In the Holy Habit of Breaking Bread, the fifth film produced by the United Reformed Church (URC) in its Holy Habits film series, three people explain what breaking bread means to them.

Literally meaning the sharing of a loaf, it later came to mean sharing and is now also used to describe a social interaction where food, or a variety of items, is shared as a way of drawing people closer together.

This is shown through Bread Church, a ministry in Stafford founded by the Revd Peter Powers, a Methodist minister, where people of all ages learn to make bread and get to know each other better in the process.

‘When the dough is made, there’s a proving time which is when people chat about life and faith,’ he says. ‘That’s a real gift.’

The Revd Dr Michael Jagessar, the URC’s Secretary for Global and Intercultural Ministries, gives the theme a collective outlook in the new film.

‘Breaking bread for me,’ he says, ‘is a statement in which we say collectively: “Our living together will be governed by a different kind of economy, the economy of abundance of generosity.”

‘Any kind of economy, around us in our communities and beyond, that can justify or is premised on scarcity, is a scandal to the table way, to the way of Jesus.’

Andrew Roberts, the author of the book Holy Habits, speaks of the importance of the theme of breaking bread: ‘[It’s] the only habit that Luke mentions twice in Acts 2:42-47.’

Find out more about the Holy Habits