It’s not hard to make yogurt. 

All you need is milk, heat, and fourteen hours of mostly doing nothing. What makes those hours result in something other than spoiled milk is the addition of active cultures at the right time. 

The word culture has come to mean a lot of things. The Latin root colere means to cultivate, inhabit, and even to worship. In a biological sense, culture is a population of living things, or the nourishing medium in which those things grow. Substances are transformed through sustained contact with a culture. 

So are souls. 

When we think about culture shaping us, we’re often thinking at the scale of society. And, to be sure, there is a societal culture we all swim in. Some Christians attempt to shift this culture through aggressive and large-scale means. But Jesus modeled another way — a more patient and personal way.

Wendell Berry, the great light we lost this week, said there are ​“no national, state, or county problems, and no national, state, or county solutions…. The large-scale solution to the large-scale problem, which is so dear to governments, universities, and corporations, serves mostly to distract people from the small, private problems that they may, in fact, have the power to solve.” 

Some cultures we don’t choose, but they still shape us deeply, like the country and family and body we grow up in. 

Some we can’t change but can choose the degree of our contact: celebrity and internet culture, for example. 

Some life-giving cultures are not permanently sustainable, but we can immerse ourselves in them for a season. Think of a retreat center. Or even a dilapidated car, which I’ve found to be quite an effective culture of humility at breaking down my need for others to think well of me.

But there are a handful of cultures where we have a meaningful say: our home and neighborhood, our small business or micro-church. There are things we can do to make these places conducive to growing the life of God in the hearts of people. 

Spiritual formation happens through culture and community — the culture of a community.

Creating micro-cultures where goodness grows doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does come at a cost. Homemade yogurt is delicious, but I’ve only made it once. Because it takes time and intention.