Our Easter Feast Explained

How (and why) we spend a bunch of money on Easter, plus free tix to the Exodus show in Austin

Hello! Hope you’re well. Here’s the latest:

Easter Feast 2024

After heading to worship to praise our Resurrection-bringing God on Sunday, my family celebrated Easter by gathering friends at our house for our annual Easter Feast.

Easter Feast is a sacred Gerhardt tradition. And after experiencing its goodness again yesterday, I thought I’d share it with you in the hopes that perhaps you’d steal the idea and do a version of it that makes sense for you and yours.

Though it takes slightly different shapes from year to year, here are a few consistent parts of our feast:

1. We welcome somewhere between 20-30 people, all of whom are Kingdom friends.

2. Since 20-30 is too many for us to seat inside, we put two or more tables outside, joined end-to-end.

3. This meal is special, so there’s always a tablecloth (cheap white sheets), lots of flowers (wildflowers we go grab from unsuspecting fields or ditches, and sometimes flowering branches from generous trees), real plates, and candles (this year it was too windy to light them but the flame was with us in spirit). And music, of course.

   

   We’re still finding the best wildflower spots in NWA, so we had to supplement this year’s harvest with some store-bought blossoms. Whatever it takes, there will be flowers at Easter Feast.

4. We outsource a dish or two to attendees, but I always cook lamb (this is Passover time, after all) and we always have bread and red wine.

5. No one is allowed to sit next to someone in their family (with the exception of small children).

6. Once the food’s on the table, we welcome everyone and tell them how precious they are to us and how grateful we are to be able to celebrate Christ’s resurrection with them. Then we take communion together to begin (it’s a smiling, casual affair—a little more akin to what communion was in the early days of the church, before rows and aisles).

7. (This year after we shared communion, I printed copies for everyone and led us through the fantastic “Liturgy for Feasting with Friends” from Every Moment Holy. If you want the simple act of eating and drinking to become an epic war against darkness, this is the way.)

8. Then as we eat the feast we take turns responding to a single prompt. Year to year, we’ll oscillate between “Where have you experienced resurrection in your life during the past year?” or “What’s true in your life lately because Jesus died and rose again?” After each person shares (each person must share—we send the prompts a week or two ahead so no one’s caught off guard), we raise our glasses and toast “To new life in Christ!”.

9. We do not do the dishes until the next day.

Allow me to anticipate your reservations:

Cooking lamb for 25 people sounds expensive. You’re so right. (And that’s before you add several bottles of wine to the cart.) But holy feasting usually involves sacrifice, no? There have been years where we saved for a month or more in order to throw our Easter Feast.

Officially welcoming guests and making a series of toasts? That sounds formal and awkward. I get it. If this kind of purpose-driven way of hosting is new-ish to you, such a structured approach may feel weird. But let me encourage you:

Embrace the weird.

You’ll have to take my word for it, but I’m telling you: it’s so good.

Without exception, tears are shed and laughter is shared and anyone new to this feast is a little taken aback by how much deep joy they feel. It’s such a delight to expose people to this simple, intentional way of gathering—it’s like we usher them into a secret park brimming with beauty and as they walk around in it they can’t believe it’s been right there in their neighborhood all along.

So there you have it. Easter 2025 is on April 10, so you’ve got even more than a year to get your own Easter Feast on the calendar. I promise—you’ll be so glad you did.

Two and a Half Weeks!

The Holy Ghost Stories Exodus Tour is almost upon us. If you enjoyed Season 4’s trip through the incredible Exodus story, you’ll love this show. Cellist/composer Kendall Ramseur and I will usher you into a night of story and song that will transport you into Yahweh’s memory of the moment He entered into covenant with His people. It will give you fresh eyes to see Him more clearly and love Him more deeply.

If you haven’t gotten your tickets, now’s the time.

Here’s a taste of what’s to come—Kendall’s beautiful score (with his own vocals) from a part of the story we’ll be sharing on this tour:

We’ll see you out there! Here are direct links to each location:

• Huntsville, AL // April 22

• Jackson, TN // April 23

• Little Rock, AR // April 24

• Oklahoma City, OK // April 25

• Austin, TX // April 26

• Fort Worth, TX // April 27

Free Tickets to the Austin Show

Thanks to a generous donor, we have two pairs of tickets to give away for the Austin show on Friday the 26th. If you’d like to win 2 of them, here’s what to do:

1. Text a friend about Holy Ghost Stories and why you think they’d like it.

2. Reply to this email with a screenshot of the text.

That’s it!

Same thing’s happening over on Instagram today. Tomorrow (Saturday) we’ll choose two winners who’ll get a pair of tickets each.🎉

Holy Ghost Stories in Africa

As you know, there are some brilliant folks doing the Lord’s work around the world. One of those people is a young woman named Caroline who’s purusing her PhD in Orality and utilizing a story-forward approach to sharing the gospel with a primarily Muslim culture in East Africa.

Caroline emailed me a few weeks ago and shared about the way she and her team use Holy Ghost Stories to embed the stories of the Bible in their own hearts as they prepare to share them with the locals.

Here’s a part of what she shared. I share it here with you because so many of you support HGS with prayer and donations—you’re a part of this:

In November the team and I walked the group through the Exodus stories, getting them used to hearing the stories, discussing and learning from them, and putting them in their own heart language. I was in the middle of listening through your Exodus stories and LOVING them. They helped to put God's word more deeply in my heart so that I could better share it with our friends who've never heard.

And then in January on our next trip we shared 100 stories to give an overview of the Bible to our friends. Your stories about Deborah and Jael, about Joseph, and so many more had helped the stories root deeper into my heart so I could give a more faithful and dynamic story.

I wanted to thank you for doing what God created you to do, and how it helps me do what God created me to do, so together as a Body we can do the work of the Kingdom better. Your work and mine were both a part of what the Spirit used to bring an 80-year-old holy book teacher from a tribe with no Jesus followers to excitedly grab me by the hand and show me all of our Old Testament stories that promised a Savior would come for us. And the first one he pointed to was the Exodus. He said, “God told the people to wait and watch the salvation he would bring. He meant he would rescue them then, but he also meant this Savior Isaiah was talking about who would come later.”

Someone on Caroline’s team snapped a photo of that moment (the man’s face is blurred for privacy):

What an absolute joy.

I asked if Caroline could chat and tell me about her work, and she was kind enough to take time for a conversation.

Our team at Hazefire Studios is prayerfully considering ways to serve missionaries better with Holy Ghost Stories. If you are one or know someone working to share Christ in a foreign place, I’d love to hear from you as we continue to explore how the HGS library might be of use to you.

3 Cool Things

Sheep Dogs are Amazing - This video of border collies in action on a sheep farm in Ireland is mind blowing:

The Shepherd’s Life - If the above video whets your appetite and gets you jonesing for more pastoral landscapes, I recently enjoyed James A. Rebanks’s autobiographical look at working as a shepherd in England’s Lake District. His sense of place and vocational identity is fascinating. (Thanks, Michael!)

How Flowers Talk to Bees - What in the world.🤯 Creation is amazing.

---

That’s the latest! Be sure to grab your tickets for the Exodus Tour; we can’t wait to encounter Yahweh with you.

Gratefully,
Justin