Latest / Coffee and Bible Time Podcast / Rediscovering Faith Through Art and Scripture | Amy Senter

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Rediscovering Faith Through Art and Scripture | Amy Senter · Coffee and Bible Time Podcast

• 1:01
  Ellen Krause: At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast, Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living.
• 1:07
  Ellen Krause: Each week, we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk.
• 1:18
  Ellen Krause: We are so glad you have joined us.
• 1:21
  Ellen Krause: Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:26
  Ellen Krause: I'm Ellen, your host.
• 1:29
  Ellen Krause: You know, in today's world, many people struggle to fully understand the Bible.
• 1:34
  Ellen Krause: We hear so many voices, whether that's online, in the media or even from well-meaning friends, that it's easy to get confused about what we believe.
• 1:45
  Ellen Krause: The problem is, when we don't know scripture well, we might end up misinterpreting it or relying on someone else's version of the truth.
• 1:55
  Ellen Krause: Well, in this episode, I'm joined by Amy Senter, who shares with us a passion for biblical literacy.
• 2:03
  Ellen Krause: We'll talk about how biblical literacy can help us discern truth and share our beliefs with confidence.
• 2:11
  Ellen Krause: By learning how to study and understand the Bible for ourselves, we build a strong foundation that helps us navigate both our faith and the world around us.
• 2:22
  Ellen Krause: We will explore some simple steps to get there.
• 2:25
  Ellen Krause: First and foremost is to make time for regular Bible study.
• 2:31
  Ellen Krause: Well, Aamy Senter is a former teacher and artist turned advocate for biblical literacy.
• 2:38
  Ellen Krause: With a heart for helping Christians of all ages and learning styles to deepen their understanding of scripture, amy has created a range of faith-based resources, including her popular books of the Bible cheat sheets, which have been sold in over 45 countries.
• 2:56
  Ellen Krause: Her products are specifically designed to cater to visual learners as well as those with dyslexia and ADHD, ensuring that everyone can connect with the Bible in a way that resonates with them.
• 3:10
  Ellen Krause: Amy's journey into biblical literacy began with her own struggles to understand and apply scripture in her daily life apply scripture in her daily life.
• 3:19
  Ellen Krause: Drawing from her background in education and the arts, she has developed a unique approach to study the Bible that combines creativity and practicality.
• 3:32
  Amy Senter: Hey, thank you so much for having me.
• 3:34
  Amy Senter: I'm so happy to be here, thank you.
• 3:43
  Ellen Krause: Oh, Amy, when you guys reached out to us and I went on your website for the first time, I was just blown away because you're so creative and I just love the way you combine all the gifts that God has given you to help people you know increase their knowledge of the Bible.
• 3:57
  Ellen Krause: Why don't you start out by just telling us a little bit about your own personal story and journey into faith?
• 4:04
  Amy Senter: Yeah, of course, I grew up in the church.
• 4:08
  Amy Senter: I had, you know, pretty typical church upbringing, and then I went to Christian college at ACU in Abilene, texas, and then I married a guy who grew up in the same faith but, um, you know, we were raised in the same denomination but we had very different views of what the Bible said on just kind of, uh, just the rules, basically.
• 4:35
  Amy Senter: Um, and so a lot of us, a lot of it, was like well, I was raised this way, I was raised this way.
• 4:40
  Amy Senter: So that was the first time I really realized, okay, not everybody who has a name Christian has my exact beliefs.
• 4:47
  Amy Senter: And then it kind of turned into, um, it wasn't a big deal until we had children.
• 4:53
  Amy Senter: Then we want to pass our beliefs onto our children.
• 4:55
  Amy Senter: So it was like, well, what matters and what is just you know the side notes, um, what's the core of our foundation, of what our beliefs, and all of that was the same and we wanted to pass that onto our kids.
• 5:07
  Amy Senter: And so, uh, we kind of went from there.
• 5:09
  Amy Senter: But we felt very, uh, even as young adults with and young parents, we just felt so unequipped to teach our children about this faith, because a lot of it was well, that's how we were raised or that's how my parents told us, and so we'd never fully claimed it as our own.
• 5:29
  Amy Senter: Yes, we believed it and we wanted to pass it on, but we hadn't really done the work to understand.
• 5:35
  Amy Senter: Is this something that I believe, rather than I'm just passing on this family tradition?
• 5:42
  Amy Senter: And so that when we became, when I became a parent, that was very like, okay, I need to dig into this more.
• 5:48
  Amy Senter: But I didn't really dig into the biblical literacy aspect, and what I mean by that is understanding how the story worked together.
• 5:59
  Amy Senter: So I thought, you know, okay, I need to read my Bible more, I need to start going to church more, I need to pray more and do those little checklist things.
• 6:07
  Amy Senter: But I ended up getting sick after the birth of my daughter, where they couldn't figure out what it was.
• 6:12
  Amy Senter: It was just like chronic pain, excruciating pain, a lot of like memory loss type things, trying out different medicines.
• 6:21
  Amy Senter: At one point they said I had fibromyalgia, you know.
• 6:24
  Amy Senter: Another.
• 6:25
  Amy Senter: They're like let's do exploratory surgery.
• 6:27
  Amy Senter: So it was always very stressful of I don't know what's wrong and nobody can tell me how to fix it.
• 6:33
  Amy Senter: And so it went on to three years in and I ended up being on uh in a wheelchair and needed a nanny for my kids.
• 6:42
  Amy Senter: I could not physically even take myself to the bathroom.
• 6:46
  Amy Senter: It was so terrifying and it was in that time that I really realized okay, this whole my family believes this, so we're going to believe this isn't really cutting it anymore.
• 6:58
  Amy Senter: Um, because I'm going through something really, really hard right now and I've been told my whole life God is good, and right now I'm.
• 7:07
  Amy Senter: I've been crying out to God, I've been turning to God, I've been trying to get advice and I'm not getting.
• 7:11
  Amy Senter: I'm not getting any help.
• 7:12
  Amy Senter: This isn't going away.
• 7:13
  Amy Senter: Um, and so I realized my faith was based on this idea of that If God is good, then I'm going to be safe.
• 7:22
  Amy Senter: I'm never going to, you know, have to worry about anything.
• 7:24
  Amy Senter: He's going to protect me Like he's my.
• 7:27
  Amy Senter: He protects me basically from anything wrong happening.
• 7:31
  Amy Senter: And I realized that's not what's happening here.
• 7:35
  Amy Senter: So I had to kind of dig into my faith, in the point of it almost made more sense to believe there wasn't a God than there was a God who was allowing this to happen, because that just seemed cruel to me.
• 7:45
  Amy Senter: But I knew that just didn't line up, that didn't settle well, believing either God wasn't good or God wasn't real.
• 7:54
  Amy Senter: And so I had to decide what do I believe about God?
• 7:58
  Amy Senter: And what I believed about God in that horrible time was God is real and God is good, despite what was happening to me.
• 8:07
  Amy Senter: So that helped me understand.
• 8:09
  Amy Senter: Well then, maybe God still allows this stuff not because he's bad, but he's still good.
• 8:17
  Amy Senter: So what in the world does that mean?
• 8:18
  Amy Senter: So I really had to dig into who God was.
• 8:21
  Amy Senter: Honestly, I had done a lot of the which there's nothing wrong with the reading your Bible every day and praying every day but I did a lot of the kind of like pick and choose every day.
• 8:31
  Amy Senter: What mood am I in?
• 8:33
  Amy Senter: You know, what's our church studying?
• 8:36
  Amy Senter: Or what's my friend the latest book topic?
• 8:40
  Amy Senter: That's like New York best time seller and things like that, and so a lot of it was more like me following other people's leads or those trends and stuff.
• 8:48
  Amy Senter: And when it came to, nobody could help me and I was so overwhelmed I realized all I've got left is God.
• 8:57
  Amy Senter: And what do I believe about God?
• 9:00
  Amy Senter: And so in doing so, I realized I need to understand who God is, and the only way you can do that is, through reading his word you can pray to him for insight as well.
• 9:12
  Amy Senter: But you really need to understand his word.
• 9:14
  Amy Senter: And I didn't understand it.
• 9:15
  Amy Senter: I knew we got Shadrach, meshach and Abednego, we've got Jesus's story, we've got Noah's story, but how?
• 9:22
  Amy Senter: I don't understand how they fit together.
• 9:25
  Amy Senter: It was like more of a.
• 9:27
  Amy Senter: I went through it as like I know these are real but they don't really feel real.
• 9:31
  Amy Senter: They feel more like a fairy tale and then kind of marrying all that schooling that you've gone through I've learned about the Roman Empire and all these things that happened, but I never understood how it connected to if the Bible story is real.
• 9:46
  Amy Senter: That stuff was going on at the same time.
• 9:48
  Amy Senter: And so to me, using my teaching background, I kind of approached my Bible in a way I'd never done before and was like I want to understand what's happening when I open Micah.
• 10:00
  Amy Senter: Who is Micah?
• 10:01
  Amy Senter: What is happening?
• 10:02
  Amy Senter: What year is this?
• 10:03
  Amy Senter: How is he related to everybody else?
• 10:05
  Amy Senter: And I just needed I was so desperate to be like I need to understand the story.
• 10:12
  Amy Senter: And so that's basically where my journey into biblical literacy started was in desperation, I wanted to know God.
• 10:20
  Amy Senter: Literacy started was in desperation, I wanted to know God.
• 10:25
  Amy Senter: I wanted to know who God truly was, not who my parents said or my husband said, or my school said, or I wanted to know who God was, and so the place I started was his word.
• 10:33
  Ellen Krause: Oh, Amy, that your story is so incredible because you can see how the depths of this awful experience that you went through has produced such incredible fruit in all of the materials that you've created to help others understand the Bible.
• 10:59
  Ellen Krause: Why don't you give our listeners just a little bit of background on what you're teaching and your artistic background?
• 11:08
  Ellen Krause: Because I'm just curious too, because it's how you use it together is so beautiful.
• 11:15
  Amy Senter: And that's one of those things I love to encourage people in.
• 11:18
  Amy Senter: Like so many times we are like what's our purpose, what is this?
• 11:22
  Amy Senter: And you try one thing and you're like, well, that didn't amount to anything and this didn't amount to anything.
• 11:26
  Amy Senter: And what I've found through this journey is every single thing I've done in my life has mattered.
• 11:33
  Amy Senter: It has shaped this spot that I'm in right now.
• 11:38
  Amy Senter: I went to school or when I was young I love to read, I still love to read.
• 11:42
  Amy Senter: I thought I'll be an author.
• 11:44
  Amy Senter: I want to write stuff.
• 11:45
  Amy Senter: I want to, you know, just do that kind of thing.
• 11:48
  Amy Senter: And now I'm writing things.
• 11:49
  Amy Senter: I'm writing blog posts, I'm sharing this stuff.
• 11:52
  Amy Senter: I wanted to be an artist.
• 11:54
  Amy Senter: I went to school actually wanting to be an art teacher and in a kind way, they told me yeah, you're not very good at drawing people and realistic things, so you might want to try something different.
• 12:06
  Amy Senter: So I ended up being totally discouraged.
• 12:12
  Amy Senter: I stopped doing artwork altogether.
• 12:13
  Amy Senter: I became an elementary school teacher.
• 12:15
  Amy Senter: I was a second grade teacher.
• 12:16
  Amy Senter: I loved it.
• 12:17
  Amy Senter: I love the teaching.
• 12:18
  Amy Senter: So I wasn't disappointed about being a teacher.
• 12:20
  Amy Senter: I knew I wanted to do that, but what I did was I doodled constantly in second grade using my artwork and of course the seven-year-olds think I'm amazing.
• 12:30
  Amy Senter: So that's you know.
• 12:30
  Amy Senter: I don't have the critique of a college professor.
• 12:34
  Amy Senter: So to me I was like all that art was a waste.
• 12:38
  Amy Senter: The teaching I ended up teaching, or I ended up teaching until I had my kids.
• 12:44
  Amy Senter: So I got this degree, I taught for four years and then I stayed at home.
• 12:48
  Amy Senter: So I was like, well, that was kind of a waste, because now I'm not going back to it.
• 12:51
  Amy Senter: So it's like all these little things I thought are one and done, these little dreams I had that it was like, well, if I want this, I can't have that anymore.
• 12:59
  Amy Senter: Um, I opened little Etsy shops trying to make money here and there and it's like all of that came full circle.
• 13:08
  Amy Senter: Right now I make a living drawing and teaching and, uh, just, I have a shop, I even have an Etsy shop still go.
• 13:18
  Amy Senter: And I mean I've got all those little pieces, have just come together.
• 13:22
  Amy Senter: And God has told me every single time somebody says you can't, I'm going to tell you you can.
• 13:27
  Amy Senter: And it's so funny to me that I'm drawing stick figures because I like let my audience know like I might be able to draw this flower, like really well.
• 13:39
  Amy Senter: But when it comes to people, I'm going to draw this little stick figure and you can draw a stick figure and that's okay too, and people will come to me and be like I'm so intimidated by drawings but I love yours, which shows me that they believe I'm gifted in that, which is something I've had to almost reclaim as yes that you know who is to say that this gift isn't worthy?
• 14:01
  Amy Senter: It's something that God has given me and in my teaching experience, what ended up happening there was I was very um, wanting to use my artistic ability but not feeling confident in it, and I ended up getting a lot of or most of the dyslexic kids in our grade level because I was a really visual teacher and I simplified things as much as I could for these kids and in doing so, I also have a son with ADD, my husband has ADD and I had kids with ADD and all those things were just, you know, we're trying to like entertain these kids but not give them.
• 14:40
  Amy Senter: We're trying to like entertain these kids but not give them fluff, we're trying to give them substance.
• 14:43
  Amy Senter: So in that I trained myself how can I explain this concept in the most basic way that makes sense and they can actually learn it?
• 14:52
  Amy Senter: And a lot of that was through, you know, graphic organizers and doodles and hands on and using your senses and hands-on and using your senses, and so that's another skill that I ended up using in this, which I didn't even recognize.
• 15:06
  Amy Senter: I'll get feedback from adults saying I've used your Bible study materials.
• 15:09
  Amy Senter: I have dyslexia.
• 15:10
  Amy Senter: I could never sit down and read the Bible and understand it until I had your sheets to look at next to it and that just blew my mind of how have I not seen that that's what is happening here?
• 15:23
  Amy Senter: God is every little aspect.
• 15:26
  Amy Senter: It was all come together to glorify him, and that's what has brought me so much joy in this process is that it's not about me, it's about him and just how all these little pieces of the story that I thought were just a waste of time or something I wanted to pursue, that somebody closed that door, are able to create these visual learning tools.
• 16:07
  Ellen Krause: I think originally, Amy and this has been a while ago that I found your website and looked on it and I did not realize until I read your bio that you had created these with people with ADD in mind and dyslexia, because we have that in our family and I have ADHD and I remember thinking, oh my goodness, like the visual diagrams bring everything to life, like it just helps you kind of see and visualize what's going on there, and I think people will be surprised that that you can use that kind of a tool with the Bible.
• 16:46
  Ellen Krause: So why don't you tell us, like, how can someone start understanding the Bible If it feels, if they feel, overwhelmed, what, what tools would you suggest for just starting out?
• 17:00
  Amy Senter: Yeah, sure.
• 17:00
  Amy Senter: Well, one big thing that I teach and it's like the very first thing you'll see on my site is that the Bible's not put together in chronological order, and that was something.
• 17:13
  Amy Senter: When I realized it, I was like more embarrassed, like, oh my, how have I been in church this my whole life?
• 17:19
  Amy Senter: And I just figured this out, you know.
• 17:21
  Amy Senter: And so I didn't want to talk about it very much.
• 17:23
  Amy Senter: And I, when I did start sharing things on a blog, like talking about my health stuff, and then I was like I'm reading my Bible and I just put together this little chronological sheet, I thought, you know, I didn't know this.
• 17:35
  Amy Senter: How silly.
• 17:36
  Amy Senter: And everybody.
• 17:38
  Amy Senter: That one went viral and I wasn't even selling, it wasn't a business, it was just talking and it like went on Pinterest and it was just like a screenshot.
• 17:47
  Amy Senter: I had taken up these notes and I was like, wow, there are so many Christians, including myself, that have no idea how the Bible story fits together.
• 17:57
  Amy Senter: And so that's where I always start people now is do you know the Bible is not in chronological order and do you know, like, how to figure out the order?
• 18:09
  Amy Senter: So, basically, the Bible is was put together by genre.
• 18:13
  Amy Senter: So there's, you know the the law in the history books, and in there there's the story of David and the prophets and the kingdom is splitting and the kingdom is exiled and all that stuff.
• 18:26
  Amy Senter: But then you have Psalms and Proverbs and Isaiah and Daniel, and those are separate books that are about the poems of David or the wisdom of Solomon or the prophecies of Ezekiel and all those things that were happening in those history books.
• 18:44
  Amy Senter: So they've organized it, because it's hard to kind of sprinkle those in and throughout in a Bible.
• 18:51
  Amy Senter: To be like this is the exact order, because they're all kind of intermingled.
• 18:55
  Amy Senter: So they decided to organize it by genre.
• 18:58
  Amy Senter: But if you are not aware of this and you're trying to read the Bible Genesis through Revelation it's going to be extremely confusing.
• 19:05
  Amy Senter: And then you get to the whole.
• 19:08
  Amy Senter: Well, they just had that story.
• 19:11
  Amy Senter: Why am I reading it again and why is it different this time?
• 19:13
  Amy Senter: And then people start to focus on well, that means it's not true, or that means we can't trust it, or things like that.
• 19:20
  Amy Senter: And so when you read it through a lens that's out of context, then there becomes a lot of discrepancies in what you're reading and a lot of opinions, and so that's why I encourage people to figure out the chronological order of the story and read it that way and you'll have so many aha moments of what is going on.
• 19:41
  Amy Senter: You'll be able to relate who is related to who.
• 19:44
  Amy Senter: What time period is this?
• 19:45
  Amy Senter: Did this happen before or after?
• 19:47
  Amy Senter: And there's, that's just the jumping off point.
• 19:50
  Amy Senter: I mean you could study that the rest of your life, but that's what's exciting about it is you feel.
• 19:58
  Amy Senter: I feel like a lot of times we're equipped just read every day, it doesn't matter what, and just read the whole thing at some point, maybe in a year, and none of those things are bad.
• 20:07
  Amy Senter: But if you have no context for what you're reading, it's just kind of like, uh, how are you growing?
• 20:15
  Amy Senter: And I believe the point of it is not.
• 20:17
  Amy Senter: You know the quality, it's the, or the quantity, it's the quality of what you're putting into your Bible study.
• 20:24
  Amy Senter: So I always tell people figure out the chronological order and then it'll give you a lot of insights, and I've created a chronological order guide on my website.
• 20:36
  Amy Senter: I also recommend there's a book called the Story.
• 20:38
  Amy Senter: I believe Max Lucado helped put it together and it's basically like they've done the Bible in chronological order and they put it together with biblical text.
• 20:48
  Amy Senter: But it looks like a novel and you just read it cover to cover, but it's actually in order and it's a quick read.
• 20:55
  Amy Senter: You could read in a couple of days if you wanted to, but that will help you kind of get the basis of it.
• 21:00
  Amy Senter: Um, and then the other thing is so once you have that kind of foundation, then I think a lot of people are afraid to study the Bible as like a textbook, cause you don't want to turn it into um, I don't want to turn it into school or devalue what the Bible is because it's not a textbook.
• 21:23
  Amy Senter: But I feel like when you do yourself a disservice, because if you're not studying it in that way, all those skills you learned as a kid, use those skills on understand the goal of spiritual maturity in Christ, not to finish the whole thing, it's, but you can read it like a textbook and you'll start to learn those things so that you can apply them and discern.
• 21:46
  Amy Senter: Make all those discernments and that's kind of what I teach is the Bible is your primary source, but use everything else to help you study it, and so you should always be going back to the Bible.
• 21:58
  Amy Senter: And then a lot of people are like I don't know how to study it like a textbook or take notes, and so that's kind of what I teach too.
• 22:05
  Amy Senter: I love using journaling Bibles and walking people through videos on how to take notes and so that you can learn how to study it in a way that you're understanding, you can explain it back to people, you can use it to help you discern what other people are teaching you as well.
• 22:25
  Ellen Krause: Amy, I love your suggestion there with the chronological order, and I also have done the chronological Bible and it's it's always incredible to me too how let's say something in the Psalms will further elaborate or give more details to one of the other parts of scripture that it's referring to.
• 22:52
  Ellen Krause: Let's say something in David's life.
• 22:54
  Ellen Krause: It just enriches everything when you can put it together in that chronological order.
• 23:00
  Ellen Krause: So I love that suggestion.
• 23:03
  Ellen Krause: I thought it might be fun to ask you sort of a practical question as far as, let's say, someone listening to this and I'm just going to use my own example but our church is going through a study on Moses and the Exodus, what would you suggest like?
• 23:22
  Ellen Krause: What tools would you have available that someone could just go and look at on your website that might help them in a particular aspect of scripture?
• 23:36
  Amy Senter: Okay.
• 23:37
  Amy Senter: So what I suggest is I've created these tools that are just kind of.
• 23:44
  Amy Senter: They're supposed to supplement anything you're studying.
• 23:47
  Amy Senter: So when I'm telling, when people are like I'm studying Exodus, I'm like, great, here's what would help you understand it a little better is I've got, um, I've outlined every single book of the Bible, um, into these two page, one to two page cheat sheets that are a quick overview of the context.
• 24:07
  Amy Senter: So if you're an Exodus, you're going to get a cheat sheet that says here's the main events, here are the 10 plagues, here's who Moses is.
• 24:13
  Amy Senter: This is what happened right before Moses.
• 24:16
  Amy Senter: This time, this is what's about to happen.
• 24:19
  Amy Senter: Who are the Jews?
• 24:20
  Amy Senter: Who are the Israelites, the Hebrews, what are all three of those words?
• 24:23
  Amy Senter: Why are we seeing all three of those words in the Bible?
• 24:26
  Amy Senter: It just gives you a lot of insight that when you're reading it you're like, okay, so Miriam and Aaron are Moses' brother and sister, and then you can do those kinds of things without having to do all that heavy lifting while you're reading it.
• 24:41
  Amy Senter: But it's supposed to be a.
• 24:44
  Amy Senter: It's like the cliff notes in school.
• 24:46
  Amy Senter: Don't read the cliff notes and act like you read the book.
• 24:48
  Amy Senter: Use the cliff notes to help you on the test or learning your subject matter, so it's supposed to be something that's helping you, not replacing it.
• 24:57
  Amy Senter: And then another thing I make is and so I have those for every single book of the Bible, so no matter what you're studying, you could find one.
• 25:05
  Amy Senter: And then the other thing I have that I came out with this year is a Bible timeline chart, which is three pages, I believe, and you just print it and you tape them together and it's got the entire overview of all the people and events that happened in the Bible.
• 25:22
  Amy Senter: And so I can see, okay, moses' story was here, and I can see an overview of his story in relation to every single event in the Bible.
• 25:31
  Amy Senter: I also have Bible maps where you can see, okay, this is modern day Saudi Arabia, this is where Moses was, or he traveled here when he was wandering the wilderness.
• 25:41
  Amy Senter: So you get that that was part of what I struggled with was I was like, okay, great, I'm hearing these names, but I don't know where this place is.
• 25:51
  Amy Senter: To visualize it myself.
• 25:52
  Amy Senter: I needed that visual.
• 25:53
  Amy Senter: And so when you see, okay, I can actually go on a plane right now and follow this path of where we think this happened, it becomes so much more real in our mind of this is not a fairy tale.
• 26:05
  Amy Senter: This is actually a real thing that happened and so I love, love to pull in the real life application so that you can and take the opinion out of it.
• 26:18
  Amy Senter: It's all just research based very heavy research, and Bible based, so that you are learning the basics to be able to connect deeper to God's story.
• 26:32
  Ellen Krause: Awesome.
• 26:32
  Ellen Krause: Well be sure, if you're listening to this, you're going to have to definitely check out Amy's site and maybe, depending on what you're going through in your church or your Bible study, I'm sure there's some resource that can help you there.
• 26:47
  Ellen Krause: Amy, how about in the area of Bible memorization and really application of scripture to your life?
• 26:56
  Ellen Krause: What are the best ways that you suggest in going about that?
• 27:00
  Amy Senter: I always love having memory verses around the house, like on, like I've got a verse of the week up here back on my wall and then I've got, you know, artwork that I've gotten from Mardell or things like that that I've got on the wall.
• 27:13
  Amy Senter: I just love surrounding myself with those that are meaningful to me and, whether you remember the actual verse or not, remembering that phrase, having that in your head can be really comforting and you'll be surprised how many times those things pop up in your mind when you need them.
• 27:31
  Amy Senter: So just kind of surrounding yourself with verses whether it's like a card you change out every day or they're on your wall.
• 27:37
  Amy Senter: But when it comes to like getting really specific on what verse should I memorize or how do I memorize, I love to recommend to find a verse that's relating to what you're going through.
• 27:48
  Amy Senter: So if you're having a parenting issue, find a verse that's going to encourage you, so every time that issue comes up you can go back to that verse.
• 27:55
  Amy Senter: For example, philippians 4, 6, do not be anxious about anything and everything.
• 28:00
  Amy Senter: In every situation, by prayer and petition, with Thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
• 28:05
  Amy Senter: Or if you're feeling bitter or in a rut in your career, uh, colossians 3, 23,.
• 28:11
  Amy Senter: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
• 28:15
  Amy Senter: And um, another one is like in your marriage, if you're overwhelmed or if you're just stressed out in general with life Psalm 46, 10, be still and know that I am God.
• 28:25
  Amy Senter: Just having those things as tools rather than I should probably memorize scripture.
• 28:31
  Amy Senter: But understanding this is why I'm understanding it, because it's calling me back to God and remembering him, and I love to use my senses when I memorize things.
• 28:44
  Amy Senter: I'll write them on a card.
• 28:45
  Amy Senter: Just the kinesthetic aspect helps, just the visual of seeing it.
• 28:50
  Amy Senter: You can say it out loud.
• 28:52
  Amy Senter: I draw a doodle on it.
• 28:54
  Amy Senter: It's my favorite.
• 28:54
  Amy Senter: You could cut the cards out, rearrange them, try to make a game out of it.
• 28:59
  Amy Senter: But I love to practice these skills with my kids and that might seem silly to you, but there's a ton of us out there that we want to.
• 29:09
  Amy Senter: We find joy in doing these things in the bible and if that's you go for it, because the Bible is filled with so many joyful moments.
• 29:18
  Amy Senter: It doesn't have to be a deeply serious spiritual thing.
• 29:25
  Amy Senter: It can be a joyful sound of worship in just playing a silly memorization game with your kids.
• 29:32
  Amy Senter: It's such a good skill to pass on to your kids that reading your Bible is a joyful activity.
• 29:40
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely.
• 29:40
  Ellen Krause: I think you really pointed out something so important and that is memorizing some scripture verses that are really applicable in your life at the moment, and you can just keep adding to your repertoire of verses that you know.
• 29:56
  Ellen Krause: I know for me, when I was working in corporate America there was management roles and presentations and things I would get anxiety.
• 30:05
  Ellen Krause: And I memorized 2 Timothy 1.7.
• 30:08
  Ellen Krause: That says for God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and sound mind, and I literally had it taped on my monitor and sound mine.
• 30:17
  Ellen Krause: And I literally had it taped on my monitor and it just, it would call me, remind me we're all people here, you know, um, and so it just uh.
• 30:29
  Ellen Krause: That one really helped.
• 30:30
  Ellen Krause: And then for my kids it was always waking them up in the morning and saying this is the day the Lord has made.
• 30:34
  Ellen Krause: Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
• 30:36
  Ellen Krause: And you know their sleepy heads would be so groggy.
• 30:39
  Ellen Krause: They would be like, oh you know, but now they love that verse.
• 30:44
  Ellen Krause: You know it just it hits home and it's a great way to start your day.
• 30:48
  Ellen Krause: So thank you for those tips on the Bible memorization.
• 30:53
  Ellen Krause: You know I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about this how understanding the Bible can help us deal with today's challenges, or whatever challenges people might be facing in their life.
• 31:12
  Amy Senter: Yeah, and that's really where this whole journey of biblical literacy started was I was begging God to heal me physically and what I learned was he was asking me let me heal you spiritually first, and that it was more important.
• 31:28
  Amy Senter: And that sounds like a bummer, but it really was such a blessing Because I found, when I was being healed spiritually, that I was healing in all kinds of ways.
• 31:41
  Amy Senter: I was healing mentally.
• 31:42
  Amy Senter: I started prioritizing self care and learning how to reduce stress, which I, when the doctor told me, start reducing stress, I laughed.
• 31:50
  Amy Senter: I didn't know you could even do that.
• 31:51
  Amy Senter: I thought that was more of a circumstantial thing.
• 31:55
  Amy Senter: But I realized there's so much that we can do to help ourselves mentally and I started looking into that.
• 32:01
  Amy Senter: Physically, I started healing because emotionally, I started getting counseling.
• 32:06
  Amy Senter: I started dealing with my anxiety and depression and actually taking action.
• 32:10
  Amy Senter: And what do I want my purpose to be in this?
• 32:13
  Amy Senter: Um?
• 32:14
  Amy Senter: So as I began to let control, let go of control and begin to trust, it was like all this wisdom and um just poured into me.
• 32:22
  Amy Senter: It was like all this wisdom and just poured into me, and it wasn't always a doctor's answer, you know.
• 32:28
  Amy Senter: He gave me the wisdom of how to discern things instead of just being like this isn't working, let's do the next thing.
• 32:33
  Amy Senter: So it was that spirit of peace and discernment and wisdom, and so I teach.
• 32:42
  Amy Senter: In addition to teaching biblical literacy, I teach my site is biblical literacy and spiritual growth, and I want you to learn how they're interconnected, and so I teach things like spiritual goal setting, such as spiritual disciplines, creating spiritual disciplines as goals, like prayer and fasting and worship.
• 33:00
  Amy Senter: I talk about spiritual or self-care, and if it's Christian, if Jesus practiced self-care, what does biblical self-care look like?
• 33:08
  Amy Senter: Which it is?
• 33:09
  Amy Senter: There's Sabbath rest, there's community, there's times of solitude, all those kinds of things.
• 33:16
  Amy Senter: And then, just for those people wanting to discover your purpose, absolutely, the Bible can help you with that.
• 33:21
  Amy Senter: It talks about how we all have spiritual gifts.
• 33:22
  Amy Senter: I've talked about mine.
• 33:22
  Amy Senter: Help you with that.
• 33:23
  Amy Senter: It talks about how we all have spiritual gifts.
• 33:25
  Amy Senter: I've talked about mine.
• 33:26
  Amy Senter: You have yours, um, and that's another thing I love to help people explore theirs.
• 33:31
  Amy Senter: And then how to deal with hardships talking about um you know even the memory versus equipping yourself.
• 33:37
  Amy Senter: That's a tool of what Paul talks about um, going through his uh, difficulties, and we've got spiritual armor and all that stuff to equip yourself.
• 33:46
  Amy Senter: These are all tools to help you that God has given you that we just need to pick up and start using, and so I love to teach people how to use these tools.
• 33:56
  Amy Senter: But absolutely, the Bible helps us deal with today's challenges, and there's so much more to it than just a desperation of I'm just going to flip and whatever I point to God, speak to me.
• 34:10
  Amy Senter: There's so much more to it than that, and so, if that's where you're at I've been there I encourage you to really kind of be honest with yourself about your Bible study.
• 34:21
  Amy Senter: Is it bringing you life?
• 34:22
  Amy Senter: Are you doing it just to do it?
• 34:24
  Amy Senter: Are you doing it at all?
• 34:25
  Amy Senter: Do you want to do it?
• 34:26
  Amy Senter: You know what does that look like, and if you're seeking that peace and that guidance and all those things that we're talking about, the Bible and relate is is the building block for relationship with God.
• 34:39
  Amy Senter: It's not about the Bible, it's about God, and there's so much guidance to be found in reading it to grow closer to who God is and wants you to be.
• 34:50
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 34:52
  Ellen Krause: It's that life transformation that if we allow ourselves the discipline of studying God's word, you will see your life transformed.
• 35:04
  Ellen Krause: And in all of that we want to give God the glory.
• 35:09
  Ellen Krause: So I just I love what you're doing, amy.
• 35:12
  Ellen Krause: Tell people how they can find you and your resources.
• 35:18
  Amy Senter: Yeah, my website is just amysenter.
• 35:21
  Amy Senter: com and that's an S.
• 35:23
  Amy Senter: So Amy S E N T E R, I have to say that all the time.
• 35:27
  Amy Senter: So amysenter.
• 35:29
  Amy Senter: com If you go there, you can see how to subscribe to my newsletter and that's really the best way to find all of the things.
• 35:37
  Amy Senter: You can have a shop discount, you get links to my blog articles, all my social media, and then I've got goodies in there, downloads and stuff you can get.
• 35:46
  Amy Senter: But yeah, that would be my place to connect is just to subscribe to my newsletter on amysenter.
• 35:52
  Amy Senter: com and that'll connect you with all my goodies.
• 35:57
  Ellen Krause: Awesome.
• 35:57
  Ellen Krause: Well, we will make sure we include that link in our show notes.
• 36:01
  Ellen Krause: Before we go, Amy, I have to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions.
• 36:06
  Ellen Krause: What Bible is your go-to Bible and what translation is it?
• 36:11
  Amy Senter: Okay, so I grew up on the NIV, so I've always been partial to NIV.
• 36:15
  Amy Senter: But as I grew older and, you know, wanted to dig into the context, I started buying parallel Bibles which I hadn't heard of, which are very, very cool.
• 36:23
  Amy Senter: You can have up to probably more now, but you could have up to four translations on one page and so you could see the same verse in four different types of translations.
• 36:32
  Amy Senter: So those parallel Bibles are awesome.
• 36:35
  Amy Senter: As far as note-taking, there's like no room in there and I love to take notes in my Bible.
• 36:41
  Amy Senter: So I have my parallel Bible but I've been transitioning the past couple years to using that as another reference material and my go-to is this ginormous, gorgeous Bible called the Illustrating Bible, which comes in NIV and CSB and it's from Dayspring, I believe, and it's got these big spirals gold spirals and the page is almost half of the pages free for you to draw and the pages are a little bit thicker.
• 37:12
  Amy Senter: So for those of us who like to get a little artsy in there, there's a lot of room.
• 37:17
  Amy Senter: So I always do my lessons based out of that one with people because it I love having the notes directly in the Bible.
• 37:24
  Amy Senter: But of course I use lots of resources as well.
• 37:27
  Ellen Krause: Yes, I'm sure, I'm sure.
• 37:28
  Ellen Krause: All right, I love.
• 37:30
  Ellen Krause: Those are excellent suggestions.
• 37:32
  Ellen Krause: Okay.
• 37:32
  Ellen Krause: The Parallel Bible and the Illustrated Bible?
• 37:36
  Ellen Krause: Yes, by Dayspring, those are great.
• 37:37
  Ellen Krause: How about?
• 37:38
  Ellen Krause: I know you as an artist?
• 37:40
  Ellen Krause: You must have your favorite journaling supplies, which I'm dying to know what they are.
• 37:46
  Ellen Krause: Amy, tell us.
• 37:47
  Ellen Krause: Okay, I think you're gonna be a little disappointed.
• 37:49
  Amy Senter: Oh well, first to create my notes, I do have to say I create everything on my iPad with an Apple Pencil.
• 37:57
  Amy Senter: It is so fun.
• 37:58
  Amy Senter: I'm Procreate.
• 37:59
  Amy Senter: So if you want to doodle digitally or take notes digitally, I love Procreate and Apple Pencil it writes just like a pencil or a marker, whatever you want it to be.
• 38:09
  Amy Senter: So I create everything on there.
• 38:11
  Amy Senter: But for my writing in my Bible, I have tried so many things and I just love Sharpies.
• 38:19
  Amy Senter: I love yellow Sharpies.
• 38:21
  Amy Senter: Okay, so you'll always always.
• 38:24
  Amy Senter: My kids always roll their eyes.
• 38:25
  Amy Senter: They need a pencil or pen.
• 38:26
  Amy Senter: I'm like well, I've got 12 different colors of Sharpies.
• 38:29
  Amy Senter: Would you like one of those?
• 38:30
  Amy Senter: So I love color coding with my Sharpies in my Bible, which is why I like the thicker pages.
• 38:36
  Ellen Krause: All right, awesome, those are good, okay.
• 38:38
  Ellen Krause: Lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?
• 38:43
  Amy Senter: Lately I have gone ahead and purchased Logos Bible study software and it is so amazing because I've been using all these different tools and it addresses all those tools in one place and it even has Bible journaling stuff in it.
• 39:01
  Amy Senter: So I love Logos Bible study software.
• 39:04
  Amy Senter: So if you're serious about Bible study, it is well worth the investment, because it's like research and note taking in one place and I love it.
• 39:14
  Amy Senter: Love it.
• 39:15
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely.
• 39:16
  Ellen Krause: You know Logos is an awesome, awesome suggestion and stay tuned because I believe this fall sometime they are going to be coming out with a monthly subscription that you can get for Logos.
• 39:31
  Ellen Krause: So that's, I think, really, really super exciting and, like you said there, I mean it is everything you could possibly ever, for the greatest Bible scholar you know on the earth would use it to just someone doing their everyday Bible study.
• 39:47
  Ellen Krause: It's incredible.
• 39:48
  Amy Senter: Yeah, I never looked into it because I thought you had to only be doing your Greek word studies on there and I'm like oh, they've got the parallel Bibles, they've got the journaling tools, they've got the commentaries, they've got concordance it's.
• 40:00
  Amy Senter: It's a great, really diverse tool.
• 40:02
  Ellen Krause: Yes, yes, okay, we will make sure we include a link to the Logos software as well in our show notes.
• 40:10
  Ellen Krause: Well, Amy, thank you so much for being here today joining us.
• 40:15
  Ellen Krause: You know understanding the Bible.
• 40:17
  Ellen Krause: It can feel overwhelming, and I just pray that the people that have been listening to you today that this was just maybe a stepping stone for them to either begin or recommit to making Bible reading part of their daily routine and doing it with confidence.
• 40:35
  Ellen Krause: So, thank you so much.
• 40:38
  Amy Senter: Thank you for having me.
• 40:39
  Ellen Krause: All right Listeners, be sure to check out Amy's resources, as her mission is to empower Christians to grow in their faith, live intentionally and experience the transformative power of God's word.
• 40:52
  Ellen Krause: We will have all of her information linked in the show notes.
• 40:56
  Ellen Krause: Thank you all so much for listening today.
• 40:59
  Ellen Krause: We appreciate you.
• 41:00
  Ellen Krause: We value you.
• 41:01
  Ellen Krause: We would love if you would leave us some feedback and have a blessed day.