Journaling the Bible

This is adapted from "Reading the Bible in a Twitter World", an amazing seminar I had the opportunity to attend as part of the National Youth Worker's Conference. These "notes" are for my HS Girls Bible Study Sisters, as a recap to help remind them of the ways to journal God's word in their quiet time. At the bottom of this post there are verses listed that you may want to start with journaling.

There are four ways (okay, WAY more than that -- but these are a good start) to journaling the Bible. It is my hope that as you start journaling that you:

• Learn more about God and His love
• Continue to make a habit to spend time in God's word and reflect on it
• Remember to bring your journal to Wednesday night Bible study :)  (and on Resurrection this weekend!!)
• Remember to start each session with a prayer -- it doesn't have to be long, you can even just say something short like "God, help me to understand Your word, crave Your word, and live your Word"

Without further adieu, below are four ways to journal your Bible :)

Start with a cute journal -- CHECK! And fun markers, pens, colored pencils, whatever. CHECK!

1. Journalistically - 

This is a two pager :) On the left page, write the verse exactly how it appears in your Bible, including where it is from. Then go back and place quotations, brackets, squigglies, whatever to draw attention to certain parts of a verse. 

On the RIGHT page, break down the verse. Write your thoughts about the words that your drew brackets around, deconstruct it, write the who,what,when,where,why,how?

Reflect through your writing. 

Or as I said tonight, write down your pretzel logic ideas :)

{click images to make them bigger} 

2. Doodle - my FAVE!

We all have them pinned on pinterest, beautiful works of art that incorporate God's word. These are great for short passages! Think infographics, colors, fun fonts, outlines, anything! Here are some examples, be creative!

3. Detail

Basically you compare and contrast. On the left page, write the original verse, on the right page draw a line down the middle and compare two people. Example below is from Matthew 18 -- if you have a study Bible that cross-references passage in the Bible, this is especially helpful as you will know where to get more information. Another idea is to compare it to today, to yourself, etc. 

4. Rewrite Personalize :) 

This one gets deep (or at least for me, you may be totally different). Basically you take a passage and make it real to YOU. You can invert a passage or write an inspired psalm. I don't want to say rewrite because I have the utmost reverence for God's word, so we will call it "personalize" as we are making it even more personal to us. 

To invert - write the original verse, then break it down -- if it asks questions, you write a statement. If it has a statement, you write a question. For example: Psalm 15:1-2 

Lord, who may dwell in your house?
Who may live on your holy mountain?
The one whose walk is blameless,
who does what is righteous... 

The inverse would be: (in my own opinion)
Lord, I want to dwell in your house.
I want to live on your holy mountain.
Is my walk always blameless?
Is my life always righteous? 

To "Personalize" -  On the left page, write it as it is written. On the right page, replace words with something important to you. Tonight we talked about Psalm 23 -- the Lord is my shepherd... The seminar I attended had people saying, "The Lord is like my Grandpa" "The Lord is like a camera" and then tying all of these aspects they loved most about those things into God's love. As a I mentioned tonight, this one guy said "camera" and talked about how God showed him the perfect angles to capture, and flooded his lenses with light, and it was amazing. Here is my example of my "children": 

REMEMBER - there is no wrong way to do this. There are no "stupid" things you write down, no "has to be flawless" drawings. These thoughts and doodles are for you and God. This is to help you study God's word and get into the habit of doing it more routinely (and me, too!). 

Homework time! :) 

• I have asked that you all bring your journals to Resurrection this weekend - GO, pack it now. Rubberband it to your Bible.
• BRING YOUR JOURNALS EVERY WEDNESDAY (and your Bibles, not your Bible apps)
• Please, journal your favorite verse (or one that is important to you) this week and be ready to share either this weekend or next Wednesday, BUT if it is super duper personal and you don't feel comfortable sharing, you don't have to. I won't force you to share ever, but I might ask you to make a doodle you can show us ;)  This journal is between you and God. And if you want to show us all pieces and share, awesome. If you don't, that's okay too. 
• Pray :)

Verses to help kickstart journaling:

• ANY Psalm  -- this is especially helpful for #1, #4
• For doodle - check out the fruits of the spirit - Galatians 5:27-28
• For Detail (#3) - check out Romans 6. It describes Christ's followers. Compare "who I am/was" vs 
• "who I am supposed to be" 

I am praying for you all as we start this together! I hope you are as excited as I am! If you have questions, text me or email me at vmcguin@icloud.com    <3 - v.