or certainty about one’s path. We seek to create communities where people can bring their whole selves: their convictions and questions, faith and doubt, experiences and evolving understanding. In this type of engagement, we encounter one another with curiosity, dignity, and respect. We believe genuine community does not require us to erase our differences but invites us to listen across them and allow those encounters to deepen and enlarge us. 

5. Service to Life 

At Bread of Life, the inner journey is inseparable from how we live in relationship with others and the world. Contemplation invites us into deeper awareness not simply for our own growth but so that we may become more compassionate, courageous, and responsive to the needs around us. We seek to nurture spiritual lives that move from reflection toward meaningful action: strengthening relationships, tending suffering, repairing harm, building community, pursuing reconciliation, and contributing our gifts toward the flourishing of others and the wider world. 

Summary Statement

“Welcome widely. Listen deeply.

Live compassionately.”

Our History

Bread of Life was founded in 1997, becoming an independent non-profit in 2006.

After 9 years under the umbrella of Davis Community Church we consolidated our Davis-based programs and joined our Spirit in the Arts Center into a single site in North Sacramento. After spinning off Spirit in the Arts into The Creative Edge in 2015, we recently moved to our new home at 1260 Fulton Avenue.

Our founders come from and practice in their own Christian traditions, a rooting which opens to and honors the weaving of the Spirit through diverse traditions. This foundation frees us to learn from, partner with and serve all who come.

We welcome everyone to join us from those who follow a specific religious tradition or path to those who question anything spiritual.

The only expressions not welcome are those which diminish another as we regard each person to have sacred worth and value.

Our Partners