A Family Integrated Seder

My Children (on the left in the back) sing traditional Passover songs during the Seder.

Today we had the opportunity to lead a group of Christian families through a Messianic Seder. They are part of a Life Group at Calvary Bible in Erie. Calvary Bible has many different kinds of Life Groups, each with a different focus. The focus of this group is Family Integration. They meet and study the Bible or do activities together as families.

It seems to me that Family Integration is becoming a more talked about topic among Believers in both Christian and Messianic congregations. From my observation, many people misunderstand the Family Integrated concept and make assumptions of what it looks like and why it is done. For others the Family Integrated model is challenging because in order to integrate families in their communities, many changes in their church organizational structure would have to take place.

Another observation: Family Integration is not only popular among homeschooling families. This group of families, that we led through the Seder, is a mixture of home, public, private, and charter schooling families. In one case, a family is homeschooling one child and sending the other to a charter school. In our community, we have a mix of homeschooling and public schooling families.

As the world around us gets darker and darker, believing families are seeing the need for more intentional and consistent family Bible study, especially on the Sabbath. As parents, we are commanded by God to teach our own children (Deut 6:6-9, Eph 6:4). I pray that more believing fathers would be moved to take time out of their busy schedules and lead their own families. I believe the current Family Integrated movement is being led by the Spirit, preparing us for the return of Messiah.

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers...”
- Malachi 4:5,6

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