Welcome to Culture and Christianity.

This is Holy Week.

The week that precedes Easter Sunday has been a special time in the Christian calendar for as long as we've had a Christian calendar.

And it continues to emerge and morph. but a week of tremendous significance for people

who are Christ followers throughout the earth.

So I'm honored to get to have a conversation with you on this.

I guess this will post on Good Friday.

I've always thought, I understand the language around it, but calling Good Friday the day that

Jesus is crucified.

I guess it all depends on perspective.

So I think I'll start with that.

You know, when I didn't, my spiritual formation didn't take place in a church,

so I didn't attach great significance to church.

And most of my memories of church as a young person, a child, and then a young person,

were not helpful. And so Easter to me was maybe about new clothes, not so much for myself,

but maybe chocolate or candy and, you know, kind of those traditional secular approaches. And even

after I began serving in the church, we didn't exhibit a lot of energy around, we didn't

work hard around Easter. And as I became to understand the significance of church and the role

we play in community and that I do believe that the Christian church is intended to shape culture,

then Easter became about more than just a friendly reminder of a portion of our theology that we think is significant.

And Easter becomes a cultural cornerstone when those of us who are Christ followers celebrate the redemptive work of Jesus, his death, burial, and resurrection. And we do it with enough enthusiasm and enough energy and enough effort that it is taken note of by people

who don't engage.

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