A Ministry of Christian Chefs International (CCI)

Sunday, December 1, 2013

December 2013

The Soul of an Apprentice

"Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.. be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry" (2 Tim 4:2,5; NKJV).

Mise en Place is a common term in restaurants, which most of us would relate to being both mentally and physically prepared for what we're about to do in the kitchen. Specifically, the term is defined as having all the ingredients necessary for a dish prepared and ready to combine up to the point of cooking and is translated from French to "everything in it's place".

Generally that concept usually continues to mean being ready for service, being ready to work with the rest of the team, and thinking ahead with everything else to be prepared for anything, and starts even before you go to work. If everybody focuses on their Mise en Place through the day, the day will generally go very smoothly because everybody is prepared for anything that comes their way, and happy to take on any challenge.

If a person isn't very well prepared with their culinary Mise en Place for the day, oftentimes that person will be struggling all day long. For example, they'll be running to the refrigerator numerous times during service because of things they forgot and just barely (if at all) keep up with the meals that need to go out.

So if the concept of Mise en Place is so important in being prepared to cook, how much more important is it in our spiritual preparedness for the day? Life in the kitchen can go so much smoother if you're spiritually prepared for work. By this I mean that you should be praying for everybody you work with (Christian or not), praying that God be with you in the kitchen, prepared to witness to an unbeliever, prepared if someone comes to you for personal or spiritual advice, prepared to defend your faith, and the list goes on.

I believe that is just as important to your day in the kitchen as it is to be prepared for the day's cooking. If you aren't prepared spiritually for the day, it's an open door for spiritual warfare in your life. Some people may criticize your faith and if you aren't prepared to answer, they can just run all over you. Someone may come up to you asking for spiritual or personal advice and it could cause more harm than good if you weren't prepared to be there for them. Nonbelievers may come up to you asking about being a Christian, and if you aren't prepared for that, you might not have anything to say to them. Then again, you may have a personal problem with someone at work. If you aren't prepared for that spiritual battle, you may snap back at the person and make it an even bigger problem. If you're prepared for that, and if you've been praying for the person, it's much easier to love the person and try solving the problem rather than magnifying it.

Spiritual Mise en Place is just as important in secular kitchens as it is in Christian ones. In a Christian kitchen, there is warfare all over the place, and if you're in leadership, you have yours and everybody else's difficulties whom you supervise to be involved with. As they are brothers and sisters in Christ, you need to be all the more prepared to help them in their times of need. In secular kitchens, there aren't as many people having spiritual warfare, as there are generally very few other Christians, but with all that goes on in those kitchens, you need to be all the more prepared with the personal warfare you go through as well as being ready to give an answer to anything.

God bless and be prepared,

Ira Krizo
Board of Directors, CCI
President