Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 41 | Creating Family Holidays

Transcript

Ep. 41 | Creating Family Holidays · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:06
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:27
  Awesome. Hey guys, I'm Jeremy. I'm Jeff. And today we want to talk to you guys a little bit about rethinking the idea of biblical holidays. So one of the things that if you grew up in Christian circles, there's lots of holidays that obviously we have that are part of the Christian calendar that are part of our culture. But one of the things that I always found really challenging as a dad is like, how do I design a holiday that's actually going to teach my kids spiritual lessons? So many of the holidays have become commercialized and...
• 0:57
  I love celebrating all of the normal, typical holidays that American or Western culture likes to celebrate or part of the Christian calendar. But one of the things I'd never thought about is the idea of biblical holidays. The fact is God designed a whole curriculum for how to train children in the Bible and families. And so just looking at that for ideas is kind of where I started. I first encountered biblical holidays when I was a student in Jerusalem. I was 23. I had no kids. And I watched...
• 1:25
  all these dads get to interact with their own kids around spiritual topics every year during these different holidays. And I was sort of blown away. And so I started thinking about, oh, is this something that we as Gentiles could actually learn from? Is there stuff there that we might be able to use that could be awesome for our family? So, Jeff, have you thought about this topic?
• 1:48
  Yeah, I mean, obviously, you guys are a couple decades ahead of us, but same heart and same... I think for me, I got two thoughts there. The first one is...
• 1:58
  So a lot of pushback when we talk, I would say even Sabbath is a holiday, right? And so I think in a micro way, and then I think there's big feast festival ones in a yearly way. And so what pushback we get a lot when we talk about this with friends is they'll say things like, oh, like just kind of it sounds not religious. They don't use that word, but kind of just it sounds stuffy. It sounds like I just don't want to like it sounds good and I'll do it, but I'm not going to like commit. I'm not going to like, you know.
• 2:20
  Actually set that day aside. I'm not going to actually like do that every single time. And then sometimes they do toss in something of like, oh, that sounds kind of legalistic or religious or stuffy or strict. And I just go like for me, that right there is like a smokescreen that you missed the point of the holidays. The holidays is actually to...
• 2:38
  fill and infuse your life and your family with joy and meaning and depth and richness. And all the things you just said about, you know, stuffy, strict, etc. Christmas and Thanksgiving are no different. Like, have you noticed we never, like, you don't wake up December 25th and go, like, I'm not feeling it. You're so religious.
• 2:55
  You celebrate Christmas every December 25th. Every December 25th. And you don't wake up and go, let's do it the 29th this year. Like, you know, like, who cares? Let's just do it in a couple days. No one actually does that. And so, like, we're very strict with our traditions that do bring us depth and richness and meaning. I just think they're, and they're good. Like you said, like, we celebrate all of the American ones. But we just think, but I will argue that they're shallow. Like, they're fine, but they're shallow. There is a level of depth that we can get to with biblical...
• 3:22
  God created holidays, not man-made holidays, but I have nothing against the man-made ones. And so I just usually tell that to people. I usually just say, man, you are religious about holidays. You are strict about holidays. You set aside a day, you take work off, you have a certain meal that you cook every single time. Holidays are about putting anchor points in our moments, and I think we really miss out on the really big ones that God's done for us or given to us. Yes.
• 3:46
  Yeah, it's been really rich to look at these. And I agree with what Jeff's saying. I don't think there's any judgment around these. A lot of people, they start the conversation around, do I have to keep those holidays? Yeah, that's exactly what they said. Absolutely not. It says right in Colossians 2, Paul says, let no one judge you based on a Sabbath day or a sacred day or a holiday. So holidays, the New Testament, Paul made clear, is a complete no judgment zone. You're not allowed to judge one another.
• 4:13
  So that's why the way I think about this is purely as a curriculum for dads and moms and people who want to train their families. And so to try to begin to think about, it's difficult to find different ways of training your families. And so there are all these major feasts in the Torah that God designed. There's the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Passover, First Fruits, Shavuot, or we call Pentecost, Shavuot.
• 4:37
  There's Yom Terah, what Jews today call Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement, and then Sukkot, which is the Feast of Tabernacles. So those are seven holidays that the Bible talks about, and they all have beautiful meaning and have a lot of interesting parts. And for us as a family, we sort of have dove into each one different ways and tried to figure out, is there something here, some richness that we want to get a hold of?
• 5:00
  And so in other podcasts, we'll talk about maybe different ways of celebrating each one. But we just wanted you guys to take a step back and think about, hey, here's a tool that's right in the Bible. It's in the Torah. People have been celebrating them for thousands of years. There might be might be some richness there. Another thing to just keep in mind is that every time they're referred to, they're never referred to as Jewish holidays. Another thing a lot of people say is, oh, those are Jewish holidays.
• 5:21
  And the Jewish people have been very faithful in their sort of holding on to those traditions and celebrating those holidays. But the way the Bible talks about them is they're the festivals of the Lord. And so I love the idea that we get to meet with him and get to experience something that our Heavenly Father designed. And so those are some of the reasons why I think it's fun to sort of look at these. But again, no judgment. And if you're parents who are thinking about where can we look for curriculum, we can go on Amazon and type something in like...
• 5:50
  how to train your kids spiritually, or different storybook Bibles, and those are all awesome. And a lot of people will just skip over the fact that there's one right in the Old Testament, the Torah.
• 6:00
  Yeah, that's usually what I tell people is I say, you know, you can invent your own like I and I know families that do. I'm just not that creative and I'm not that awesome. And then when people say, do you have to celebrate it? I'm like, no, you don't. But you don't have to celebrate Christmas, but it's freaking awesome. So you're going to write like I love Christmas and we put up a tree like in July. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's it's awesome. And so it's same thing. It's like you don't have to at all, but it's awesome. So let's do it.
• 6:24
  Yeah, awesome. So hopefully that's helpful. You guys can think about the fact that there's some real richness there in the biblical holidays and take a look at it. And if you want to take a little step in that direction, usually just picking one and trying it out and seeing how it works for your family.
• 6:40
  Hey guys, if you like this short content on 5-Minute Fatherhood, then you're going to love long-form interviews that Jeremy and I do with other dads just like you over at Dads Building Teams. We go much more in-depth hearing the stories, challenges, and journeys of different dads who are trying to build multi-generational teams on mission. Just go to whatever podcast platform you use and search for Dads Building Teams.