Coffee with Kel

Building relationships, encouraging hope

Devotions

One Year of SOAP Study…

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As of yesterday, my best friend Terri and I finished one year of doing SOAP Bible studies in which we read Scripture, wrote in journals, and texted one another each and every day. We began doing SOAP studies on June 5, 2017 at the completion of our annual summer beach trip. We both wanted to get into a Bible studying habit and when I heard Louie Giglio speak about a SOAP Study on a Passion City Church podcast, I was intrigued. So, we looked into that study, the book of Mark, and decided to go for it.  That study began a year long SOAP study experience that eventually took us through each of the Gospels of the New Testament as well as James, Acts, Romans, and 1 Corinthians in their entirety. We also did an Advent based study over the Advent season and for the last few months we have gone through three studies about Faith, Peace and Prayer. We even added daily Scripture writing to our SOAP studies as we got into the Peace and Prayer sessions. I have to say, it’s been one incredible year! And, I want to talk about that, but…first I want to say a few other things just to give a clarity as to why I’m posting about all of this.

It’s sort of a tricky thing, I think, to write about something as personal as Bible studies and that because I don’t want to come across like I’m ever bragging. So, I just wanted to say right here close to the beginning of this post that celebrating a year of SOAP Study has zero to do with celebrating OUR accomplishment in that, but celebrating what God has done and continues to do via His Living Word. I’m sure Terri can attest that along the way in this year there were days when we were ON FIRE for this thing and just really sailing into it like a bird on the wind. Similarly, there have been times when we felt pressed or maybe didn’t feel “into it” on some days and the like. Just keeping it real, some days I went into it with a light and happy heart, fully prepared and sometimes it wasn’t always something I dove anxiously into every day. (I venture to say she didn’t either.) But, that’s another way the beauty of Scripture shines through is that God’s word never returns void (Isaiah 55:11) and we both learned and gleaned so much from these studies even on the days when it wasn’t the easiest. I never cease to be amazed at how God works in how He placed lessons before us throughout this year that were SO relevant to times and circumstances each of us were facing. It was like He said “HERE…KELLY! READ THIS! Soak this up, I’m speaking to you, girl!” Seriously…blows me away in all the best ways. God is just so amazing to me and the way His Word is living and relevant is just truly outstanding. I want THAT to be the focus here. I want it to be about Him. Because, He’s more than worth that honor.

So, exactly what IS a SOAP Study…?

A SOAP Study is a method of studying the Bible in which daily you have:

  • Scripture (a passage to study)
  • Observation (what stands out to you in the passage of Scripture)
  • Application (how you can apply that to your life)
  • Prayer

The way Terri and I did this was to journal our daily SOAP (and, like I said, we added Scripture passage writing the last few months) and then we would text our daily journal entries to one another. By sharing, we were able to have accountability daily AND we were able to get each other’s insights. Some days we would come up with some of the same things, other days we would be able to learn and expand our understanding from the other’s point of view. We didn’t have a set time to do this each day, but we always texted each other when we were done for the day. Each of us wound up taking our Bibles and journals with us on trips, sent them sometimes very early or very late in the day depending on the daily schedule, etc. But, each and every day we sent them and it quickly became something I know we both looked forward to as part of our days. I knew if I went to bed before I got her SOAP text, I would have that to look forward to first thing the next morning, for instance. The way this became a part of each of our daily routines was anything BUT “routine” and everything extraordinary in how it added countless blessings to our lives. Yes, even on the days when we didn’t feel good or were tired or stressed or what have you…life took a back seat to the bounty that God always offers us via His Living Word.

If you want to get into studying God’s Word, I would HIGHLY recommend a SOAP study. For the first session, as I mentioned, we used Passion City Church’s guide for the Book of Mark. Going forward from there, we would Google and find daily studies for for the Gospels and other books of the Bible or daily studies by theme. We were able to easily apply the SOAP method to those and it kept us in a great structure. We added Scripture writing in March of this year and while that added a touch more time to each day’s study time, it also enhanced the learning for me because there is just something about writing that really connects me with what is said.

I also recommend doing this with a study partner and friend. Terri and I both found that there were times when the Scripture reading each day seemed to really hone in on things that were relevant to each of us. I dare say that neither of us has EVER had a hand-written journal experience that lasted very long at all, but each of us filled up more than one journal in the course of this year. Again, something about writing is therapeutic AND helps to commit things to memory. We also agreed that being in the Word daily just helps in a multitude of ways. It was also amazing to me to read each other’s daily insights. Many times our thoughts and observations aligned, but sometimes we both got a new insight from the other. This year doing SOAP drew us both closer to God, gave us a better understanding and knowledge of Scripture, reassured and challenged us, strengthened our already close friendship and SO much more. That’s just like God, isn’t it? You can’t even begin to fully name all the blessings He provides. Same with this study. What we both gleaned from this year of SOAP studying is more than I could even begin to fully list. I have to say – my cup runs over, y’all. Truly.

Now that we have done a year of SOAP’ing, we have decided to change tracks a little bit, but still keep in The Word and texting one another daily. So…what’s next? We will be diving into Annie Downs’ book 100 Days to Brave starting today. I am SUPER excited to get started on this one and hope to be able to share more with y’all later down the road. I got to hear Annie speak a few months ago at Mt Bethel UMC at a women’s worship event and she legit blew my socks off. So, yea…I can’t wait to dive into this book and see what God has in store for Terri and me as we venture into bravery these next 100 days!

If you have any questions about SOAP studies, please feel free to contact me. I’m far from an expert, but I’m happy to give some recommendations, encouragement, etc. This past year of being in the Word, journal writing and sharing with my best friend every single day has made such an impact for good on my life. I’m thankful…encouraged…hopeful…uplifted…and MORE. God is so good and I really do look forward to seeing what is next in the 100 Day journey in front of us.

XO,
Kel

 

Family Advent Time

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Advent began on Sunday, December 2. This year, our family is using a really amazing devotional book throughout Advent and I wanted to share about it with y’all. We are using the Knowing Him by Name Advent calendar from Thriving Family. We got the calendar/devotional in this month’s issue of Thriving Family magazine, but if you don’t get the magazine, you can download it free by clicking here.

We are only a couple of days into this devotional calendar, but I am already highly impressed with it. We light our Advent candle at dinner time and Mickey leads the devotion at the beginning of dinner. The lessons are short, but thought and conversation provoking. I find it pretty awesome that the lessons are written so that kids can relate to them, as well.

This week the theme is serving your sibling(s) and friends. The print-out graphic that was linked on the site is cool, but referred to males and we don’t have any male siblings, so I used that graphic as a basis and created our own for the girls. Now, they have ideas hanging right on the fridge as to how to serve their sister and friends this week. How amazing is that?


(Sorry, not the best photo ever.)

If you are looking for a family devotion for Advent, I give Thriving Family a wholehearted recommendation.  As linked above, you can download and print the devotion calendar free. You can also get a free subscription to Thriving Family magazine by clicking here. I am very grateful that we have gotten this magazine AND the wonderful devotion calendar for Advent. I look forward to our family Advent time and I am thankful to have these devotions to share each evening.

Blessings,
Kelly 

PS: I owe a photo-of-the-day post for today, but I am battling a major sinus headache, so it may have to wait until tomorrow.

Camp Blog – Post One

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I haven’t updated in awhile again. Sorry about that. It’s just been a very busy summer. We had Macey’s birthday, the 4th of July and then VBS. Whew! I actually didn’t think that I’d be able to blog this week, but…here I am. Mickey and I are spending the week at a camp for children whose parent(s) is incarcerated. This is an opportunity we found out about through our church several years ago. Mickey came last year and was excited for me to join him this year. So, here I am! His job at camp this week is doing “I.T.” and “tech” stuff while my job is photography. I will have the opportunity to walk around camp all week and take pictures of the wonderful events taking place. I’m so excited to see where God leads and how He reveals Himself through every person here this week. I will do my best to check in daily here as I am able.

This morning, I got up and had quiet time while my roommate was getting ready. I didn’t have any particular devotion book to read or passage in mind when I sat down. The one thing I had was a sheet I had gotten from my summer Bible study that listed passages that correspond with various topics. I found myself drawn to Psalm 27 today and once I started reading, I knew that it was just what God had for me today. This week at camp, the theme is talking to the campers about weathering the storms of life through faith. These children have trials in their lives that most of us cannot even start to imagine and for them to have this week at camp and the affirmation of Christ is just crucial. When I read Psalm 27 (NIV) this morning, these are the passages that stood out the most to me:

1 The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?

10 Though my father and mother forsake me,
the LORD will receive me.

11 Teach me your way, O LORD;
lead me in a straight path
because of my oppressors.

13 I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.

14 Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

I just feel so in awe that God lead me to that passage this morning. Those verses, in particular, blessed my heart and really reaffirmed to me exactly why we are here this week. As we all do, these precious campers need Christ. They need His salvation, protection and HOPE. It’s all about the hope. And, I can’t wait to see how God reveals Himself this week. Already He has shown me how His word prevails forever across all of time and every circumstance. I know He has such big things this week and I feel blessed to be a very small part of an amazing event!

Stay tuned and please keep camp in your prayers. Thanks!!

Happy Easter

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When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ” Mark 16:1-7 (NIV)

Easter is here! We celebrate the glory of Jesus our Lord overcoming cruelty and death. He died to take our sins and arose to give us the promise of glory forever. Praises be!

lily-cross

Easter Eve

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In yesterday’s Good Friday post, I talked about God’s amazing grace. Grace that brought about the most beautiful good from the most violent evil. In addition to that amazing grace, I’ve also been thinking about God’s amazing love. The purest love that can exist is the love God has for us. Nothing we can ever do can separate us from that love. It’s always there for the taking. Amazing, isn’t it? Truly, it is. I don’t say that lightly either. I am in absolute awe of the way that God is the full and complete definition of love. God is the fount and source of all love.

The most incredible way God showed His love for us was to send His only begotten Son, Jesus, to this earth to save us all. Jesus came to this world as a fulfillment of God’s unending and unbending love for us. When you think about it, we really don’t know that much about Jesus’ life, but the most important parts to our salvation are contained within what we DO know. His birth fulfilled God’s promise to send a Savior. His teachings are the very foundation of how we should live and the truth of His lessons will always remain. His death and resurrection fulfilled His place as the one and only Messiah. Everything Jesus did within the course of His earthly life was done out of love. Love poured out from God the Father and love that Jesus Himself carried for everyone – even those who would beat Him, mock Him and eventually kill Him. His love was so great for man, that He even revealed it to the thief hanging on a cross near Him when Jesus Himself must have been in unthinkable pain and agony at that moment. His love is so great that He bore every single minute of undeserved punishment on behalf of mankind. He took on all of our sin at that time and took it to the grave with Him when He breathed His last breath and died. He left our sins in the grave when He arose from the dead. Want to talk about amazing love? There it is. That is amazing love.

We cannot even fathom the depth of that kind of love. We just can’t. As much as we know that the love is there and believe in its infinence, we simple cannot begin to comprehend it fully because we can’t love that deeply ourselves. That kind of love is only of God. As a parent, I cannot even begin to imagine letting my child be punished, let alone be made to suffer and die, for the sins or misdeeds of another. Can any one of us imagine doing THAT?! God did. God sent His own Son to save every one of our lost souls. The world was and is so full of sin that God in His infinite grace sent Jesus to preach, teach and to save. Then Jesus endured absolute torture to the point of death all for the sins of every.single.person on the earth when He Himself was sinless and blameless. And, here’s what really moves me, personally…He didn’t have to do it. Jesus was fully-God and fully-man and as He lived upon this earth, His every motive, action, thought and deed was pure and true for the Glory of God. He didn’t have to allow Himself to be tried, beaten, tortured, mocked, spit upon and hung on a cross. God didn’t have to allow it to happen either. It could have all ended in the blink of an eye and all of humanity could have been destroyed right then and there. (Or worse) But, because of the incredible depth of the love of God that Christ Himself possessed, He did do it. He took all of our sins onto Himself and He bore what most of us can’t even begin to imagine. He didn’t do it for Himself. He did it out of love for us. Love that originates from God the Father and pours freely from Jesus Christ. There is no greater love. No greater grace. Jesus was innocent and pure and did not have to do anything for the salvation of man, but instead of doing nothing, He did it all for every one of us. Again I say…AMAZING.

As we prepare to celebrate the ressurection of the risen Christ on Easter, I want to remind each of us to be mindful of Jesus’ love every day. If we know that He loves us and we live in His love, we can give forth from that love.  Pure evil and sin took Jesus to the cross, but it was love that kept Him there for the sake of our souls. Let’s not take that for granted. Let’s not forget that Jesus truly paid it all. All to Him we owe.

John 3:16-17 (NIV) really says it all:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him…”