PSOAP

Last week we were at church every night. This was a stretch to think about ahead of time, however, once we heard the first couple of seminar sessions we were hooked!

Lee Venden is a revivalist from the west coast and he travels nation-wide delivering the message that God has laid on his heart. His message is simple: being a Christian means knowing Jesus personally. His catch phrase is, "It's not about what you do, it's about who you know and who you know changes what you do." He tacked some of the largest pitfalls of the SDA church, all built on the foundation of behaviorally-based thinking rather than relationally-based practice. There is so much good stuff covered in his sessions, but today I want to talk about SOAP.

SOAP is an outline for structured, daily devotion for the purpose of getting to know Jesus as your friend. We may read the Bible on a daily basis already, in many different books, but Venden stressed the need to get to know Jesus more and more each day and it made sense! He recommends never leaving the gospels in devotional time. The idea isn't to cut out other book reading but to augment your gospel reading with the other books as well. What a great idea!

So, SOAP stands for Scripture, Observation, Application and Prayer. Really I suppose it should be PSOAP, kind of like Psalm, because prayer should start things off also so that you make the formal invitation to the Holy Spirit to bring fresh revelation to the familiar words. Last week I started with John 1 and I stayed in John 1 the entire week, breaking down the chapter into small chunks to really meditate on the meat. My devotional journal looks like this:

Date SOAP
Scripture: reference for verses I will be reading
Observation: description of what it would be like to be a part of the action or witness to the action of the reading selection; this could include sights, sounds, atmosphere, emotions; I may take on the perspective of one of the main people in the story or perhaps a bystander that is simply taking it all in
Application: main points that I have taken from the passage that I can apply to my life day by day; this can include a specific observation about the way God works, the way Jesus works and how I must be ready for what they may do or ask me to do; it may include a specific lesson for me to embrace to become more like Jesus; a focus point for me that day
Prayer: a letter-prayer focused on the applications and what I have learned, gratitude for fresh perspective and asking the Holy Spirit to help me embrace the application points in my daily life

I have started morning devotions before and slowly my block of focused time dwindles and gets pushed into my morning work time, not ideal for focusing. And it has only been a little over a week so I know that's not much time. But this model has helped me get out of bed earlier because I know what I'm going to do for my devotion time. I'm not reading with no direction and I'm not focused on a text other than the Bible. I'm spending time getting to know my friend and it's great! I was actually thinking today that I will set my alarm a little earlier tomorrow so I can spend more time with Jesus before the rest of my day begins. What!?!