Welcome!

Some of you have just arrived after experiencing SOAP for the first time in a LIFEJournaling Experience offered by Grace UMC. The informal gathering at Panera Bread Company in Jackson, Tennessee was a joy to be a part of, and I’m grateful for the chance to teach folks what I’ve learned about this journaling tool.

I encourage you to look over the posts of the past few months and get a feel for some of the possible ways to respond in your journal.

Please note that there are major gaps in the posts. Like you, I sometimes need a fresh view out my spiritual window. For that reason, I utilize a variety of prayer formats and devotional materials. But I always seem to come back around to the SOAP method of LIFEJournaling. Most recently, I’ve been using Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. You can visit their free website here. The devotions are highly liturgical, like the psaltars of the United Methodist Church that I call home. Before that, I was exercising the simplicity of the Jesus Prayer. Obviously, there are hundreds of ways for you to express your devotion to God.

Look back over these posts. I pray that you will learn from their simplicity, and feel a new freedom from the false need of “perfection.” I say this because you will find very little of that in my examples. The best we can hope for is sincerity and authenticity in our interactions with our God. May you find in your journaling that same hope that I have found in mine.

Grace and peace,

Joey