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Reviving Biblical Holidays: Practical Tips for Family Celebrations · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  People think there are only two groups of people in the Christian world that actually talk about the holidays. There are the people who believe that the holidays are a part of the law that we all need to fulfill and that every Christian should have a moral obligation to celebrate all seven biblical holidays. And then there are people who think that it's somehow wrong to celebrate them. Yeah.
• 0:17
  And so there's like these two that are far apart and we're always kind of in the middle, like saying, hey, like we don't think you have to. We do agree with Paul that they have been fulfilled in Christ. However, we do think that you can or you're allowed to. Right. Which is like we're looking for tools to train our families.
• 0:36
  Hi, welcome to the Family Teams podcast. Our goal here is to help your family become a multi-generational team on mission by providing you with biblically rooted concepts, tools, and rhythms. Your hosts are Jeremy Pryor and Jefferson Bethke, and we can't wait to chat about all things family.
• 0:53
  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited for this one today. So last week, April and I talked about a little bit about spring holidays are coming up. And a huge part of what it means to be a family team is to figure out, okay, how do we make disciples of our kids? How do we help our families to just immerse in our identities in the faith?
• 1:11
  Oftentimes, so many of these things are done in churches or through children's ministries. A lot of what we were exploring is, what does it look like for us to do this as families or in the home? It takes creativity and intentionality to experience the holy days, holidays in the home. We've got some amazing holidays coming up, four spring holidays that are in the
• 1:33
  biblical calendar in the Torah that are also woven into the gospel. So I'm really excited about this. We're going to dive into this in the Family Teams Accelerator. We're dedicating the month of April to drilling into like, how do we do this as a families? I'm super pumped for you guys to meet Brent and Katie Kruhtoff, who are good friends of ours here in Cincinnati. They've been trying to figure this out, this biblical holiday thing for a long time and have
• 1:57
  really been training a lot of families in various ways of doing this and have themselves been leveling up their experience as a family in each of these traditions. So excited, Brent and Katie, to have you guys on with us today. We're super excited. Thanks, sir. Thanks for getting us.
• 2:12
  Yeah, yeah. I'm pumped, man. So one of the things that's unique about, so Brent and Katie actually wrote the playbook for this month's Accelerator. Usually I write the playbook, but this one, I really wanted Brent and Katie to write for two reasons. One, I love the way they're experiencing the holidays. Number two, their kids are a little closer in age to the kids of the families that are in the Accelerator. So I thought, oh, this would be a great way for them to really help us understand how this has been so life-giving for their family. So I'm pumped that you guys get a good part of that. If you guys are not,
• 2:42
  a part of the accelerator. We encourage you guys go to familyteams.com and sign up for the accelerator. You can sign up just for the month of April. If you want to drill into all the stuff that we're going to talk about today, you can also sign up for the whole year and you'll get a playbook every single month. The accelerator is really four pieces of content. You get the playbook.
• 2:58
  Then you get the community coaches that'll come on a Zoom call. So for the month of April, Brent and Katie are going to jump on a Zoom call and just help answer all your questions about spring holidays and discuss that with the families in the accelerator. We also do a private video that April and I makes that just kind of walks you through how we think about the topic. And then we do a town hall where April, myself, usually several of our kids and some other families jump in there and we just kind of have an open discussion about it.
• 3:24
  Family teams, anything you want to talk about. So that's what it means to be a part of the accelerator. Go over to familyteams.com if you want more information on that. If you can't jump into the accelerator, then you can always go to familyteams.com slash Passover to actually get a one-page description of how to lead your family into Passover. So I encourage you guys to go grab that.
• 3:42
  That's for free. Just kind of go over to familyteams.com slash Passover. That was actually written also by Brent and Katie. It's a part of the playbook. It's a piece of that. So I want to just hear from you guys. How did, like, walk me through a little bit of your kind of big picture story of how you thought about the holidays and how you guys became interested as a family in celebrating holidays. So,
• 4:03
  Katie, we'll start with you. And then I want to hear Brent's take on this, but I'd love to hear what, what, what does it look like? How did you give us kind of some ideas of the journey you guys, as you dove into this?
• 4:14
  Yeah, so we grew up in Christian homes and read Old Testament, New Testament, and I would say was oblivious to most of these biblical holidays, with the exception of maybe Passover, understanding like the original one and that some people still celebrate it. But definitely under the context of this was a Jewish holiday and that...
• 4:34
  Christians don't celebrate these. And so we were part of a Bible study story form life. The leader was celebrating these biblical holidays. And we were like, this is new information. Like, we actually asked him to do a separate session after this to like, tell us more about these. We don't know anything about them. And it was kind of like unlocking this whole
• 4:58
  First of all, it's an amazing tool. And we were young parents. We were pregnant with our first, so we didn't have any kids yet. But it was like as we were thinking about how we want to train our kids and teach them the gospel and go deep and reach their hearts, really, it was like holidays are epic tools to do that. And so you can do that daily.
• 5:19
  well with the holidays that are already out there if you are really intentional with it, but these are actually God-given holidays. And so to me, it was like this light bulb of God had certain things he really wanted to teach his kids. And if he wants to teach his kids, like, why wouldn't we want to teach our kids those things too? Like that's passing on God's heart to the next generation. And so we started digging in, we did the one evening session, and then we were like, okay, let's really make this personal. And we started figuring out
• 5:47
  How do we start incorporating those as a family for team crew staff? Awesome. Very cool. And Brett, how about you? So as a dad, obviously your experience of, okay, I've got this family. I'm trying to figure out how to train them. And you're hearing about, okay, this here's a tool you can use. Tell me a little bit about what that experience was like for you. Why did you decide to grab this one?
• 6:08
  Yeah, so I think as a father of young kids and thinking through a mindset of now, I have this added level of responsibility of wanting to raise my kids up to know the story of Scripture and to have a personal relationship with Jesus. I think there's certain...
• 6:29
  tools that we have been given or certain tools that I grew up with, and they're usually centered around church. And so trying to shift that into something that's centered around the household kind of put some new pressure on me or kind of created this mindset of, okay, so if this is going to center around the household, then this is probably going to look different than what I grew up with. And so when I first started hearing about these biblical holidays, I think what was so appealing to me was this is something that's kind of more centered around,
• 6:57
  around the household, and it's a way to train our kids at home in the story of Scripture. And I think at first, what was really appealing to me was just that there were holidays that God created, and that was like a new thought to me. Even going to a Christian university and graduating with a Bible minor, like...
• 7:16
  took us until we were in our late 20s before we realized that these holidays even existed. But so that was appealing to me. There's like, wow, the same God that had this plan for creation and all the, you know, everything he's done, he also created these biblical holidays. So that was appealing. And then the more we learned about them, the more we discovered how powerful they were and not just like training our kids, but also in a way to celebrate and have some fun as a family.
• 7:44
  and do it all with deep meaning and value and driving home some points. Awesome. And the amount of understanding like we grew in just from studying these, like it's not just a way to teach things that we already know to our kids. It was like, well, we're understanding the gospel completely differently. Once we started learning more about biblical holidays, the richness of it, I just feel like the level of you're just kind of blown away by them. Yeah.
• 8:09
  Yeah, I think that there's a real Western confusion between the category of education and identity formation. So we understand education, which is like, OK, here's a piece of knowledge you've never heard before. Right. So you're going to go take this class. We're going to give you new information, everything. We're trying to like, you know, just broaden, broaden your education. We have that category.
• 8:30
  But identity formation is really different. It's like deeply understanding who you are. It has to do with, it's really a level of faith. It's not simply, have I heard this before? It's how deeply does my life rest on these truths? And God was very interested in both of these things, education and identity formation. But really, holidays are designed more around identity formation, which I think
• 8:54
  For a lot of people, that is just a category that they often just conflated too much with education. And to do the same thing every year, to go back and say, okay, we're going to remember now again who we are. We are slaves set free. What does it mean for us to actually understand that identity? So that is a powerful part of what can and I think with a home is such an incredible tool to be able to form identities.
• 9:24
  has that opportunity because of that repeat nature. And when the Bible says, remember, and that's one of the most common commands in scripture, especially in the Torah, the first five books, where these holidays are mentioned, remember, remember who you are. This remembering isn't something that, you know, you're just like, oh yeah, it's like,
• 9:39
  No, this is actually an event. It's when you really reenact something that happened in the past, but is designed to actually deepen your identity in the present. Have you guys found like, how have you thought about maybe those two categories, especially with young kids and thinking about, I want to see that go deep?
• 9:55
  Yeah, well, as far as identity formation goes, I feel like there's two ways that that's happening. Like one, it's smaller, like the Krutoff family, you know, their their identity is being formed in like, hey, this is something unique that our family does. And it creates bonds and it creates some memories within our house.
• 10:11
  that these holidays have formed. And then it creates that bigger, I think, identity of our part in the story of scripture, in our role in Abraham's family. And so I think there's that much bigger layer that is really...
• 10:28
  You know, I think that's really unique about the biblical holidays. Like, even if I think of a holiday like Christmas, that feels more like it is an education holiday where we learn about how Jesus was born in a major and stuff like that. And it seems like it's, you know, and there's ties that you can make into to how to our identity and what Jesus did. But like, this is like.
• 10:46
  it feels like, hey, this big story has been going on and will continue on until the end of time here on this earth. And we are a part of this story. And there's something about these holidays that God created that is, it's a different category than education that most holidays are. Or a lot of times holidays really have very little hot education and they're more just a day for entertainment. Exactly. For fun and
• 11:14
  Yeah, one of the things I loved about this as a father was I felt like it's difficult because, you know, we love celebrating Christmas and other holidays on a Christian calendar, but there it does seem to be a lot more that the meaning has been sort of pulled towards consumerism just because we live in a culture that loves to do that. One of the things that's really interesting.
• 11:34
  unique about these holidays is that they just, you know, Hallmark and all the, they haven't gotten ahold of them yet. So the fact that they're sort of different than people are used to, you know, there's some downsides to that. These don't have that like depth of tradition like they do within the Jewish community, within a lot of Christian families, but it also gives fathers and mothers just such a credible canvas on which to like design something. And that's one of the things I really love about what you guys have done
• 12:00
  One of the things that you wrote right at the beginning of the playbook was that you said, the nation of Israel is required to follow these holidays as part of the law given to Moses. However, Gentile believers are not required to observe these religious festivals, as made clear by Paul in Colossians 2, 16 and 17. Therefore, do not let anyone judge you with regard to religious festivals. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality is found in Christ. Oftentimes we have to make this disclaimer because there's really, people think there are only two groups of people in the Christian world that actually talk about the holidays. They're the people who...
• 12:29
  believe that the holidays are a part of the law that we all need to fulfill and that every Christian should have a moral obligation to celebrate all seven biblical holidays. And then there are people who think that it's somehow wrong to celebrate them. And so there's like, there's these two that are far apart and we're always kind of in the middle, like saying, hey, like we don't think you have to. We do agree with Paul that they have been fulfilled in Christ.
• 12:51
  However, we do think that you can or you're allowed to, right? Which is like, we're looking for tools to train our families. And, you know, so what we did is instead of like, oh, how do we celebrate all seven of these holidays? We just kind of did one a year. And we kind of like, so we started with Sukkot and then we started doing Passover, Passover.
• 13:08
  And then we celebrated, you know, this festival of trumpets, and then we started getting into Shavuot. And so there's all these seven holidays. We've slowly started to figure out how our family does it, comparing us with other families. I know you guys have been on a similar journey. And one of the things that you talk about in the playbook that I thought was really interesting, and I wanted you to tease this out.
• 13:28
  You talked about how we set aside, this is your first play, set aside a date night to design how our family will celebrate the biblical holidays. That just seems so practical. And you walk through like lots of pointers, but I'd love to hear a little bit about that. You know, why set aside time? What does that mean for you guys?
• 13:44
  It was really fun to do this collaboratively. Like Brent is the leader of the household. He was the one who was like, I think we should start doing these. But as a wife, it was really fun to be like, let's partner in this and like craft these days together. So.
• 13:59
  partly it was just we needed to learn about these holidays. And we were starting from ground zero, pretty much. So when we got started, we, this was something that you guys have done in the family accelerator already talking about family meetings or couple marriage date nights. So we had one of those already set in place. So about a month before the holiday was coming up, we're like,
• 14:23
  Let's dedicate this one to this holiday specifically. We always start with just praying and being like, God, you know, you care about our family. You know what our kids, what you want to be teaching them. So just let this whole conversation be spirit led. And it's always perfect to start that way because this is something obviously God is very excited about that you're entering into this. Yeah.
• 14:44
  Um, and then we started learning about the holidays and we kind of broke that down into we wanted to know exactly what the Bible said about it, how the Bible said to celebrate it. And then we walked into how Jesus's time they were celebrating it and how Jews today are celebrating it. And a lot of that has to do with customs that maybe weren't spelled out in the Old Testament that has been built on over time. But what it like came down to after all this research is like, okay, but what is God trying to teach his kids?
• 15:13
  kids in this holiday? Forget all the traditions, forget how they used to celebrate, how they're currently celebrating it. What's the theme that God really wanted his kids to get out of this? And then we took the liberty to be like, and how can we, in a fun and meaningful kind of way, get that same message across to our kids and do it in a way that these holidays become the
• 15:37
  highlighted the year for our kids where they look forward to these holidays, even more than Christmas or Easter birthdays or those kinds of things. We want this to be like God's holidays are associated with peak fun and peak joy. And so we, we tried to get really creative with it and borrow elements that we knew our kids liked from other holidays and implant them in these, but always coming back to that, like, well, what's God trying to teach? And then how can we impart that onto our kids? Yeah.
• 16:06
  Yeah, and those date nights were really effective. And we actually did a date night for each holiday we celebrated. We had set aside a night, put the kids to bed, and then go out on the porch. And we had a little guidebook that we used that kind of told us what the traditional date
• 16:22
  Jewish elements or the ways that the customs that are used to celebrate those holidays now. And we would kind of understand the meaning. We would really look at what scripture says, but like the day nights were important because I could look at that. And I would usually, I would often get a sense of like, okay, this is how I feel like we should celebrate that. And Katie would look at it and she'd be like, I don't know. I feel like this might be how we should do it. And then we'd come to this middle ground where I just feel like is always, this happens with us in business or when we're,
• 16:48
  renovating a property. Yeah. Right. Like I've got my style that if I were just a single parent, I would do it this way and she would do it that way. And then we come to this like middle ground that's like better than either of us could have come up with on our own. And so that's what those date nights are really powerful tools to just kind of say, okay, I'm going to do it.
• 17:06
  I love the idea of taking these holidays and really getting creative with them. And those date nights are just a fun way to like get creative and be like, how can we take this theme of Passover and really like make it so that our kids, you know, drive home the point for our kids in their context. And it might not look like a traditional Seder meal, but you know, that's okay. We have the freedom to do that.
• 17:30
  And it's a time to get a little bit creative. I have a friend once who said to me, you know, I think when you get to heaven, God will be like, Brent, I really appreciate your heart, but your Passovers were weird.
• 17:43
  Because like we, you know, we, they, they are, you know, we'll get into this, but our kids eat our Passover meal in handcuffs. That represents their bondage. And, you know, and we have just creative ways that we want our kids to kind of understand the elements of Passover and what Jesus did.
• 18:02
  did on the what jesus did on the cross and what the passover lamb did on the door frames of the houses and how these are really parallel stories and so we're like in our context we know our kids really well what's the best way that we can communicate that that to them so yeah planning a lot of planning and then figuring out okay who are we going to invite into this what kind of menu are we going to have what kind of games and activities you know we for all of our holidays we
• 18:27
  Like there's certain Bible verses that we want to make sure that we communicate. There's certain stories that we want to make sure we communicate. There's certain just instructions for the activity that we're going to be doing that we want to make sure that we communicate. So during those periods where we would get together, just the two of us, we would make sure we would write all that script and get it all down. And we'd be on the same page of how we'd celebrate it.
• 18:47
  Yeah. And I think it's important to pause here and be like, people who this is new to are hearing seven new holidays that I'm adding throughout the year. So I think, Jeremy, you mentioned this, it's a really good idea to take a deep breath and just be like, it's okay for me to add five.
• 19:02
  one a year. Or it's okay for me to start it on a really small scale and I don't have to make it this huge production, but let's just get the ball rolling with something that's pretty low key and we can always add to that. So as you hear stories about us who have been doing it for years, we did add them gradually. We did these date nights where it was like,
• 19:20
  okay, I think we're ready to like do another one. Let's plan another date night. But we've had a lot of years to fine tune it and to add to it and to make it what it is. But I think it can feel so overwhelming that people are like, I just can't even do any of it. And that would be a sad loss if it's just like, it's just too much. So definitely there are ways to baby step into this. Yeah.
• 19:43
  So good. Yeah. As you guys talk about making them your own kind of studying the traditional, more Jewish practices and then saying, okay, we got a Gentile Khrutov spin. Now, I know that for some people, this sort of like stirs up questions of, there's this phrase that I never heard.
• 20:01
  until the last like maybe five to 10 years, cultural appropriation. People talk about this a lot. I want to just mention this because I think this is kind of a newer idea. It's kind of a sloppy category that conflates two things that I think are very different. One I think is very wrong and the other is actually really good. So cultural appropriation can either mean somebody who is taking on the characteristics of another ethnic group
• 20:23
  an ethnic group that might be, you know, have experienced large amounts of oppression in order to mock or make fun or lighten what that group is going through or what that group's a part of. I just think that's always kind of tacky and wrong and insensitive. Then there's the kind of cultural appropriation, which is actually emulation. Like I actually love what this culture stands for. I'm going to, you know, we love Taco Tuesday because we love Mexican food, not because we're trying to make fun of anybody who's Mexican. We need more experiences of each other's cultures. You know, we don't want to make fun or
• 20:52
  make light of other people's cultures. We want to actually find ways to appreciate them. And I think that, unfortunately, that same phrase applies oftentimes to both of those things equally. The other thing that I think people have to understand about Christianity is everything about Christianity is Jewish. Everything.
• 21:10
  We read a Jewish book. Every author of the books, both Old and New Testament, were Jewish authors. That's about a Jewish Messiah based in a Jewish land. And so it's impossible for a Christian to practice Christianity any kind of way that's consistent with the way it was originally designed without appropriating Christianity.
• 21:30
  from Jewish people, all of the things that we have, it came through Abraham, it came through that family. And so instead of saying, well, we're just going to essentially have to only identify with the more pagan elements of Christianity, because we don't want to be guilty of cultural appropriation, we need just to honor the Jewish people, honor what they've done, and say, hey, thank you so much for what you've preserved.
• 21:51
  And we always want to honor what you've been through and what you've given to the whole world in providing the framework for all of us to understand justice, to understand, you know, Jesus himself, of course, who was a Jewish man. And so it's impossible for us to like, if you believe both of those things.
• 22:10
  elements of cultural appropriation, you really can't even be a Christian if you're trying to say that. And so I think we should honor where we came from, but I think this is really the way that I think we need to figure out what are the things that we might be leaving behind that could be such rich parts of our faith that we do share with Jewish people.
• 22:30
  in a way that honors them and also allows us to reflect the full, all the things that God wrote about in scripture. I think that I was really blown away by as a father when I was first investigating these holidays, I actually started, April mentioned this last week that I started by trying to invent holidays and I'm like, well, God himself invented seven holidays. That's really remarkable.
• 22:48
  I really want to participate in those. Now, our family, we don't actually participate in holidays that were invented by Jewish people or ethnic Jews. We only celebrate holidays that were invented by God. There are seven of the Bible claims that are invented by God. Like Hanukkah, for example, was not invented by God. Jesus celebrated Hanukkah. I think it's a great thing to celebrate. I think Gentiles can celebrate it. We don't celebrate it because it's not a part of the Torah. It's not something God invented. We think it's a great thing. But these seven holidays and these four spring holidays are the ones that we're really focused on, Passover, Unleavened Bread.
• 23:16
  first fruits and Shavuot, or we call Pentecost sometimes. These are the holidays that are rooted in the spring. And they all were fulfilled, as we mentioned last week, by Jesus, actually on the days of those holidays. So Jesus died on Passover, was buried on unloved bread, rose again on first fruits, and sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, Shavuot.
• 23:36
  That's really significant. That's a lot of New Testament for us to ignore. And I think it's really rich for us to bring these things back and start to actually have an experience of them. So what I'd love to do is maybe kind of round robin, maybe do one or two traditions you guys have created to help bring together a practice, a creative way of expressing or experiencing one of the four traditions.
• 24:01
  spring holidays and bring it into your family so start with you brent then katie and then i'll mention one and we'll do this twice so i'll give us six quick snapshots of things that we've done that help our family really lean into and experience the holiday so brent we'll start with you what's one of your favorite like practices or traditions for the krutovs on one of these holidays uh yeah so for for passover i think the thing that that
• 24:30
  that our kids love the most is they remember it as the holiday that we celebrate with handcuffs. You know, it's, it's that that's how it starts with us. We they put handcuffs on and we talk about how we were once or in our in our bigger identity, we were once slaves in Egypt, you know, and how that represents that's like a that store story represents our slavery to sin. And so we eat this meal with our handcuffs on it's an extra challenge. And so
• 24:58
  It's a very tangible way for them to remember that slavery is bad. And, you know, they also have fun doing it. One of the ways that we've gotten creative in remembering that principle. Yeah, that one always makes me laugh because we don't rebuy this stuff every year. We just have a big bin in our basement that says, like, biblical holidays on it, has all of our supplies. And I imagine somebody, like, uncovering, like, why do they have this bin full of handcuffs in their basement?
• 25:25
  Okay, so I'll jump then to Shavuot. One of the things that we really try to capitalize on is how God speaks to us in two different ways. Just like a loving father, a loving father who wanted to teach his kids could write everything out and he answers them and say, here, do exactly like this says. Or he could walk right beside them and be whispering in their ear and guiding them that way. And so...
• 25:48
  We kind of used to have to talk about how God has done both of these as a loving father. First, he gave us the law, which was written out. And then he gave us the Holy Spirit. And those actually happened on the same day, which is just like blows my mind. I never even realized that when Moses was given the Ten Commandments.
• 26:07
  And then in Jesus' day after he died, that's Pentecost. And that's when the disciples got the Holy Spirit. And so we, for the Holy Spirit part of the day, when we're talking about that, the Holy Spirit is described in the Bible like a wind. And so we say you can't normally see the wind.
• 26:24
  but you can when you use color powder. And so I know you mentioned this in your last podcast, but this is definitely like one of the highlights of the year for our whole family is doing basically this huge color war where everybody gets a big bag of colored powder. And the goal is just to get it on as many other people as you can, your color. And it's just the beautiful representations of you can see the wind, you can see these great big puffs all around and
• 26:49
  What a visual thing that is to be like surrounded by the Holy Spirit, like immersed in it, really. It's all over you and you're covered in it. You're throwing it at other people. So it's a fun way to get across that idea of like the Holy Spirit coming upon us. And then we end the day with sparklers and fireworks to kind of represent the smoke and the fire over the disciples' heads when they got the Holy Spirit.
• 27:14
  So good. Yeah. So one of the traditions that we do is on Passover, we read as we're reading through John, starting John 13. There's so many like really tangible things that happen within that Haggadah. It's sort of like a Passover Seder that Jesus led.
• 27:30
  And one of them was, it started with him washing the disciples' feet. And then he commands us, actually. He says, you know, like just the same way I wash your feet, you wash one another's feet. So we're reading through John 13, you know, where we got usually family, like a large, you know, lots of extended family members. And we take time to just go around and wash each other's feet. And it's like usually a very moving time. We play worship music and yeah, every year I'm like, it's very humbling. Yeah.
• 27:57
  And awkward, honestly. Like, it's like, what do we, you know, as a family, you're like, what's, you know, and like all those feelings, you know, the disciples were feeling. I mean, even in the description, it's like, you can tell Peter was like, okay, you're not doing this to me. It's like, so I just...
• 28:12
  I feel, I feel those same feelings every year. And I'm just like, you know, we're commanded to, to wash each other's feet. I do think that he means that both symbolically and literally. And so, but that's the only time of year, you know, we, we practice that. And so I, I find that to be a really meaningful tradition. Okay. So one more from, from all three of us. All right.
• 28:33
  I'll go back to Passover as well. So one of the things that we always talk about in our Passover is the hyssop branch. And we talk about the significance of how after the first Passover, they were instructed to take the hyssop branch and use it to wipe the blood on the doorframes of the houses. And how in the Gospel of John, when Jesus is on the cross, it talks about how he was thirsty and they dipped the hyssop branch in the wine vinegar and put it up on Jesus on the cross.
• 29:00
  So we'll get little branches from our yard, just cut some branches off and we'll dip it in the grape juice and put it on our doors. And we'll talk about the importance of that, the significance there. And I think, you know, you were talking about this earlier, but like as we first got into these,
• 29:15
  It was kind of like a tool that we could use to have some fun and to kind of learn more about these holidays that God created. But the more you practice them and the more you see all of the parallelisms that are like between, you know, the first Passover and then Jesus dying on the, you know, being crucified on Passover, the richer it gets. And there's all sorts of little details that pop out like that hyssop branch that I think are fun to call out.
• 29:40
  Oh, good. Yeah. That is so crazy. Just that connection between, I mean, you're the first person who pointed this out, Brent, like I didn't, that, that is a branch that why they call that in the gospels that that's what they use to like lift that, you know, wine vinegar. That's crazy. All right, Katie.
• 29:55
  Yeah, this goes along with paths and we're in exactly what Brent was talking about, but we created this huge, huge banner that like spans, you know, across a room and we have two people hold it out. I'm a very visual person, so you could talk to me about how these are lining up, but I need to actually like really see it. And so it's not just like...
• 30:14
  chronologically how these things are lining up, which they do, but they also like these themes are so rich when you see like this whole story of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and their freedom. It's in the lamb and the sacrifice, like those themes are like repeated exactly again with Jesus's death, burial and resurrection. And so,
• 30:39
  For me, that's one of my favorite parts of Passover. And when we were developing it together, where I was just like, what? This too, this too. And it was like, it made Easter and that whole celebration and everything about Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection so much better.
• 30:57
  more powerful when I realized like God was actually giving a template for this, like a shadow, as we said, like so long ago. And it's like, this wasn't something that it was like, oh, you know what I feel like doing this year is sending my son down. It's like, he had this great big plan and he gave us a tiny little teaser of it, you know, generations ago that they could keep passing down. And they say that in Passover, their kids are so obsessed. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? And the whole point is like,
• 31:25
  We're preparing generation after generation after generation to get ready for this big plan where all these themes of substitution and being covered by the blood and being rescued out of slavery, like all these themes are going to be happening like real time. But we're preparing the generations to get used to this idea. And so that…
• 31:46
  That banner has been really helpful for adults that we invite in and hopefully for our kids too, to just see like, look at how it's lining up and just to show God's amazing plan and sovereignty from long ago.
• 31:57
  So good. Yeah. I've seen pictures of your banner and I very much want one. I think you're right. It's almost overwhelming how many connections there are. And I think to see it all in one giant banner is so epic. I love that you guys did that. I think oftentimes there are certain ones that are just lost. And part of what needs to be experienced is the sheer complexity, the number of ways that the atonement and what Jesus did on the cross and
• 32:23
  with the Passover, like all of those connections are so rich. And I think it's, it's just that sheer, like all the, all the threads of the story, you know, just coming together in one event is so meaningful. And you want your kids to just experience that. So, all right, I'll do one last one. So on Shavuot,
• 32:39
  You know how, so on Pentecost, the disciples were all gathered in upper room and that's where they were. And so part of what we, how we celebrate Shavuot or Pentecost is we all, we actually do a retreat with our, our community. We all get together. We spend time in a room. No one's allowed to leave until everyone speaks in tongues. I was joking. We don't do that. I was like, wow.
• 32:59
  Some people are still there. We're still waiting. They're holding their holdouts. No, what we do is it's like we call it a testimony weekend. And so every year we take our community away. There's oftentimes new believers or new people in our community. And so part of what we do is we just share. Everyone shares their testimony. And so we just take the time to listen to everyone's story. How is the Holy Spirit totally transformed your life? It's crazy. We live in the new covenant where the Holy Spirit is speaking to people.
• 33:25
  in radical ways. And we need to like, sometimes these deep parts of people's story, these spiritual milestones that have shaped who they are. Part of the way that we set people up is, is we have everyone journal, like your top three spiritual milestones. And it's like, all right, we're going to go around to just all share. We need to all know each other's spiritual journeys. And we all need to hear how the Holy Spirit is alive and is working. And so we spend time just hearing stories and worshiping God through the Holy Spirit. It's awesome.
• 33:50
  So anyway, I'm really looking forward to that retreat this year again. So I want to just kind of reenact. And maybe someday, you know, the room will shake and the songs of fire will come down. And that would be awesome. So Holy Spirit, yeah, come in any way you want to come into our Pentecost. But that's...
• 34:06
  That's what we set aside that time to do that as a community. So, all right, guys. Well, so you guys know people are listening to this and a lot of people have not heard of this before. So I'm curious if there's any last things you, before we're done here that you think you'd like to say to those listening, those families that are listening to kind of just encourage them on this journey of holiday restoration.
• 34:26
  Sure. So when we first got exposed to these, there was a lot of other rhythms or traditions or other things that we were getting exposed to at the same time. And we kind of embraced them all. And some of them fell flat. And I'm talking about things besides the holidays. Like having a family. Yeah, we had a family come live with us for a while because some other people in our community during that and you're like, you know, that was maybe a specific calling for someone else and it didn't work out for us. But this was one of those things we were just like, as we tried it,
• 34:55
  Like we didn't need to be convinced to do it again. It was just so much fun. Like we had such a great time. We had a great time at the planning night, like when we would just grab a glass of wine and talk through some ideas. Like it was fun to like really get creative. So that was a lot of fun. And then executing it was like surprising. The more we learned about the connections between all of the holidays, it was like amazing.
• 35:19
  eye-opening for us, and then just the debriefing afterwards and being like, all right, what can we change? How can we do it better next year? So it was a lot of fun. And I remember we were talking at Housecraft once, and somebody raised their hand and was like, man, this just feels really overwhelming, especially because there's several grouped in the spring, and then they're grouped together in the fall. Like these seven holidays kind of fall within a short period in the spring and a short period in the fall.
• 35:46
  Do you just like dread that? And I was like, no. I mean, like we get excited about it. We're like, we look forward to it. Like somebody looks forward to Christmas. And so I think that you kind of have to, you have to believe that there will be some fruit there. And once you have that buy-in, then it doesn't feel like an obligation. It doesn't feel like a heavy lift. It feels like something that you're excited to get to do.
• 36:09
  And if you do start small and then you can build over time and add elements over time, really that first year is where the most work comes in. Maybe you have to order 20 handcuffs that first year. And then after that, you've got them. The first year is the hardest one, right?
• 36:25
  Right. And then after that, you make some tweaks and you figure out how to improve and the effort decreases and the fun increases every year after that. That's so good. Yeah. Especially when your kids also are like, oh, how many more weeks until shop? Well, you know, like when they've got a countdown going. Yeah.
• 36:43
  I think that really adds to this element of it's not obligation, it's opportunity. It's such a gift to us as believers to get to do these. If I had anything in closing, this kind of wasn't stated explicitly, but we've talked about spring holidays.
• 37:01
  And how there's four of them. And we've really only mentioned kind of our celebrations for Passover and Shavuot. And I just, this kind of goes along with it also not feeling super overwhelming. Is that for our family, we do one celebration at Passover. It really encompasses unleavened bread and first fruits as well. So that helps it feel a little bit more manageable. Those tie together really nicely because they're all about like,
• 37:25
  death, burial, resurrection, Jesus being the first fruits of the resurrection that's coming for all of us. And so it's easy to put them all in one day and cover them all very well. And that helps it feel a little bit less like, oh, there's seven new holidays to add. And
• 37:42
  You can kind of be like, but these spring ones, they group together pretty well. Really, actually, this is kind of molded into not always, but typically Passover and Easter fall pretty close together. And this is kind of morphed into our Good Friday celebration, which again, my context was like this Good Friday was maybe an extra church service you would do.
• 38:00
  on Easter week, but this has really become household centric. And that Passover unleavened bread, first fruits holiday that we group together is, has become like a really great, good Friday celebration for us. And then, yeah, we still do an Easter celebration. We kind of downplay that a little bit. So yeah.
• 38:20
  We, instead of having Easter... Just let other people take the lead, like our extended family, that we're in town with one of them. They might do an Easter big hunt. We'll show up at your Easter thing and we'll partake in all your celebrations. But like, we're taking the lead on Passover and we'll invite you all into that. So yeah, instead of Easter baskets, we do Passover baskets. People are like...
• 38:40
  That's me, our kids. What did you get in your Easter baskets in the Passover baskets? We had epic Passover baskets. I know. Well, yeah, I think one of the things that I think is important to call out too is, you know, when so much of holiday is this nostalgia, like, you know, a lot of times people talk about the spirit of Christmas, but I think what they don't understand is they're experiencing the power of an annual rhythm.
• 39:03
  And that's what makes Christmas so magical. And so oftentimes when you approach a new holiday and you start to restore one, you don't have any of that nostalgia. You don't like, oh, this is when grandma always makes this dish or, you know, have all these memories of when I was a kid and I woke up on Christmas. Like you have those memories for holidays that your parents celebrated with you. But you don't have those necessarily around a holiday that you didn't celebrate that you're restoring.
• 39:28
  But your kids can have that. And so there's this bridge generation that's really tricky, which is like, on one hand, you are establishing new, nostalgic, beautiful experiences that your kids will be passing on to your grandkids and saying, oh, I remember when I got my Passover basket.
• 39:46
  Yeah, these things. And so that's a really beautiful gift to give to your kids, even though you're not necessarily experiencing it the same way. They do get a little more nostalgic over time. And we've been celebrating Sukkot for like 15, 20 years. And I'm starting to finally get there with that holiday. But man, I know my kids are just like, it's like to them, it's like it's Christmas times two or three, I think for them. And at the same time, I think like you guys said.
• 40:09
  we also want to be careful to try to honor the traditions of our parents. And one of the things I'm always encouraging people to do is be really careful to not necessarily steal from your parents, that experience of getting to like have a holiday with their grandkids, you know, obviously if there's some reason you don't believe in it, that's fine. But, but in general, like I, you know, I, my, my dad really, like, I know he really enjoys celebrating certain Easter traditions with his grandkids. I'm like, we, we will do everything we can to help,
• 40:37
  make that happen. I want my kids to have that experience with, with their grandpa. I want my dad to have that experience with his grandkids. Like I, I don't really, I'm, I'm, I'm very much an equal opportunity holiday celebrator. I'm just like more holidays. Like they're amazing. Like why, why do we have to like, I don't really feel any, any need to like reduce the number or something. So.
• 40:57
  Yeah, that's hopefully that's really helpful to you guys are listening. Please, if you want more information, you got more questions, jump into the accelerator, just go to familyteams.com, get to hang out with the Krutofs in the month of April, they're going to be on the call. If you want to get that free guide, go to familyteams.com slash Passover, and you guys can get that guide. And we want to help you guys. We want to help your family establish more of these house based.
• 41:19
  traditions. They're so important, so rich for, for family. So thank you guys so much for listening and Brett and Katie, especially thank you guys so much for taking the time to write the playbook and to jump in the accelerator this month. I'm so excited that you guys were able to do this with us. Thank you. It was really fun. Thanks so much, Jeremy.
• 41:35
  Thank you for listening to the Family Teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend. To stay up to date with our events, new content, and products, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Family Teams.