Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Shabbat Ep. 5 | 4 Different Family Experiences of Shabbat

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Shabbat Ep. 5 | 4 Different Family Experiences of Shabbat · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:01
  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 this season is all about crafting a family-friendly day of rest.
• 0:20
  We'll talk about the biblical idea of Sabbath, hear testimonies from different families, and also discuss practical ways to do this with kids. Make sure you give us a follow so you don't miss out on future episodes.
• 0:38
  All right, guys. Well, welcome to the Family Teams podcast. I'm excited. I've got four folks with me, families who are leading into Shabbat. And I wanted to give all of you an opportunity to hear from some more families that have been thinking about how to keep a Sabbath. And as we've
• 0:57
  kind of heard people's stories over the years, this can look really different depending on what your family looks like and kind of what season or stage your family is in. Our family is in kind of an unusual stage compared to most people because we're a little older. So I wanted to make sure that we had just a lot more stories for you guys to pull from. And so we have four families that are going to share their family's journey into the Sabbath. So we're going to start with Leanna, who's
• 1:24
  from the Netherlands. And, and so she's going to share her story from here from Andrew, then Alex, and then Jason and Callie are going to round us out. So Leanna, tell me about kind of this journey of Sabbath kind of walk me through what was it like, like, why did your family start to practice? And then tell me about, you know, how that how that went for you guys and the impact it's had on your family.
• 1:49
  Hi, sorry, the connection was a little unstable. I'm back now. Oh, good. Yeah, so my husband and I have lived in Israel for six months when we just got married. And that's the first time we actually found out about Shabbat. And we were very inspired because it was so relaxed. And, you know, you really felt...
• 2:13
  everything stops like there's nothing there which was sometimes a little bit um it gave you sometimes it gave me the creeps a little bit in the beginning like yeah i've got i gotta do something i gotta go somewhere and uh when i finally like surrendered to it then it was really good and uh we were just married so we were thinking about hey if we have a family if we get kids but how are we going to shape things and we really
• 2:42
  really wanted to do Shabbat. And then a couple of years later, we have kids and it just didn't really happen until we kind of, we went back to Israel, actually we went back to Israel and then we had Shabbat again. And they were like, Oh, right. We wanted to do this. So that's when we really started crafting it. And it just started with, um,
• 3:11
  Friday night, pizza night. And because that's when that's what the kids like. So then we don't have fights about dinner. Let's just do that. And then when our oldest became was four, we started homeschooling him and we wanted to do a crafts project. And we asked him like, hey, what do you want to make? And he said, I want to make a tablecloth for Shabbat.
• 3:39
  So we started doing that and it was really life-giving. And actually that was for us really the starting point because every week he was looking forward to the moment that his tablecloth could come out of the closet and he could set the table the way he wanted it. And we started inviting people over, but it was still in the beginning, very, very stressful.
• 4:03
  Because you feel like, okay, I was in Israel and everything was super chill. So Shabbat is going to be perfect and chill and I'm going to be so happy if it's over. And the first couple of weeks, months, it was like, how am I exhausted after Shabbat? And why is it not perfect? How is this possible?
• 4:24
  And then we talked to our friends in Israel and we talked with this about it and they're like, well, we have a couple of hundreds of years of experience in our culture. So you might need a little bit more time than a couple of months. So we just started to take it Shabbat by Shabbat and just adding things and taking things and trying.
• 4:48
  Now it's really up to the point that all the kids are like, what day is it today? It's Wednesday. One, two. Ah, good. Then two more days. And then we have Friday night and then it's Shabbat. And so we found out that it helps to put nothing in the calendar. Because for me personally, a birthday is still relaxed and it's still hanging out. But for my husband...
• 5:17
  it's something in the calendar, which means it's not completely peaceful. So we really had to figure that out because you have to do it like multiple different personalities and what is peaceful and what's not. Yeah, so that's how we're crafting it. And it's now really our favorite day in the week.
• 5:35
  That's awesome. That's really cool too. I love it when the kids, like they, there's like an identity that starts to shape or form around it, but it does take lots and lots of iterations. And I, that's really encouraging too for your friends from Israel. I think that so many people that are starting this, there can be a little bit of a pressure like, Hey, we've tried this for a month and you know, it's still stressful and it's still hard and we're still figuring it out. And I don't understand why this isn't giving me magical rest in total peace. And so we give up on it and, you know,
• 6:05
  Yeah, they have thousands of years of practice. And so our families, it's a skill, like Sabbath thing is a skill that you need to build. And sounds like you guys are just like really taking it step by step. So that's really helpful. Thank you, Leanna. Andrew, so Andrew's zooming in from College Station, Texas.
• 6:23
  That's right. I'm in Bryan, but it's right down the road from College Station. Awesome. Bryan, Texas. Awesome. So yeah, Andrew, tell us a little bit about your journey. How did your family get started and what were the kind of steps or milestones as you guys were trying to implement this? Yeah. This has given my wife a chance. My wife and I had a chance to have some good conversations today as I told her that I was doing this. I was like, hey, I'm on a podcast. She's like, you're doing what? I had no idea.
• 6:47
  But we had a chance to kind of visit and remember how this all got started for us. And some of our pastors here in town are Mark and Bethany Douglas. I think you know Mark pretty well, Jeremy. And we got past this Oikos document back earlier in the 2010s. I think it was 2011, 2012, something like that.
• 7:12
  And I remember at the time reading this thing about a Sabbath and a Shabbat. And I was like, I don't know, this just, this seems super out there. Like, I can't get on board with this. This is, this is too much for me. And, but, but watching these people that we've really kind of submitted ourselves to in a lot of ways have all this fruit and all this good things come about in their lives. And,
• 7:33
  And I really just sort of, we really just realized like, hey, we need to do the things that they're doing. We need to do the things that they're doing because they're doing what the Lord does. And so it was probably 2017 that my wife and I decided, hey, we're going to do this. And I remember she, I was like, so what does the Sabbath look like, right? I'm just kind of, we're talking about, I'm like, what does this need to look like? And she was like, well, we don't do anything. I was like, you mean we do nothing? We have nothing to do. And she's like, yeah, we just, we don't do anything. We read, we hang out, we do.
• 8:03
  spend time with the kids. I was like, this sounds terrible to me. Uh, I still have this mentality of like, we have to do all the things we have to go, we have to get everything done. And
• 8:11
  And so honestly, the first few times we did it, I was the one that was really fighting against it because I thought I needed to accomplish and I needed to do. And I hadn't really learned yet the idea of leaning into the Lord doing things even when we're not. The Lord being able to accomplish what he sets out to accomplish even when we sort of like sit back and stop.
• 8:34
  um and in our conversation kind of thinking about shabbat today and in our sabbath day we we really started kind of thinking about like all the fruit that's come about just from getting into the right order of submitting to the lord um and there's just so much fruit that's come about in our family because of this we've hosted uh more families than i think we're able to count at this point we've um we've been able to uh
• 8:58
  We hosted a prophetic ministry night that kind of came about because of just some of the time we've had with friends and with our community of people here. And, you know, for a period of time, we had our kids trying to listen to the Lord and sharing some prophetic words with friends. And those are just some of the sweetest memories we have of just trying to minister to people from our table and in our home. And, you know.
• 9:27
  And it's, it's like, like Leanna said, it's becoming my favorite day of the week. Like if we miss it or if it doesn't go like I want it to be, it, uh, it feels like I'm missing something. Right. Um, and, and just this idea that, um, we get a chance to enjoy time itself. Uh, we get a chance to enjoy time with our kids and with our people, um, has just been really great. It's been the best thing we've, best decision we've made as a family probably to this point. So.
• 9:55
  That's awesome. And one of the unique, it sounds like, um, opportunities that you guys have is, is sort of seeing a community adopt this. Uh, yeah. I mean, so, so we're really like, our community is really connected to, I think a lot of people that, you know, in Cincinnati, just as the Lord would have it. And, and so really we've, I think as a group here, we've recognized like all the fruit that's come out of what the Lord is doing in Ohio. Um, and,
• 10:23
  And, you know, four years ago, there was probably three families of ours that were practicing a Shabbat meal and a Sabbath. And now I really can't think of one family in our church body, in our house church that doesn't practice a weekly Sabbath.
• 10:39
  And we're even to the point where everybody that works for me knows we practice the Sabbath and most of their families have gotten a chance to join us and do it with us. And so, yeah, the community aspect of it has gotten to the point where we don't, you know, Leanna, we don't have hundreds of years of this kind of backing, but we do at least have like all the people around us are doing it as well. And so, yeah.
• 11:02
  And during COVID, we had been doing ours on Saturday, and we realized we just wanted to get in line with everybody else in our community. And so we started doing it on Friday like everybody else, and that was just another way of kind of lining ourselves up with where our people are. That's awesome. Man, yeah.
• 11:18
  I think to kids growing up in a whole community of people practicing these kind of identity shaping and deepening rhythms like a Sabbath, I think for them too, it's a different experience. But I love what you're saying too, that everyone starts to do it. I think that one of the things that... Another thing I always look forward to see whether or not a tradition is worth investing in is just...
• 11:44
  how many people after they kind of practice it and get good at it, stop doing it. And what I've noticed is Shabbat tends to go one way, you know, that people, once they really enjoy it and it gets really ingrained in their family's culture, it tends to really stick. So now it takes a while for, to establish it, you know, like Leanna was describing, like kind of on off and we had that same experience initially to kind of get to the practice, the practice of it. So it was started to become life giving, but yeah,
• 12:09
  Yeah, this does tend to really take root. That's really helpful. Thank you, Andrew, for sharing your story. The Family Plan Calendar is the new way to keep your family team organized. Plan your rhythms, menu, household chores, and notes for the family all in one place. Visit familyteams.com to purchase.
• 12:31
  All right. We'll zoom over to Alex. Alex from the beautiful city of Cincinnati. Tell us, maybe to Alex, you can, you know, give us your context. You know, tell us, can introduce people to your family and then love to hear you. How has this, how has this rhythm impacted you guys? Sure. I mean, my wife and I have been married for 14 years. We have 11 kids. I own a construction business and, you know,
• 13:00
  I really got pushed to the point of needing Shabbat. I mean, first, I love, I absolutely love Torah. I love the Hebrew scriptures. I love all this stuff, right? It brings me such joy to take part in those traditions, and I was never doing it. And I realized, I got so frustrated.
• 13:19
  That I was succumbing to two major, absolutely major things that we're suffering from in the West, which is for males, especially busyness and passivity. I was so busy, you know, kids, business, whatever. And I was also being extremely passive. Right. Like I love Jesus. My wife loves Jesus. Like we're super serious about this in our family. This is why we're adopting kids, because it's like the state's handing them out and saying, hey, here, disciple this thing. Right. So but I was not doing.
• 13:49
  I always told my kids about Jesus, but never in a way that had any rhythm. We had no family rhythms. Every day was just like the one before it and just like the next one. Right. So I kept hearing teachings on Shabbat. And so we finally, finally picked it up. And man, it has been absolutely amazing. I've only been doing it three months and I'm doing it terribly. Like a bad job. I don't care because
• 14:14
  I tell you, Jeremy, once we started just making a rhythm out of it, what I realized was that made space for me as a father to step in and do my duty to teach and disciple my children in a deliberate manner. I like to say, I always just, I talk, I process out loud. I'm always telling my kids stuff.
• 14:32
  But this made a moment for me to identify the biblical values that our family lives by and actually teach on that really briefly. I mean, legit, the teaching part of our Shabbat is like four minutes or less. And because we've got all these kids from 11 months up to 14 years old. And so but it has been so absolutely life giving because I'm no longer being passive about it. I'm actively pursuing discipling my children.
• 15:01
  and honestly it still feels busy that's why I say
• 15:07
  I'm still doing it poorly because it still feels busy. I'm three months in whatever. We're going to figure it out. We're going to keep working at it. Like that whole peaceful rest thing. Like I don't have that yet, but even in the really messy startup phase, I'm seeing so much fruit of this man. My little kids, cause I, uh, I reworked my work week so that I would be off on Fridays. I'm very blessed to have a partner in the business who will cover for me Fridays and
• 15:33
  And so I take Fridays off Friday morning. We're going to the grocery store with all of my kids who are younger than school age, which is like five of them. And we're going to the grocery store and they're telling complete strangers. It's Shabbat. It's Shabbat. And then of course, rhythms and how we practice things, you know, and you know, you have cute little kids. People aren't going to tell you, Oh, you're an idiot for believing that, you know, it's great without any of the rejection, you know? Um, but man, we've gotten into that rhythm and all we do is, uh,
• 16:03
  We do a quick teaching, like I said, like four minutes tops out of scripture. And then we have a decent meal. And I've gotten my in-laws. They've really gotten into it, especially my father-in-law, because we get to go around the table and we'll lay hands on them, bless each kid. I'll read a portion of scripture over my wife and bless her, stuff like that. And then after that, we usually we say no, no chores tonight. We do a family talent show where they want to sing. And we have, you know, one of those spinny like disco lights.
• 16:32
  And then the older kids stay up like an hour and a half late. And we totally get on PlayStation and we play party games. I mean, we're not playing Halo. We're playing, you know, party games. Because I also realized that when I have all my kids, I'm a drill sergeant. And one of the things they needed was fun with me. So that's why games are a part. It probably won't be forever. But...
• 16:54
  That's kind of the progression of where it's come from and my frustration. And I tell you, man, I know you didn't ask me about this, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I have been so blessed when my wife tells me that she appreciates that I kind of instituted this. I mean, I talked to her about it. I didn't just do it. But I realized that she wasn't seeing me lead very much.
• 17:18
  My wife loves to see me lead for me to take an active role in leading our family spiritually. Like I said, I've always been really clear with our kids and with her about what we're about, but I'm a really internal person, believe it or not. And so when she can see me lead like and she's and I can see it on her face, how how good she feels that I am that I am taking the reins and leading our family into that as the husband and the father.
• 17:41
  she like that's one of the greatest joys that I get. So it's really awesome. Like that's still super messy. Half the time, I dream at people like, and, but it's been really, it's really good. That's awesome. Oh man. Thanks Alex for sharing. I, I think one of the things I love about even as you guys are just experimenting with various things, I can see like even your, your, your creativity as a father's coming out and you,
• 18:08
  this is going to be created like into a, like a very specific like Kauffman family cultural events. Like it's going to be your thing. And so, yeah, that's a dream like that to be able to, I love, this is not some kind of cookie cutter. Like here's the temple and everybody needs to religiously go through the motions. I mean, this is your family culture should come out in the way that you celebrate the Sabbath. And so there's,
• 18:32
  You can get inspiration from lots of families. You can get inspiration from Jewish traditions. You can get Toriak inspiration. But yeah, I love just like make it your own. Make it whatever season your family's in. Make it really look like and feel like your family.
• 18:47
  That's great. Awesome. Thanks, Alex. All right. Sweet. Well, rounding us off, Jason and Callie from the beautiful town of Lakewood, Washington. I miss that place. That's a gorgeous little place and south of where I grew up. So I'd love to hear from you guys. Tell us a little bit about your journey into the Sabbath. Well, I'll start and just say maybe, please correct me as I...
• 19:14
  might be wrong on some of these things, but, uh, we, I think connected with the family teams, uh, program that you, that you do. And then, uh, subscribe to that for a year. And it might've been through that, that we initially got, um, kind of interested in having a Sabbath rhythm. Not sure if we did it during that year, that first year. Um, but then Callie read, um,
• 19:42
  The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. Yeah. And I think that really was a big change for both of us. She read it. Then we listened to it on audio together and really just saw like, okay, this is,
• 19:58
  This is like a need. It's not something that, oh, that'd be nice to throw in, like have a Saturday, have a little rhythm here. That'd be cute. It was more like we need this. Like I think it's pretty essential. And we were seeing it more just with we have eight children, not 11, but eight. Wow.
• 20:21
  And we run hard during the week. And so we've been doing Sabbath Now for about a couple of years. And I think the fruit of it is just there's a day on Saturday every weekend when we just don't do
• 20:46
  anything but rest. And it's not maybe the most spiritual Sabbath in terms of involving the Torah and different parts of the rituals or things that others could do. But man, our kids look forward to it. We look forward to it. We have a special dinner on Friday night. Kelly makes a wonderful dessert. And then we just know like Saturday, and it was hard at first to get into it. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:15
  Talk about that because I think so many families, they have that kind of like experience of trying to jumpstart it and it is a challenge sometimes more than we think. Yeah, I think one of the things was like, what are we going to do with the kids in the morning? Because like one of the hardest things is like mornings are all crazy every day, no matter what. Yeah.
• 21:34
  So we have kind of decided like what they're going to do cartoons while they're little, they'll do cartoons every Saturday morning. They kind of get themselves up. They get the extra little one, a banana. So she doesn't starve and they watch cartoons for like maybe an hour and a half, a couple hours. And then,
• 21:51
  Then Jason and I get up and we all make a family breakfast together. So we do like a big breakfast because they're all super hungry by that point. But it's kind of like while our oldest is 12, so they're all younger than 12. And we're like, we're just going to make it easy on everyone. And we kind of tried for a while to like he would get up one Saturday morning early with them. And then I would do it the next week. And that was not working. So we tried a few different things.
• 22:17
  to try and find like, okay, what is really making it feel like we've stopped doing everything that we wanna be doing and all the things that we feel we should be doing and to really stop. And so that I feel like is one thing that we're doing now is really working.
• 22:35
  Later in the day, usually also the kids will kind of separate out into different parts of the house and kind of have what we call a quiet alone reading time. Even the kids who can't read or too little to read, but where they're just kind of by themselves and having a playtime by themselves or reading time by themselves.
• 22:56
  And that allows Kelly and I to kind of just get some time together, whatever we want to do. And so it really is we've somehow, you know, through different iterations, like Kelly was saying, made for ourselves a day that is pretty peaceful and pretty calm and pretty refreshing because then...
• 23:14
  And now when we go through busy seasons, we're like, we wouldn't be able to do this without Sabbath. Which is ironic because when you're starting to get into it, you're like, I can't do Sabbath. I'm in a busy season. Yes. That's weird how that flips. Yes. Yeah.
• 23:27
  That's great. Well, one of the things that you guys are pointing out, I think that sometimes you have to find patterns that work. It's not a schedule. It's not like, okay, everyone up at 630. It's just like there's a natural flow to a restful day, but it takes a while to learn that. It sounds like you guys have learned, okay, our flow in the morning as the kids can get up.
• 23:49
  you know, and that's a magical time, by the way, when your older kids can get your younger kids and everybody can kind of stay kind of quiet enough for you guys to actually sleep. I know that a lot of younger families, it's just, you don't have an older kid who can, you know, hang with, you know, the littles, um, yet, but, but, you know, that's the season, you know, and, but once you get into that season where, where they kind of can take care of the, the group can kind of take care of itself or your kids can, you know,
• 24:12
  can get into an activity like just watch some cartoons and you know and figure out you know what is going to actually let you guys get some some good rest and then you know having this afternoon pattern of like okay everyone we're gonna all chill and experience just peace you know through this reading time i love that that's that's great any of anything else that's kind of like been life-giving helpful as you guys have thought about establishing this uh your sabbath
• 24:36
  No, I just think I always wish it was longer. Like, can we make Saturdays a longer day? Sometimes I'll get up early when the kids get up just so I can make it feel longer. Like, just the longer that we get to be just quiet and really kind of
• 24:53
  I don't know. It just is like such a lifeline that it's become something that I'm like, Ooh, can we, can we do two of them, two of them every week? Maybe like, what can we do to make it feel like this more often? So it does, I think, flow over naturally into the rest of the week. Like we don't want to have a packed schedule and then only one day to be quiet. We kind of want to,
• 25:12
  drag it out into the rest of our lives. And so, yeah, I just think it's transformative. It creates a posture for your life. Yeah. That's kind of like in the book you described. I mean, it's like, it's really kind of resetting the way your soul just views time, experiences time. By the way, Callie, if you ever want to have an extra Shabbat, I have a friend who I know they were having a really hard week and the dad, my friend Blake, he came home and he just said, guys, double Shabbat.
• 25:41
  And so they, they ended up having two Shabbats in a row. And, you know, it's also like helps us, like we're practicing what a holiday feels like too. Like, you know, like how do we do, you know, when there's a day off and then we can, you know, Hey guys, we're just going to do another Sabbath. Like we're going to, that's our favorite day of the week. Anyway, let's just experience that, you know, that same peaceful rhythm that those patterns that really are life giving and recharge our family. We need, sometimes we do need more than just one day of that. And that's
• 26:11
  And then during crazy, crazy seasons or really hard seasons. Yeah. That, that can be pulling that, you know, uh, the, the, the double Shabbat lover can, can make that happen. But I agree with you. I, yeah, you kind of have, you miss it when it goes. And, um, I know, and I think it's Abraham Joshua Heschel's book. He talks about it almost being like a queen that enters your house and you're like, Oh, you know, she's leaving. Um, so, but yeah, it does. It brings so much richness to life to have that experience. That's good. Yeah.
• 26:39
  Awesome, guys. Thank you. Is anybody else, as we've all had a chance to kind of share your story, anybody else, something else, another principle or other ideas or a pop-up that might be helpful to share to families before we go? Yeah, Jeremy, if I could just, I just, a big burden to encourage people.
• 26:58
  who are thinking about it, like I said, don't be afraid to just do it poorly. Just start doing it. Yeah. You got to make that space. It does so much more than you know. And I've talked to so many people personally who they felt like they wanted to start it, but it had to be this or it wasn't good enough for that or, you know, or we have to follow the Jewish traditions about it. It's been, I just, I can't tell people enough. Just don't be afraid to go for it. Do it badly until you do it well.
• 27:28
  That's right. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first. It's a skill you got to build up. And yeah, I think that one of the things that we talked about is the idea of a seven-day rhythm and a cease day is really woven into the fabric of creation in Genesis 1. And so the fact that the Jews have really stewarded this so well, and like Leanna described, and like certainly our family has experienced,
• 27:54
  you know, we've gotten inspiration and help from, from their traditions, but, but, you know, your family's free to, to, to enjoy whatever patterns of rest really recharge you, um, and are potentially very unique to the culture of your home. So yeah, but that's going to take time to find, but yeah, do, do it poorly and then slowly improve it. That's how this usually works. That's really helpful. Anybody else got anything that might be helpful for we sign off?
• 28:20
  Yeah, I just wanted to add, like, don't be afraid to switch it up too. Like, so we had a season in which it was really life-giving and rest-giving for us to just go out on an adventure to go to the beach or the woods or, like, go out. And right now we're in a season...
• 28:38
  that we're preparing for a mission trip and we're working and homeschooling and it's all just so many people continuously around us. So now Shabbat is we keep all the blinders closed, all the curtains are closed. It's our PJ day and we're just reading I don't know how many chapters of Narnia.
• 28:56
  And until my throat just hurts, I'm like, okay, let's do something else. But this is right now, this is what we as a family need. But it might be that in a couple of months, we'd be, you know what? We're going to go out because that's what we need. Yes. So just go with the flow of your family. Like even if you find a rhythm that works for you in this season, don't be afraid to switch it up again in half a year. Yeah. That's something that I want to add.
• 29:25
  I love that. Yeah. Kind of be aware of what nutrients might be depleted in your family and then say, okay, is there something, you know, if we need adventure, you know, we just need total, you know, kind of be internal for a season. Just like the seasons kind of come and go, we find that that oftentimes happens too, just with the weather. Like sometimes, you know, when the weather's really nice, we want to be outside when it gets cold.
• 29:47
  let's build a fire. Let's get cozy. Let's get blankets. Let's like read books. Let's drink tea, you know, and you know, that's really good for your kids to get to experience the, you know, those, those different, those different seasons of Shabbat that, that might be, you know, particularly important for your family at those times. Awesome. Well, good stuff, guys. I just want to thank you guys so much for being on this today. This was a really, really helpful. I can't wait to share this with everybody over at family teams.
• 30:16
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