Let me preface this article with the fact that this is no way sponsored or endorsed in any way. I just finally found a Bible study I love and can actually stick with for more than 2 weeks. Because I’ve officially made it two months in and still love it and maybe you’ll love it too.

Maybe you’re like me and every year you try one of those “Bible in a Year” plans. For a week it seems super doable. Then life happens in week two and you get behind. Or maybe all the jumping around that many of them do just isn’t easy to follow. Then week three and four breeze by and suddenly you haven’t followed the plan in too many days and catching up seems impossible. So you throw in the towel and wait a bit before starting the process all over again, or doing yet another YouVersion 5 day plan.

Can you tell that I’ve done this a few times?

This year I really wanted to be intentional and find a daily plan that worked for me. I’d done 40 day plans successfully, and during my 2021 Sabbath days read through the minor prophets and the Psalms. My criteria for the ideal reading plan: shorter daily reading so I could read over it multiple times AND really sit with it; easy to follow/simple structure; optional resources to go even deeper with. 

After (not a ton of) researching – and thanks to a lil favorite tool of mine called Instagram – I found the perfect one that today I want to share with you: Join The Journey, produced by Watermark Church in Dallas.

I discovered it towards the end of 2021 since I follow Emma Dotter – a highly creative gal who I stumbled across after one of her spoken word videos went viral. I thought what she was doing was awesome and hit that follow button. Fast forward to the end of the year, she’s transitioning into a new role over at Watermark and announces she’ll be heading up JTJ for 2022. So of course I clicked to find out more.

I had never heard of it before, but according to the website, it’s been around for a while (the oldest resource guide dates back to 2009). I’m honestly bummed I didn’t find it sooner. Here’s why it’s awesome:

1. The commitment is only 5 days a week.

I wanted something to start my mornings with as I drank coffee and cooked up breakfast. And the best part: if I miss a day for any reason (a longer morning run, my Monday morning 7am Bible study group at church, the typical accidental sleep in moment, etc), I can catch up on Saturday. And I can give myself a ton of grace and do two readings in one day if I really don’t plan accordingly. 

2. AND it’s only 1 chapter a day!

Short and sweet and let’s you really dig in deep. Sometimes it’s only a page in my study Bible. Sometimes a chapter can be up to four. But honestly that takes at most 10 to 15 minutes depending on how closely I read and underline and take notes. Over the past eight weeks, I’ve found lines and words popping out to me like they never had before because I’m reading so closely and so slowly. You really get to chew on what God is saying in each line of a chapter and discover some really practical ways to live the Chrisitan life better. 

3. It’s easy to build a routine around.

Wake up. Make matcha/coffee/tea/hot cocoa and breakfast. Sit down. Open Bible. Read. Take notes. Maybe read again. Eat while thinking about it. Pull coffee cup closer. Grab journal. Write down what stood out to me and what I can apply from it. 10 minutes of prayer. Write down prayers. Put dishes in sink. All in less than 30 minutes. It really doesn’t get any easier than that. All I did was replace my mindless Instagram/TikTok morning scrolling with something way better.

4. Some of the best bonus resources I’ve ever seen.

If you’re a podcast type of person, here’s some bonus points for you: each day of this new 2022 plan comes with a 7 to 10 minute episode where they talk about the major theme, question, or historical background behind each passage. Maybe there’s a part that’s hard to understand in the daily reading, or maybe it needs some more background from the Old Testament. They have a podcast for that. It’s on Spotify and Apple, and while I don’t listen every single day, it’s nice to have it as a supplement when I’m just not getting anything from reading the passage and need something else to spur some thoughts or deeper understanding.

If you’re a journal type of person, some bonus points for you: they also made a custom guided journal for this year! It’s pretty inexpensive ($10 on Amazon) and has everything you’ll need for every day in the first half of the plan (I’m guessing they’ll release volume 2 for the second half of the year). I went rogue by purchasing a empty journal at everyone’s favorite store – Target – and have made that work for me in my daily routine, but the guided journal looked pretty bomb if you want extra content at your fingertips.

5. This year’s plan not for you? Follow a different one!

Like I mentioned before, they have plans going back to 2009. 2022 is a slow read through the New Testament and breaks up the Gospels (so you don’t read them back to back – rather spaced out with other books and letters in between). Some standouts I noticed back in December: 2009’s slow read through the Wisdom books (aka Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and that section of the Bible), 2011’s deep dive into the Old Testament prophets (that’s my top candidate for 2023 as of now), and 2015/2021s entire Bible plan (one is straight through – one jumps around but keeps to a single book at a time – but both are multiple chapters a day).

6. You can start whenever.

I committed to starting the first week of January since that was a great natural start for me coming out of the holiday season (if you work for a church, you KNOW the Christmas stress). But if you’re reading this because you’ve been searching for a new study, this one is so easy to start today and take day by day. Just grab that checklist version of the calendar, and start on Matthew 1. If you wanted, you could do double duty until you catch up to where it’s at, but honestly you wouldn’t need to. Everything is already available online so you can really just start digging in today. 

Have a plan you love? Tell me in the comments! I’m always hunting for ones to recommend to friends or try out myself!