How to Doodle Your Bible Study (And Why You’d Want To)

We’re into Week 2 of #deeperBibleStudy and I wanted to pause and ask you: How are you doing? How have you found last week’s assignments? Are they too long, too short, or just right? What changes would help you as we go along? I’m all about doing this together.

As a short recap, we started the series by explaining why Christians should study the Bible, and then all of last week we looked at different ways to make observations about the text, including writing down what we notice, looking for patterns, finding the key verse, and diagramming the passage.

Today we’re talking about how to doodle your Bible study (fun!!), and then we’re going to move to interpretation and application.

So what do I mean by doodling? Simply, taking notes on your Bible study using both words and images.

These can be really simply doodles or sketches, or they can be beautiful works of art like what’s flooding my Pinterest feed right now:

Doodling engages your whole brain. It’s called the dual-coding theory in scientific parlance; basically, you’re engaging both the right and left sides of your brain, which helps you concentrate better and remember more. Try this method while taking sermon notes or making your to-do list; the more often you use it, the more comfortable you’ll become.

Since I’m artistically-challenged (seriously–my daughter doesn’t even recognize my stick figures), I asked a doodling pro to explain how she does this. Our guest today is an interovert (like me) who loves, Jesus, coffee, and doodling. Kari Denker blogs at Stone Soup for Five and shares how to teach yourself the Word of God using a journal and doodles. Fun, right?

Check out the short video interview below to find out:

• how she started doodling her Bible study
• why she thinks it’s a great way to engage with Scripture
• and how to start if you’re not very artsy (like me).

If you want to give Bible doodling a try, check out Kari’s free full-length Bible study on Ephesians. You can get it for free when you subscribe to her email list on her website. And if you like what you see, use coupon code 1THING25 to get 25% off her Bible journal workbook through the end of October.

Are you ready to start doodling your Bible study?

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Your Turn

1. Bow your mind and your heart in prayer before you start. (Here are some prayer ideas to get you started.)
2. Read John 7 and identify key ideas or repeated phrases.
3. What image or picture would go well with those ideas? Or how can you express the passage through a chart or table as Kari suggested? The whole page is your canvas; use as many words and/or images as you want to create rich, visual, and personal notes. Don’t worry about making it pretty or perfect—this is a doodle, not art.
4. Take what you’ve doodled to the Lord, and respond to Him in prayer. Thank Him for the freedom to study the Bible in such creative ways, and praise Him for giving us creative expressions and the gift of fun!
5. Lastly, share below or on Facebook how this exercise went for you. Do you like to doodle your Bible study? Did it stretch you outside your comfort zone? Was it a welcome relief from the more linear methods we’ve discussed before? Is it something you look forward to incorporating into your regular study? I’d love to hear!