Sunday, November 16, 2014

Introducing Logos365 2015

Over the past few years I have made it a practice to select a word for the year and have entered each year anticipating what God would do in my life through the focus of that word. Some years I followed along with Ali Edwards One Little Word project or participated in other word for the year projects. For me, 2015 will be different though. The new faith art community we have begun, His Kingdom Come, will be offering an opportunity to participate with a word from God in our logos365™ project. Will you join me?

What word is God giving you in 2015?

His Kingdom Come will be leading our members in Logos365 during 2015.



His Kingdom Come believes that there is great power in the Word of God.  Many people choose one word that represents what they want to see more of in their life during a year. There are websites and books dedicated to this.  New Year resolutions come and go very quickly, but this process is allowing God to work in your life and for your focus to become His word for you that lasts an entire year in your life. People choose this word through thoughts or through a word occurring in their reading or devotion time that “speaks” to them. At His Kingdom Come we believe that God will guide us to what he wants to see more of in our lives during the year. 

The logos365™ project is our way of finding your word through prayer, bible study and reflection. What do you do with your logos365™?  You live with it, you invite it into your life, and you let it speak to you. You follow where it leads you.  Your logos365™ is not some promise you will keep for the rest of the year to be better. The intent of your word is that it will become a part of your for the rest of your life.  Your word builds upon each other each year, and springs forth from the places you feel you left off from your previous word.  Each word you choose builds upon each other as God’s heart becomes embedded in your character. So, the question is


As you consider selecting a word for yourself this year, remember there is no right or wrong choice. Words like abide, abundance, obey, expect, prayer, surrender, delight, submit and listen can be a very powerful experience as you allow God to guide you in your word.  This happens in your daily life, in prayer, relationships and bible study.  

So how do you find your logos365™?  Feel free to use the self- assessment tools posted at His Kingdom Come in the logos365™  group to help you identify your word and to set some personal goals around your word.  If you have participated in a one word program before choose the logos365™ returning student worksheet, or if you are totally new to the process use the logos365™ new student worksheet.

To make logos365™ real in your life, consider keeping a logos365™ journal, or creating a scrapbook or a photo book. Keeping a journal throughout the year is crucial to making this word project not just a new year’s resolution, but a change in your walk- a transformation!  If you are participating in the take me deeper process, then you can incorporate your logos365™ into your journal.   If you are not participating in the take me deeper process here are some logos365™ suggestions.

1.      Journaling: There are many kinds of journaling you can do. Pick one that works for you.
·         Open a word document on your computer that you write in each day
·         Get a spiral notebook, that you use to journal this process
·         Buy a blank page journal where you can do some doodling, drawing, and pasting pictures, etc
·         Create an art journal where you can write and play (can use your Take me deeper journal)
·         Create a weekly, monthly or quarterly post on your blog or at His Kingdom Come about your logos365™ journey.

2.       Accountability: share your logos365™ with your local small group.  If you don’t have a local small group, we invite you to share at His Kingdom come. Share your word and stay accountable with the online group throughout the year!   Find an accountability partner either in person or on HKC. This would be someone that you can share your deepest thoughts with and who will hold you accountable to your own goals and process. 

3.       Local small group:  Schedule specific meeting dates that you can discuss with your small group and your accountability partner during this stepping out in faith.

4.       Online group at His Kingdom Come: we will spend a few weeks in January seeking our logos365™. There are worksheets available for free to assist you in the process of spending time with God and discovering what logos365™ He provides to you.  Quarterly we will have a weekly discussion about your ongoing progress, any struggles, any praise reports and would love to see how your logos365™ has intertwined throughout your life.

5.      Create- make something to keep in your home, at your desk like a canvas, quilt, photo, poem, art journal, wooden word art that will keep your logos365™ in front of you throughout the year. See His Kingdom come for lots of creative examples.


Go deeper
Find out how logos365™ will impact your daily life
And draw you closer to the person God wants you to be

Will you walk out in faith with us in 2015 and live by your logos365™?

Come and have fun, faith and friendship for free at His Kingdom Come!
Join us at http://his-kingdom-come.com/ and sign up for the logos365™ group.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Take Me Deeper Weekly Devotional

His Kingdom Come is so excited to announce the preparations are done and we are ready to launch


Take Me Deeper™ is a free weekly journey at His Kingdom Come beginning Friday, January 2 2015.   Take Me Deeper™ will be a weekly devotional and verse that will prompt us to spending time in His word. It is about each of us encouraging, sharing and studying the word.


Each week you will get the opportunity to translate bible study into art- mixed media, a journal, a photograph, or a digital page, poem, music. Every Friday HKC will post a verse, devotional, worship video and examples of how we interpreted the bible study in our art.  We pray that these 52 weeks will change how you approach, engage and apply God’s word in your life and art. At the end of the year regardless of how many weeks you participated, you will have created a legacy of the faith walk. This legacy will show you how God has moved in your life!


  Who can join?
We welcome anyone who wants to take their faith walk deeper into understanding God’s Word and deeper into their creativity. We will begin January 2, but you can join at any time during the year. You can’t be “behind” since this is about your personal journey with God and your creativity. The community at His Kingdom Come will walk with you, support and encourage you!

Where will the devotionals be? 
Posts will be on the HKC site and on the HKC Facebook Page.

Where can I share and discuss my preferred art medium? 
Discussions will be across all the art mediums, so feel free to check out each art group for ideas, questions, suggestions and creative ideas.

 So how do I start?  
First, become a member of His Kingdom Come. It is free and the first step in accessing all the creativity on the site.  Beginning December 2014, HKC will have suggestions for making a journal, decorating a journal, what journal to use, and supplies to gather.

 If I am doing other projects, can I incorporate them into Take Me Deeper?   
Yes, if you are part of the Journaling Bible community, or any other art community or project, you can mesh all the projects together.  Take Me Deeper will assist you in reading your bible, understanding God’s word, and helping you learn how to express your God-given creativity.

What about One Little Word or My One Word?  How does that fit into this process? 
So glad you asked!  Part of Take me deeper will be the opportunity to participate in Logos365™- finding the word God gives you to focus on for an entire year. Logos365™ will be a component of Take Me Deeper.  We will offer a worksheet for you to use to discover your logos365™, discussions about how to identify your logos365™ and how to live your logos365™ out through the year.  Then, monthly Logos365™ prompts will initiate discussions about how you are doing living your word.

Go deeper
Find out how 52 weeks will change how you
Approach
Engage
& apply God’s word

52 devotions 
  52 verses
52 art projects

Will you walk out in faith with us in 2015 and go deeper?

Come and have fun, faith and friendship for free at His Kingdom Come!

Join us at His Kingdom Come and sign up for the Take me Deeper group.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Ordinary Everyday Things

More and more I find I am enjoying techniques in art journaling that use ordinary everyday things. A few weeks ago I ran across a tutorial on Pinterest that used contact paper as a mask. So after searching a few stores and finally finding a roll of clear contact paper at Target, I gave it a try. I decided to just try it in a simple way first and cut some wavy lines from the contact paper.


Next I placed the contact paper strips onto a piece of watercolor paper which I had already prepared with text paper and gesso.


I then used Tim Holtz distressed stains and paints with stencils. 


Once the ink and paint was dry I took the contact paper strips off to reveal the gessoed text.


I then completed my art journaling with a quote, ink highlights in white and black, and some text paper scallops.


I see great potential is using contact paper in art journaling. 

What ordinary everyday things do you use in art journaling?

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Meanderings



Meandering: adjective; the act of following a winding or indirect course. Ramble, roam, zigzag, circuitous.

I often struggle with what to write posts about. It's not that I don't have anything to write about, but rather that I have so many things going on inside my head. And, usually, I either can't land on just one or I haven't developed each thought enough to do a full blog post. So this morning I thought, why not simply group my meandering thoughts together in one blog post and post it occasionally.

So, some of the things on my mind this week are:

I have been reading about my personality. According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator I am an INFJ (Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging). More specifically, I have been reading about how people with my personality type best deal with stress - known in the MB Type world as "in-the-grip". INFJ's can benefit greatly by engaging in regular exercise. It can be effective for regulating mood, quieting the mind and calming emotions. I've tried over the years to walk to lose weight but I struggle with consistency. There are always so many things vying for my time and honestly other things are more enjoyable. But since my retreat I've simply been trying to get outside for my emotional health. And since Fall is my favorite season it makes it a little easier for me to motivate myself. I came across a quote credited to Augustine:
Solvitur Ambulando
"It is solved by walking."
A walk can do wonders! I'm adding this to my personal mantras list.


I am actually current with my pages for The Documented Life Project!













We launched a new faith art community this past Saturday - His Kingdom Come Community. If you missed the announcement you can read about it in this post. 

Last week I got my Gelli plate out. I haven't played with it much and I want to use it more. I got a few good background pages during my play.


And last, I have a few random art journal pages.






In case you missed the announcement of the new faith art community we are launching visit this post or visit our website His Kingdom Come Community.





Saturday, November 1, 2014

His Kingdom Come Blog Hop

Welcome to a very exciting blog hop.  Today we are celebrating the launch of a brand new online Christian Creative Community: His Kingdom Come.

This is an online Community where fellow Christians can encourage, share and learn about Christianity and explore the God-given creativity that he has put in us all.  It will be a safe place to share your faith, be inspired, and explore creativity across many art mediums - journaling, mixed media, painting, bible journaling, textiles, watercolor and more.  His Kingdom Come will offer free tutorials, technique classes, devotionals, crafts to celebrate the holidays, opportunities to go deeper in your faith and in your knowledge of God and the Bible.   The website will also offer Christian artists a platform to host classes (free or fee-based) which you will be able to sign up for.

A team of talented Christian artists have come together to launch this exciting new community.  This blog hop is your chance to get to know them.

It doesn’t matter where you start within the blog hop.   Or you can start at the beginning with Diane.  Each blog has the complete list of participants.


As you visit each blog you will be given a letter eg. D.   When you have collected all the letters they will make a word.  When you have worked out the word email Bernice (hkcbloghop@gmail) with the word.  We will randomly choose 3 people who have the correct answer to win a prize.   All entries must arrive by Noon (Pacific time) on Monday 3rd November.

The letter to collect from my blog is O

Let me introduce myself:

I live in Toledo, OH, have been married to Bob for 23 years, and we have two grown daughters and two step-grandsons. I have been a Christ-follower for 26 years. For the past 12 years I have worked in full time ministry at our church as the Executive Director and the Director of our outreach ministries. 

Below you will find some questions each of the blog hop participants will be answering:
1. How does your faith impact your creativity?  
When I got connected to art journaling it opened up a new life of creativity for me. God has used art journaling in my life as another spiritual practice. It has become another way of drawing me near to Him. Madeleine L'Engel says, "Art is incarnational." Art, whether in word or image, helps me put form to what is inside my heart and mind. When I take what I am seeing in Bible study and prayer and express it visually it is planted in my heart and mind more fully. Art becomes another tool used by God for spiritual transformation in my life.

Bible study art journal page


2. What is your preferred medium of creativity? What appeals to you about this? 
Art journaling is my main medium of creativity. I am drawn to it by the opportunity to practice so many different art mediums within this one world: collage, lettering, mixed media, painting, memory keeping, etc. I can spend hours painting backgrounds, cutting and gluing paper or writing out quotes and Scripture. Lately I have delved deeper into collage and am exploring different ancient art forms in modern ways, such as mosaics with magazine paper or painted papers.

Mosaic background from magazine pages
3. What other areas of creativity do you dabble in? 
Decorating, photography, making travel journals. Being in nature is a form of creativity for me. I enjoy altering photos and making digital art in PSE. I also make my own journals from old books. I enjoy this so much I started an Etsy shop a year ago in order to do something with the many, many books I pick up at book sales.

Digital art


4. What is your role within the His Kingdom Come group? 
I will be helping with the Take Me Deeper devotionals and participating in various ways with Logos365 and other projects. I hope to contribute tutorials and classes as well. I will also serve as one of the moderators for the Faith Art Journaling group.

5. What are your hopes for this new community? 
For me, faith and creativity are so intertwined and I hope this community will be a place to connect with others who feel the same way. A place where we can share our creativity and our faith stories and find encouragement, support, prayer, and friendship. A place where we get more in touch with our Creator and with how we have been and are being made in His image. I hope it will be a place where people can come and explore, connect more with their own creativity and with the God who loves them so very much. A place where we can find prompts and challenges to stir our creative juices as well as a place of learning, whether it's art techniques or Bible study skills or spiritual practices that help position ourselves for God's transforming work in our lives.

6. Where to find me: 
I hope you are as excited as I am at being part of this online venture.  Our vision is to build an online community not just be a project-led site.  A place where you can find encouragement, share your heart and your problems and find help.

To join our community please visit His Kingdom Come

And now for a peak at the prizes for our three giveaway winners!


If you haven't already been there, your next stop is Marjolaine Walker.