Alternative Small Groups - Bible Art Journaling

We have just finished our second time of running a 6 week block of 'alternative small groups' at church.  The aim of the groups was to build relationships, getting to know people better, and that's certainly been true for me.  There has been a range of options including evening walks, bread making, songwriting, outdoor games, crafts, hot topics - debates, exercise and this time I was asked to lead a bible art journaling group.

Huge thanks to Janine who took some photos, and what a delight her tiny daughter is!  At only 19 months old she wanted to do everything we were doing but we decided she wasn't quite ready for ink pads ;)

We took quite a fluid approach to the focus for each week, deciding on the go what we'd like to do.  I've been rubber stamping for hundreds of years so have a great collection.  One evening we focused on looking for trees in the bible and stamped them on relevant pages, with our particular favourites being Psalm 1 and Isaiah 55:12.  Another evening we hunted for flowers,

Going on a treasure hunt like this brought us to verses we'd not heard before and gave us the opportunity to discuss the meaning of others that we saw in a new light.  There was also a lot of 'ooh I like that' and giving the idea a go in our own bibles.  Working together was very inspiring.

Rubber stamps were a huge relief to those people who felt they couldn't draw and bibles were soon being filled with flowers, butterflies, trees...

Not everyone used a bible.  We had paper available for larger pieces, and tags for small pieces.

This beautiful hydrangea stamp formed a central focus for some favourite verses

We also played with other resources including gelli plates and paint on deli paper, which is great for adding to pages in your bible as it's so thin and light

and Brusho, which was great fun (apologies for the lack of photos!).  Playing with new resources together was another great way of getting to know each other, as well as being tremendous fun!  We can all highly recommend alternative small groups!