The Sojo Show
The Sojo Show makes Bible Study fun with spontaneous conversations between Arabah Joy and Jen Evangelista. Together we discover how the study of God's Word can impact our everyday lives.
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The Sojo Show
Behind the Curtain: The Heart and Soul of Sojo Academy's Bible Studies
Ever wondered how we write out Bible Studies?
Join us as we pull back the curtain and reveal the behind Sojo Academy's Bible studies.
We promise you an exclusive look into our meticulous creation process. From the intricate steps and substantial effort required to ensure each study encourages deep engagement with Scripture, to our commitment to fostering a profound understanding without injecting personal opinions, you'll discover the depth and richness that sets our studies apart.
Get ready to be inspired by our thoughtful planning and writing process tailored for all levels of biblical engagement. Learn how we balance flexible study options with a rigorous approach to accuracy and divine guidance. We also take you inside our annual planning meetings, where we map out study topics for the year while remaining open to adjustments. Whether you're new or a long-time follower, this episode promises to enrich your understanding of our Bible study approach and enhance your appreciation for the hard work that goes into creating meaningful and transformative teachings.
Read the Show Notes: sojohub.com/biblestudy118
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Become a member: www.sojoacademy.com
Sojo Academy is an ongoing membership for Christian women that provides a practical, streamlined, spiritual growth plan for every woman.
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Help us continue making great content for listeners everywhere.
Welcome back to the Sojo Show. We are so glad to have you. I always think there needs to be music here.
Speaker 2:I know there should be music here. This is where we just need the dramatic. I know we need the dramatic.
Speaker 1:We need the dramatics All right, Before we get in to what we're going to talk about today, which is a little juicy. We have two things.
Speaker 2:First of all, a quick, quick, super quick announcement Go ahead and make that, and then I got a question for you. Okay, so I'm scared a little bit about the question, but before we dive in today, we wanted to let you know that we are hosting a very super special event, and that is our ultimate Bible study blowout sale, because we're wrapping up an era in Sojo Academy, and so if you want to grab a bundle of 50 Bible studies for less than a dollar each, you definitely want to go to sojoacademycom slash mega M E G A to check that out.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I wanted to get that over with because you need to hear about it. Now on to the question that I have. So do you remember watching, or maybe reading, probably reading, the Wizard of Oz, when you were young? Obviously you did, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2:I think I did. Wouldn't that be terrible if I said I never watched it until I had kids? Oh no, everybody's seen Wizard of Oz, or they haven't read it, um, I had to read it in middle school or something. So, yeah, I think I read it too.
Speaker 1:All right, so here's my question think go into your way back machine. Think way, way, way, way, way back, way back back, and you like all those way backs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm starting to get the point. Yeah, that I'm old and need to go way, way back. Think way back.
Speaker 1:Okay. So here's a really legitimate question. At the end of Wizard of Oz, do you remember your reaction to the ending, to the wizard, to how we discovered what, who the wizard was? I mean, do is that something that stood out to you at all?
Speaker 2:so I think I was surprised, but I heard about it from somebody else before oh, you got experience for myself. So yes, spoiler alerts have been around a long time, like it was. It was like so, I mean, but yes, it is, it was surprising it was surprising.
Speaker 1:So the I mean that's, that's crazy. So spoiler alerts were way before the internet even came out.
Speaker 2:So, yes, um, all right, somebody should have given me one I just remember thinking what I mean.
Speaker 1:I had no idea what the wizard was, who the wizard was, but I remember thinking what is? Just some little man behind the curtain anyway. So everybody that's listening, think back and think about your reaction to that, because we're about to pull back the curtain. This is the stretch, this is the total stretch. We're gonna pull back the curtain and we're gonna look at the wizard behind sojourn. Yes, a little bit, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of feeling what we're doing today.
Speaker 1:AJ, am I like way off base.
Speaker 2:No, no, yes, we're giving you a total, complete behind the scenes. Look at how we write a Bible study, which I think is pretty fascinating, because there's actually a lot that goes into it and we didn't realize this until we started like talking about it a little bit. So it it is interesting. Now I will say that we don't claim to have like a big production and like all the hoopla and all the excitement that this little old man created, you know, behind the scenes, but it is. I think it's so exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, and I think that that's where the analogy ends. That's it just behind the curtain. But the reason that we're even doing this and talking about this is because we actually get asked this a good amount, like what goes into your process in writing a study, because we have written a lot of Bible studies over the last few years and I was actually talking okay, ready for full disclosure and way too much information ready for TMI. I was boxing and talking to AJ. This is going to be terrible.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, okay, so we may have to cut this off but I was thinking about this and so I was voxing her and talking to her voice app, being just talking to her in the shower, in the shower as I was in the shower, she was listening to my shower but about how we've written so many studies that it could be easy to think that they are not very rich and deep and and you know maybe that they're kind of superficial and I think the things that set Sojo Academy apart and we're not treating our own horns in this at all, it's just a separate, it's just different.
Speaker 1:It's what we chose to do. We chose to make our studies full length, full size, fully, full depth. I mean really, really in depth and a lot of it, because we chose not to do a lot of teaching in our studies, like our own opinions, I should say as much as leading women to learn how to read and study the Bibles for themselves. So all that to say it's been quite a process and we get asked about it a lot and we just wanted to kind of let you know how we do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and part of that is learning how to ask questions and how to lead a student to learn how to ask questions about the text and really allow God to speak through just meditating on it and asking Lord. You know what does this mean, or you know why is this little addition significant? So we're going to share how we like our process of how to write these studies that that really are deep. They really are. They're not service level. They're not like sheets to just print off and go through in five minutes a day. They take significant time, both to write, as you will discover, and to complete too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's not to say that you don't get value from it if you're not able to complete the entire study.
Speaker 1:A lot of our studies are set up that you get to kind of choose how much you want, how deep you want to go, but it's helpful for those students who only have five or ten minutes, and then those who have a little bit more time and are and you know, because here's the cool thing about the Word of God the more you study it, the more desire you have to study it. And so we wanted to make sure that we kind of covered all of our bases, from those who are brand new to the Bible and then those who have been students of the word for many, many years, making sure that as many people as possible not everyone loves our style, we completely admit that and we know that but as many people as possible are in the word, which is our final goal. So yeah, so I don't know if we want to start AJ with the process of writing the study or the process of deciding what to write.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Yeah, I think we should start with, like, our planning, because it's not we do like, think through what it is. How is God leading us? What is what God is laying on our hearts? And we look ahead a little bit, because these studies take us a lot of time. They really do. They take weeks worth of time and effort. So we know that it's going to take an investment of our time and our energy and and honestly, we hold ourselves so responsible for what we say. We feel like this is a huge responsibility and so we don't want to just rush through something and put something together quickly. We want to really hear from the Lord. We want every word that we say to be as accurate as we possibly can make it, and that is a burden.
Speaker 2:I mean, guys, if you've done one of our studies, you may not realize like it we kind of stand in fear and trembling putting this stuff out because, we don't want to mislead anyone and we know we're not perfect people and so we really we put a lot into the planning stage and so maybe we can just share a little bit about that, jen, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So typically AJ and I get together in person several times a year and usually it's at these meetings that we start really vision casting and thinking ahead as far as what we're going to be studying in SOJO and we plan ahead about a year and meaning we plan out now. Sometimes the plans change, but for the most part we plan out what studies we want to kind of walk women through over the course of the next few months or year. And you know it's interesting, we have a whole idea of a podcast about these different eras that we've kind of been through.
