As
promised by Pastor Phil and our previous Saturday blog, each of our NBC Family
Pastors will be sharing in a uniquely different way this week. Today I will
lead things off by describing our family’s Seder experience from last night…
We
wanted to have our Holy Week faith talk in a way that might encourage busy
families with a nearly empty cupboard. You know, like in case there was a
family that wanted to be intentional with their children but had just gotten
home from a hectic week at the baseball and soccer fields. Okay, and so maybe those shoes
fit us quite well, too. Anyway, here’s how it went down for us…
My wife
and I decided to use the faith talk outline that’s available on the church website. Rather than doing a full meal, we utilized a more devotional type of approach
to the topic, allowing some everyday items from around the house to symbolize some
of the same meanings offered in a more formal Passover dinner. For us, that meant
using some hand sanitizer (instead of an official hand washing), green pepper
slices (our vegetable to dip in the salt water), EOTE coffee beans (in place of
bitter herbs) dipped in honey (for the sweet component), a flour tortilla (our
Matzah substitute), and Juicy Juice grape juice (packed with the 100% fruit promise).
We let the kids know we were going to be doing something special and told them to go to the game
room and wait. We then loaded all the ingredients onto a tray and headed upstairs. By the time we made it to the game room, the salt water had already
splashed onto our tortilla, but it was no problem, just a little extra flavor for later. As
you can tell in the above photo to the right, our kiddos were pretty curious…
We
briefly explained the purpose of the Seder and how it has traditionally been celebrated. We then began telling the story... The kids were fairly familiar with much of the
Exodus story but we talked some in between each point, in hopes of offering
clarity. After discussing a couple of paragraphs, Brooks asked if he could also
read. “Of course!!” So as you might’ve imagined, Chan later joined in as well.
Mati didn’t ever read but besides me, she probably enjoyed the coffee bean as
much as any.
One of
our younger readers misread “whipping a Jewish slave to death” as “wiping a
Jewish slave to death.” We paused and laughed at the vast difference between
the two and then continued with the narrative. The short descriptive paragraphs
and the symbolic food and drink elements really held the kids’ attention and
they remained engaged all the way through. (P.S. – I would suggest smaller
juice portions, especially if you are doing this right before bedtime.
#justsayin’)
Overall,
it was a really neat experience! We laughed together, dialogued about
scripture, and everyone participated and seemed to enjoy it. Perhaps the
coolest part came as we made our way to the closing segment where Christ speaks
with His disciples in the upper room. Though we had been somewhat reverent the
whole time, it was a rather light-hearted conversation. That is, until we
discussed the Last Supper. The atmosphere shifted to a more somber tone and we
all became a tad more reflective. We talked about how we wanted to think on the
cross and the resurrection this week. However, as we prayed together, we asked
that we would be reminded of the cross daily, throughout the year. We asked
that we might find our hope and our motivation for obedience in what Christ has
already accomplished on our behalf.
We
didn’t have time to prepare a lamb this year, and as you can tell from our
pictures, we didn’t even make time to change out of our baseball fan gear or wash
the tournament re-entry stamp off our hands... But by taking a few minutes to talk about the
finished work of the cross, we were blessed to experience a sweet moment of
worship together as a family. I pray you are able to reflect on His goodness during this Holy Week.
And as we prayed for our family, may you also be captivated by the hope of the
cross. Might we all be carried far beyond Easter Sunday and find rest in those most
precious of words, “It is finished!!”
In case
you didn’t notice any of the above embedded links, below are a couple of different
ways you can access the faith talk resource we’ve provided. Thanks for reading! May we the
body mutually encourage one another and in so doing, make much of Christ…
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| matt@nbchurch.info Twitter: @FattMowler Facebook: TheFattMowler |
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