A few months ago Diana talked about Lectio Devina as a spiritual practice and encouraged those of us that are more visual to google ‘bible art journaling’. As the director/editor of CovChurchPIM I got to google it first when Diana first sent the article in. After all, if we were going to tell you to google something I wanted to know what we were telling you to go look at.
Well… 4 hours later I escaped the blog/Instagram/Pinterest vortex I had landed in and sat back amazed. I had no idea bible art journaling was a thing but it is and I’m hooked. You likely won’t be surprised when I tell you I promptly ordered a note takers bible and with in about a week I had a new shiny bible and set of pens to play with. But where was I going to start? The Gospels? Psalms? Should I just play a game of spin the bible and see where the pages flap open and call it Divine intervention?
Enter the Lectionary…
If you grew up in a less than traditional church, like I did, the lectionary sounds either like a stodgy, old Aunt twice removed that has no connection to you at all or it sounds like a magical and mystical thing those who are way more spiritually mature than you connect with. It’s neither. While the idea of a lectionary has been with us as far back as Moses it is still widely used as a source of biblical texts for faith services world wide. The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) is most commonly used in the Protestant church and consists of a selection of scripture that runs a three-year cycle focused on each Gospel (year A (Matthew), B (Mark), C (Luke) with John interspersed through out Advent and Lent each year). The scripture itself covers the major themes of the bible but is not intended to be a ‘read the bible in a year’ reading tract. Instead, you’ll typically see an Old Testament reading, Psalm, New Testament reading, and Gospel reading. If you are familiar with more traditional church services you may recognize the pattern. I’ve been using the Revised Common Lectionary from Vanderbilt University. They have a handy lectionary calendar that you can synch with your smartphone.
Here are a few ways in which the lectionary and bible art journaling have rocked my world with Jesus…
Single Focus…
I’ve never connected well with daily devotional books. They feel schizophrenic to me. Jumping from topic to topic everyday feels disjointed and unsettling. My mind and heart can go for days thinking about one day’s devotion but I feel rushed by the daily aspect of knowing the days are ticking by and I’m still stuck on what I read last week. With the lectionary there is a small bit of scripture for the whole week to sit with and meditate on and that sits well with me. It’s entirely possible I’ve missed the boat on how daily devotions books are supposed to work but they’ve never resonated with me no matter how hard I’ve tried.
Slow…
If I had a goal to create a piece of art everyday from a daily scripture reading I would never do it. It’s too overwhelming. Creating art around scripture seems more possible with the lectionary because you get one specific batch of scripture each week to steep in. And, you can really sense a theme running through all the scriptures in any given week. Which is nice when you are mulling over art and scripture at the same time.
Connected…
The pastors of my church use the lectionary for preaching texts regularly. When I use the same texts during the week for my personal study I feel more connected to my local faith community not to mention the millions of people world wide who use the lectionary on a regular basis.
Legacy…
In a world obsessed with documenting every blessed moment of our lives and the lives of our loved ones recording your spiritual journey can seem like one more thing to fail at. But week by week, scripture by scripture, I’m seeing more pages of my art bible filled. My kids are excited about it and want one of their own. I’ve been with friends who have journals of their parents and they cherish them greatly. Many of my friends who scrapbook do so because they want to leave a legacy of stories in their own handwriting for their kids and grandkids to come. The desire to leave a legacy of stories resonates deeply with me. Through this journaling effort I like to think I’m recording a legacy of faith stories.
Sustainable…
I’ve always been a great admirer of people who journal regularly. I want to be a journaler, but I’m not really good at daily spiritual disciplines. Getting up everyday? Yep, I got that one. Daily feeding and caring of myself and the ones I am responsible for? Check. Navigate everything life throws at you in any given day with grace and charm? Check… Well mostly. It’s navigated. God’s still working grace into my life and charm is mostly sarcastic in nature so probably not. Adding daily spiritual practices into my life with any bit of ‘if you are a good christian’ guilt is a solid no thank you for me. But I’ve been amazed how threads of scripture wind its way through my day. There was a month of ‘fear not’ scriptures in January. For a full month, while we went through Superintendent interviews and started the call process, scripture was telling me not to fear. I was inspired to make additional art for our home and as I was creating it my husband remarked that ‘fear not’ was something God was telling him as well. I had no idea!
So, there you have it. I’ve been on this earth for almost 35 years and I’ve just now found a way to connect with scripture. And for the first time in those 35 years I’m excited to connect with scripture. I knew there had to be a way but I just hadn’t found it until now. Praise God!
I can hear you though.
“That’s nice for you, Kristen, but I’m not artistic”
Yeah, I hear that a lot. Lucky for you adult and therapeutic coloring have taken off recently. You can find it everywhere. I even found some pretty neat books at Target. Why not take the scripture for the week and meditate on that while coloring? You could even take a dark marker and write the words that stick out to you right on the page and color around it.
And last but certainly not least you can throw all this creative crap out the window and just be with Jesus through the scriptures each week.
Seriously. You aren’t going to hurt my feelings if you do. Just be with Jesus.
Given your specific circumstances that could be daily or that could be sporadically when you can. Being connected to Jesus makes life, especially life in ministry, better. Richer. Livable. Thrivable.
Kristen is the Director of CovChurchPIM and is passionate about equipping ministry spouses to thrive and not just survive ministry life. She lives in Chicago with her husband and kids.
