Our Story

About Burnt Sacrifice

Burnt Sacrifice BBQ is competition class line of BBQ sauces and rubs. Father Stan’s original concept was to have a genuine real-deal BBQ experience like if you went to a big competition and the guy there just filled up a big cup of sauce and sent you home with it.

The idea with the rubs was to make excellent regionally correct rubs using very high quality spices.

Since the very beginning dinners were always part of the Christian experience even from the time of the Apostles so we just put everything together to help you have a great eating life.

About Mar Toma and Father Stan

Mar Toma is Aramaic for "St. Thomas." The eastern Christians in India are often called St. Thomas Christians because he personally founded their church along with Saints Peter and Thaddeus (Addai). We go forward with our BBQ products and specialty foods in the same tradition of the Eastern-Syriac merchant-missionaries that packed up their goods and scrolls and walked the Silk Road to care for the needy, set up schools, and share the Good News of The Gospel. The Mar Toma Enterprise is a means to support our ministry and charitable activities, and to provide opportunities for those in need.

Father Stan is a Corepiscoa (Corbishop) in the Apostolic Church of St Thomas (an Eastern Syriac Orthodox Church). His Church is involved in education, world peace, and caring for the souls of people in need wherever we find them. Before his ordination, he was a Quality Assurance Engineer.

How it all began

I was helping a friend of mine with his congregation and one day there was going to be a BBQ at church after the service. Some of the guys started cooking all the hamburgers for the congregation but at the beginning of the service. So by the time the service was over the burgers were these sad, hard tooth testers that had been sitting in a warmer for a couple hours. Ugh! So after a couple of those horrible grilling sessions I took over.

A short while later a friend, who is now a priest also, and I did a BBQ for the church. Naturally the entire congregation was in full attendance. We did the whole thing on a shoestring budget and there was barely a drop left. These women kept coming into the kitchen with a panicked and frenzied look in their eyes that I initially thought was the awe of the Lord. Instead they just wanted to know how fast we could do the BBQ again.

I decided that we had to teach the men basic “man” skills of BBQ because I didn’t want to have to do everything myself for the rest of my life and so we ran a BBQ basics clinic to teach the basic everyman skills of BBQ that men are required to know.

I brought in file boxes filled with spices in order to teach about making rubs and sauce and the class exercise was to make your own rub, but everyone just wanted to use mine. Eventually some of the people said, "Can I just give you money and you make me up a batch". So Of course I did. This was the very beginning of Burnt Sacrifice.

At this time I hadn’t really put serious thought into doing a BBQ line because I already had my chocolate food line, the critically acclaimed Holy Chocolate, but I was praying and I kept feeling the Lord directing me to come out with sauces and rubs. So that was the very beginning which led up to the sauces and rubs you have now.

About the name Burnt Sacrifice

In the Law of Moses the Burnt Sacrifice was meat that was burnt up entirely as it was Gods portion and this way no one else could eat it. Theologically I suppose it symbolizes the life of the flesh which is devoured by the fire of God, which is love, thus purifying it.

But in California a lot of BBQ and grilling is pretty bad so you go to a party looking for a fellowship offering and you get a sad burnt piece of meat with some grocery store slop burnt on it. And after you eat some it then you get to floss your teeth for a while before you call poison control.

But Why BBQ?

Father Stan loves God, America, and BBQ. He combined his great passions, and Burnt Sacrifice is the result.

Burnt Sacrifice supports Father Stan and his ministry. He receives no regular salary from his church. "I have faith in God and guts, and that's all you really need in life. If you are willing then God is able. And many miracles have happened to facilitate our company's growth."