Journaling 101

As if reading the Bible weren’t hard enough… S.O.A.P. puts an additional task to the disciple: Journaling.

How does one write in a SOAP journal without writing too much, or saying too little? This isn’t a diary. But its not a simple test of reading comprehension either. In the observations, in particular, try to capture what “jumped out at you.”

1. Listen for God’s voice. If you are a mystic at heart, that will suffice. If you aren’t, then you need to familiarize yourself with what God has said in the past to others, the tone God has used in those instances, and the circumstances into which God has asserted a message to human beings. In other, more metaphoric words, you need to hold up a little sign that says “Waiting for God,” like the drivers at the airport hold up signs to locate passengers with whom they aren’t all that familiar. Check your preconceived notions at the door. Choose some Christian heroes who have earned your respect and study their ideas and meditations on God’s voice in their Scripture reading and their own lives. Then listen for a similar voice in your own reading. I suggest John Wesley, N.T. Wright, C.S. Lewis,  and Bishop Dick Wills.
2. Be specific. Write down the part that spoke most directly, but use your own words. Dig into your responses to the Scripture. Worry about accuracy and relevance later, maybe with some help from trusted friends and confidantes.
3. Be yourself. Don’t write what you think others want to hear from you. To do this, I sometimes lock my journal entries if they are too personal for a broader audience to read (WordPress allows password protection of individual entries). On several occasions, I’ve kept only a paper copy when the entry was too personal to share with anyone.
4. Draw some conclusions of your own. If Jesus said, “Go make disciples,” you can clarify what that means to you. Does it mean “invite people to become new disciples” or does it mean “help knock the rough edges off of some pre-existing disciples.” That should go in your journal under observations. Be sure to say why you think so.
5. Pick a persona who will be the reader. If you are in a SOAP/YES group, then imagine some of the people around the circle. Write what you would say to them if they were sitting in front of you. If you are journaling solo, then write to a friend or a family member. Explain things to them with vivid details. I write to myself, because most of my most effective sermons were written with my own shortcomings in mind. They just happened to speak to a broader audience as well. Do what works for you.
6. Think about where the workspace where you are going to write. If you aren’t comfortable, you won’t write well. You’ll be thinking about getting somewhere else.
7. Eliminate distractions. Okay, let me clarify that little gem: If you can work while watching TV, God bless you (TV kills my ability to concentrate). By the same token, if you work better with music playing, play music. But if it distracts you, then cut the music. Personally, the music depends on my mood and my state of mind. If I’m distracted already, music is a bad idea. But on good mornings where my mind is clear and fresh, I can put in almost anything (Today, I’m listening to Sugar Ray’s hook-filled pop anthem Fly and I’m not the least bit distracted). Sometimes, I need to strike a balance, so I put in some instrumental music, eliminating the distraction of extraneous words.
8. Rewriting isn’t necessarily bad. Many journal writers will tell you that a journal needs to be raw and unedited. This isn’t really that kind of journal, but maybe you need that kind of unfiltered interaction with God’s word. That’s perfectly okay. My recommendation is to refine the message that you are drawing out of your experience with the word. The analogy I use is that of a really great song with lyrics that are a bit muddy in places. Sometimes, you have to do a little interpreting to figure out what those words really were. The world may never know what the heck Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs were saying when they sang Wooly Bully. Don’t let your journal entries become a mystery to you. The idea is to go back and reread them at some point, either to share with others or to reflect on in your old age.
9. Where possible, read your journal entry out loud when you’ve finished. The best tone for a S.O.A.P. journal is one that is fairly conversational.
10. If all else fails, give yourself some advice in the application section. Some folks struggle with the application section of S.O.A.P. because of the commitment factor. In times like that, I have found that if I were giving someone else advice, it would be easier to write. So I write it as advice, then rewrite it as a commitment. You should be able to review some of my entries and detect where this is the case. I can neither confirm nor deny your deductions. 😉