Seder Planning Instructions

The Inspiration

The inspiration for this event came from an article on leading a Seder by Stan Kellner with Pam Woody from Thriving Family magazine.  You can see their online instructions to see where I got the bulk of what we did.  However, my small group, which has been studying about the life of Jesus by Beth Moore, learned just last week more details of how the Seder is significant for Christ-followers.  So, I added a lot of that information in there as well.

Abby setting out our reclining pillows

Streamlining
My engineer-husband also helped me streamline the instructions for our Seder leaders, who have never lead or experienced a Seder before.  We added three instructions to help them understand what to do:

1. Direct: Tells the leader how to direct the group in what they are supposed to do.
2. Do: Tell the leader what he is supposed to do.
3. Say: Lets the leader know to read the following section out loud. 

Traditionally, the father of the household leads the entire Seder.  We decided to split the father's responsibility between the three fathers who attended.  So, each father lead five of the fifteen steps.  We also decided it would flow a lot smoother to have the mothers look up all the scripture ahead of time and be ready to read it out loud when the father gets to that part.

We printed out the fifteen steps and handed each father his five when he arrived.  We had Exodus 6:6-7 on our TV screen so that everyone could read it together.  Teacher-me also made a chart so we could better understand the link between the Exodus 6 passage and the 4 glasses of wine/juice:

God’s Promise	Cup of Wine
I will bring you out	1st: Cup of Sanctification
I will rescue you	2nd: Cup of Plagues
I will redeem you	3rd: Cup of Redemption
I will take you as my people	4th: Cup of Praise

 

For the Kids

Although I normally prefer casual and comfy, I asked our guests to dress in their "Sunday best" so that our kids would realize this was not the usual family fun hangout time.  I think it help them realize that this was a special event.  Stan Kellner, the author or the Thriving Family article, said he attended his first Seder when he was five years old.  That seemed like a good starting age.  We got a sitter for anyone under five and were very glad we did.  

Our Seder lasted about an hour which was a long time for kids to sit and listen, although there are many tasting experiences and a few fun activities throughout.  The kids did great at sitting still.  Although I know the kids did not understand every piece of symbolism or listen to every word we read, I do think they understood some concepts and took away an experience of the family celebrating Jesus and practicing their faith together.  My prayer was that we would learn more about God's people, God's son, and God's story.  I think everyone accomplished that to some degree.  

We opted for a medium-intensity version of the Seder experience to balance the needs of the adults and the kids.  Here are some options for how to lead the Seder: 

1. Low Intensity: To shorten the time and make it more kid-friendly, follow Stan Kellner's version of the Seder experience (link above) without reading the bible passages that are referenced.  This would easily cut the time in half.   You could still add in the children's bible stories for the kids.
2. Medium Intensity:  This is the version we did (link here) that combined Stan Kellner's version with the children's story bible readings (where given an option, we chose to read from the children's story bible instead of the longer bible passages), shortened bible passages, and additional information from Beth Moore.  
3. High Intensity: Doing the same as above, but with the full bible passages instead of the children's story book readings.  

A Better Understanding:

In some ways, we are observing the same traditions that Jesus and the other Jews observed before and after His Last Supper.  But in many other ways, we are adding a lot of explanation of those traditions and how they show us Jesus' role in God's great rescue plan for His people. As He did with most of the Old Testament laws, Jesus radically changed our understanding of the Jewish feast days and traditions.  What a great experience this was.  I look forward to doing it again next year.