A Fresh Way to Memorize Scripture: A Conversation with Natalie Abbott from Dwell Differently

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm James Spencer, and I am joined by my co-host today, Maggie Hubbard. And Maggie, I'm going to let you invite or introduce our guest for today. Yeah, thank you. I'm really excited about our guest that we have on today. We have on Natalie Abbott. She is the co-founder and chief content officer for Dwell. And if you are unfamiliar with Dwell, I'm so excited for you guys to learn more about it. I stumbled across it because I was Googling how to memorize scripture. I struggle with that as a Christian. And I stumbled across this, which I'm so thankful for. And it's truly amazing what they're doing. So before I spoil it and give it all away, I'm going to hand it over to Natalie so that she can tell you all about what Dwell is and how it got started and her journey. Awesome. Yeah, I'm glad to be here with you all. It's always a great opportunity to just talk about the power of memorizing God's word. Like this is how we know him is in his word. And it is beautiful and it is true. And it's the very thing that we need like deep in our souls to, you know, to tell ourselves. We need to be the kind of people who aren't just like reading our Bibles or have our Bibles on our phones or listening to podcasts like this. But those are all awesome things. But there's something really transformative that can happen when you wake up at two in the morning and there's a Bible verse in your mind that is fighting that worry. Or when you're talking to a friend and somehow God's word is what comes out of your mouth to give them comfort or whatever. And I just think that I have seen from my own in my own journey, how powerful and how just how desperately I need those words in my heart and in my mind in every situation. And so, you know, I don't know. My story started a long time ago when I was in college. And interestingly enough, it started out with God's word. Someone, my great grandma gave me a Bible when I graduated from high school. And I was like, oh, well, I ended up being an English major. I love to read books. I'd never read the most famous book in the world. And I'm like, well, of course, I'm going to read this. So I started reading the Bible. And then as I was doing that, I thought, well, you know, if there is a God, I should probably read some other religious texts and some religious like studies books. And so I just started like reading all of these, you know, the Quran, Buddhist texts, different things like that. And just every night I would pray, God, if you're real, show me who you are. And I felt like if there is a God, somehow he's powerful enough that he'll reveal it to me in one of these texts. Right. Otherwise, you know, he's unknowable and I'll be an agnostic or whatever. And through the course of about a year and a half, almost two years, I just kept reading all of those books. And one by one, different ones just fell by the wayside. And the Bible was like, wow, I think this is true. But it took me another probably six more months to come to a realization of like this is how do I how do I actually engage with this text? Not just in an intellectual way, but like, who is this God of the Bible? And thankfully, God put a person in my life, actually, like the first week I was in college, she pursued me and answered my questions and had me to copy and bought me bagels. And she was a sweet gal and answered all my snarky questions because at the time I was I was very much not a believer. Like my lifestyle, everything about it said I am not a believer and I don't belong in this room with these people who are. But she patiently endured with me and shared the gospel with me. And at one point one night, I just came to that realization of like either I need to burn this book that has made me feel so guilty for so long or I need to accept Christ and Jesus actually died for me. And all of these rules that have made me feel terrible. I'm I know I'll never live up to them, but somebody lived up to them on my behalf. And so it probably wasn't that eloquent in the way that I said it. It was more like, God, I'm so mad at you. How can I how can I believe this or how can I live this way? And honestly, the Holy Spirit just opened my eyes and and I did a massive 180. And my whole life since then has been just dedicated to to the God of the universe and knowing him better and serving him with my life. So is your family also Christian? Because I know you do this with your sister, right? Vera. I do. At the time, no one went to church. Like I didn't grow up going to church. It's like a like sort of a residual Christianity. My dad's mom is who gave me the Bible. But like we never went to church. It wasn't like a thing in our house. And so I came back from college that first summer and shared my faith with my sister Vera, who was like eight or nine at the time. She's 10 years younger than me. And and she accepted Christ. And she's been my little minion ever since. Now, actually, there's I mean, like, honestly, there's so much that I learned from her. And and doing Dwell Differently together has been just such a blessing in our lives. But we have seen God just work and work and work in the lives of our family and our friends. And it's it is an amazing thing when, you know, and we've seen God not answer or, you know, there there have been prayers that I've prayed for literal decades. And it's not that God isn't at work, but I haven't seen the the fruit that I want to see. So definitely, you know, it's not like, you know, everything got everything got 100 percent better and all of it is perfect now. But certainly God is at work and it has been an amazing journey. Well, tell us a little bit about Dwell Differently. I mean, why Dwell Differently? What was the sort of the inspiration behind Dwell Differently? Yeah, so that actually is my sister's story. She was my sister's Vera Schmitz, and she was a elite pole vaulter in college. She went to the trials twice. She is a total beast. And when she was in I mean, I mean, like literally we lived in the same town when she was in high school. And I can remember her sitting on my couch when she was in high school. And she she won three state championships in high school. One, she didn't win because she had mono. Like she was just a crazy beast. And I remember her saying to me, like, what happens if I don't win? And I think it was maybe her junior or senior year. And I just walked her through like what happens then? Like, is this your identity? Is this who you are? Is this, you know, where you're finding your value? Or is it in Jesus, which, you know, this is who you say that you are. And it was like this relief for her. And then in college, she started writing Bible verses because, you know, you're going like. 10, 12, I don't even know how high she ever went feet into the air. And it's a head game. Like it's a head game to to put your body into that place. I mean, she got injured. There were times she broke poles. Like just I have a pole vaulting daughter right now. And it is like as a mom, I'm like, why did I say yes to this? You know, this is nuts. But Vera would write scripture in Sharpie marker on her arm. Like she always had some kind of crazy tattoo sleeve going on. And at one point, one of her friends was like, hey, crazy, you should just use the first letter of every word in that verse. And it won't be so long. And you'll still probably remember it. Well, that was actually it helped her memorize those verses. And so all of a sudden she's memorizing all these verses and they're like really grounding her. But then fast forward to 2016, she was at her second Olympic trials and she was injured. She barely even was able to like compete at all. It was just kind of a, you know, you build up this life story of like, this is this is the Olympic dream. Like her whole life, she had been training for this and she was awesome at it. And it was like, this is not going to happen. She she knew. And to go out kind of in that sort of way where, you know, she made it over the first bar. She had somebody give her like some massive pain shot just so that she could do it. She was like, this is my last time competing. You have to do this for me. And anyway, so then she kind of went into a really dark place where it was like, now what? You know, she had seen her friends from college get married and start having babies and and establishing careers. And she had been driving around the country with poles

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This was, like, pre-Bible app things. Maybe they had a few, but she was, like, recording herself saying scripture over herself just to go to the grocery store. I mean, she was just, couldn't even hardly get out of bed. It was so, the anxiety and the fear and the depression was just so gripping to her. And towards the end of that season, it was like, all of a sudden, God's word just started to really click again. And he pulled her right out of that pit. And when that happened, it was like a light bulb came on. She's like, this is what I'm doing with my life. I'm going to teach other people how to memorize scripture. I don't care how I do it. And she actually made, like, temporary tattoos. I think she made 25 because that was, like, the smallest batch that you could order of a Bible verse. She gave them to all of her friends and family and was like, hey, see if this helps you memorize this Bible verse. And we were like, this is amazing. It worked, you know? And she was like, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to make temporary tattoos and other things to help people memorize Bible verses using that same method of the first letter of every word in a Bible verse. And right off the bat, as her, you know, sister and friend and English major, she's like, will you read this for me? Will you edit this for me? Will you help me? Will you write a devotional for me? And eventually it was like, I think we're actually doing this together. So it was maybe two months before she was like, will you be my partner? And I'm like, absolutely, I will. What year was this? This was 2018. Wow. Not so long ago. And I think our first members, we had like 20 members. And we sent out these kits with a card with a verse design on the front and a devotional on the back, a key tag, and then temporary tattoos to help you memorize the verse. And we started writing devotionals every week just to kind of go along with that. So it's like, you're learning the context and what it means and that sort of thing. And then in 2019, I believe we launched a podcast because we just felt like that would be helpful for people as they're memorizing these verses to hear other people talk about, like, you know, it's like when you go to a Bible study and other people say things about what you're learning and you're like, I would have never thought of that. So I'm always like, it's the greatest joy and blessing in my own life because it's like, man, I get to talk about God's word. I get to study God's word. I get to talk to other believers about God's word and encourage people. Like, what better thing is there to do? I'm sure you probably feel that same way about what you guys do. It's cool. I mean, I think, you know, I started out always wanting to teach like higher education and that kind of stuff. But I think that I never really had the opportunity to be a full-time faculty member. And so this has definitely been a lot of fun to do whenever I can get in front of people and teach and talk about God's word and just, you know, see how it transforms their lives, not really how I do it, but how it does it. It's been fantastic. So, yeah, I think it's very cool. So do you like talk about your subscriptions just a little bit? So is it a verse a week? I know you have like a goal, a million verses memorized together, right? Yeah. And so I don't know where we're at with that goal right now, but it is, it's amazing. And when I say that, it's, we memorize one verse every month and then we have different people who sign up and we have individual kits and then we have family kits and we have group kits. So we have like churches and schools and it's, it's amazing how many people are memorizing. And it's funny because when you, when you say, is it one verse a week or is it a verse a month or what is it? It's one verse a month, which I remember when Vera first said that, I'm like, nah, we gotta do, we gotta do one a week, obviously. And she's like, no, I just think one verse a month. Like think about how transformative it is if you're like memorizing something and you're really dwelling on it and you're really talking about it. And I'm thinking my content brain is thinking there's no way I can, I can come up with that much content. Like there's no way that I can write four devotionals about one Bible verse. Like that's crazy. And yet as we've done it, it's like, I, not only do we do four devotionals or five sometimes depending on, you know, are there four or five Mondays in a month, but we also do the same with our podcast where it's like four or five podcast episodes. And yet I always get to the end and I'm like, we didn't, we didn't even touch it. We just like, there's so much more there. And especially with the guests that we have on, I'm always like, you're blowing my mind right now with what you're getting out of this verse that I didn't even think of. So it's, I mean, that, that's just speaks to the power and the depth of God's word. Like you just can't get to the end of it. You put it under a microscope for, you know, or not a microscope, magnifying glass. I guess the same thing, right? Either way, you can put it under either of those things and, and spend time really like delving into it and never get to the end of it. It's like, we keep finding out all these more, even more microscopic parts of like a cell. We just, we don't even, we're not even there yet with, with what it does. And that's how I feel about God's word. Like you just keep on digging deeper and deeper and it just keeps on providing more and more fruit. And, and honestly, like for me, you know, at this point, we've memorized as a community, maybe 70 something verses over the years. And it's like, all of those verses are still in there. They're still bearing fruit. They come to my mind at certain times and it's like, they it's, they don't go away. You know, God's word is, is the only thing that is powerful and true and transformative and that. You know, after all of the words that I write or all of the words that we speak on this podcast or any, you know, anything, like God's word is the one thing that is eternal. And I can speak to that in my own life. Like that is the one thing that is the most effective, the most true, the most powerful, you know, Can't change that. Yeah. I love that. So let's maybe talk. If someone hears this and they're interested in getting started, you know, walk us through the process. Like how does that work? Well, I would say for your own individual journey, like you don't have to subscribe to dwell differently. We'd love to have you. You can check us out on our Instagram or you know, our webpage is all dwell differently or dwell differently.com. But what I would say to you to get you really started is like, is there a verse that stands out to you when you are reading your Bible or is there something that you are going through as a human that you're like, this is so, so hard. I mean, there are so many times in my own life where it's like, I need a verse for this. I need, I need God's truth to fight the negative thing or the hard thing or to, to kind of pull me through whatever season it is that I'm going through. And so I would say to your listeners, like whatever that is, I don't care if you Google it or if you find it in your Bible, whatever, get yourself a note card and write the first letter of that verse on one side of the card. And on the other side, write the verse out and put that card in your back pocket and just keep pulling it out and reminding yourself. And eventually once you've got that verse memorized, dwell on it, pray about it, pray it over yourself. Like speak it back to God because that's, that's where the rubber is going to meet the road. That is where God is going to really transform you and work in your heart and in your mind. And if you want the easy button for that, go to our Instagram page and, and just screenshot. We, we always have verse designs. So the designs that we make aren't just like word letters on a note card. They're a little bit prettier than that. Um, you can go over there and find an old verse design

Refocus my mind when I tend to like, you know, I've got all the things going on and I'm like, okay, now I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this Bible verse and I'm gonna, I'm gonna let that be the true thing that I'm thinking about instead of whatever else might be going on in my head. Um, but yeah, that's the, that is definitely the easy button, uh, way of doing it. And then we actually have a book coming out in October, which will be great. Like it's, it's written. It's done now. I can, I'm my full on human again. I've come back from the dead. The Lord has resurrected me. Um, but no, it's, it is actually a really great, something I've wanted to do. I, I actually did a Bible study with, um, a church that we were at in Pennsylvania for seven years and it was the same passage of scripture where we memorized it together and it was from Philippians chapter four. It's the rejoice in the Lord always. Do not be anxious about anything. Whatever is true and noble and right and good. That passage of scripture, like Such a great passage of scripture, and I'm excited to to do. I think it's, I don't know that people have done that before, where it's like, you're gonna memorize these, you know, six, seven verses and walk away with that. And we're just gonna, again, put it under the magnifying glass. We're gonna dive really deep in. And it really is sort of a study of the book of Philippians in a reverse where it's like, usually you read the whole book of Philippians and then, you know, it's like a survey. And this is more like, we're gonna study these verses, but yet so much of the, so many of the concepts in those verses, Paul is talking about throughout the letter. Like he says the word joy or something to do with gladness, like 15 or 16 times. And so when, when you get to that part of the verse, it's like, we can go back and look at what he already has said about where our joy is and find it and then and study it that way. So it's, it's kind of a fun, kind of a fun reversal. Hopefully people will like it. God, I love it. I, I, when I was in, uh, I did a graduate degree at Wheaton College, and one of my professors spoke fluent Hebrew. He'd grown up in Israel. And so he spoke fluent Hebrew. And one of his big things was, he wanted us to memorize verses in Hebrew. And so I can still, I'm not going to do it now, but I can.

They'll do Deuteronomy 6, 4, and 5 in Hebrew. And so like sort of as an interesting testimony to the power of memorization, like those are, and that's my family verse like Maggie you were talking about, we have a huge painting with Deuteronomy 6, 5 on it that we've got hung up in our living room. What's that verse? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Yeah, so that's Deuteronomy 6, 4 or 6, 5. Deuteronomy 6, 4 is the Shema, hear O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord alone, depending on your translation. I love it. Yeah, we do get a lot of those questions. Yeah, I'm sure. Anybody out there wondering, we use the NIV. There you go. We'd love to have other translations, but it's just not feasible for us. Yeah, let's just leave it at the NIV. But no, I mean, I think it's a really powerful thing you're doing. And like I said, that one stuck with me. It's been one that I think has shaped the way I think about Scripture, shaped the way I think about theology. And in the same way you're talking about with Philippians, sort of focusing in on this one passage and recognizing how it sort of encapsulates everything that Paul's doing in Philippians. I think there's a lot there when I read the Scriptures like Deuteronomy 6, 4 and 5. I mean, that's what led me to Ezekiel 36. That's what led, you know, like it leads you to all these different places, and it's just super cool to watch how God's Word connects with itself and how these messages can, you know, they're short passages of Scripture that if you know them, you can get big bang for your buck kind of and really understand much bigger parts of Scripture and the way it goes. So I love the idea of the devotional. It sounds great. And honestly, like what I would love to do next, but I don't know that it'll be something that we do, I would love to do another, we actually have a book contract for a second book, like a trade book. And I want to do another selection of verses that are, you know, kind of grouped together in a way. Like this one is verses to help you overcome negative thinking. I would love to do verses to help you share your faith or to know the gospel. Like that's my heart. We'll see if we end up there. We might end up with something totally different, but I'm like, man, wouldn't it be awesome to equip people to share their faith? Like, you know, so oftentimes I think we feel like out of our league and like, well, what would I say? And I kind of know what the Bible says about this, but to like actually be able to quote Scripture and say, this is what the Lord says about this and feel confident to say it. And like, what an awesome conversation starter. Like, oh, what's that tattoo on your arm? Right? Like, oh, let me show you. Let me just share that. That's proving to you. Exactly. No big deal. Exactly. You guys should just, you're just, all you need to do is open up a real tattoo shop and then, you know, like start doing it that way. We have had a lot of people get real tattoos already. I'm sure. All the time. They're always like, is it okay? Or they're just like, you know, send us pictures and we're like, that's amazing. I love it. I'm not a like real tattoo person. I feel like I'm too old. Like it's not that age. But I do love seeing it on people. Like if you're going to choose to get a tattoo, go for it. That's pretty sweet. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Like I can see, like picking your favorite one, right? And then doing the verse and, and you know, those verses are so long, right? So what you just, this letter of the word, but I mean, really like what a conversation starter. Like that's, you know, like someone walking up to you like, what is that? Oh, what are those jumble letters on your arm? Yeah. Let me tell you. Exactly. I mean, It really is a great conversation starter though, because everybody asks about tattoos. I mean. Exactly. Yeah. So when you're wearing your temporary tattoos around, it really is a great opportunity. I'm all the time getting asked by people and getting to share my faith. So oftentimes. I don't know where you'd put your temporary dreams is he's hiding it, but he's. He's got sleeves under there. Yeah, I do have sleeves under here. Yeah. And I get asked about them a lot. And I will say the first one I got was Deuteronomy 6, 4. So my favorite verse is on my upper arm. And then every other one I've gotten has a nice story behind it. Like it has an interesting sort of connection to. My faith, my family, you know, which all that's tied up together anyway. And so I think they'd be great conversation starters and just, you know, sort of amazing ways for people who maybe have trouble breaking the ice. Right. To say, oh yeah, this is what it is. This is what it means. This is, you know, like, I think it's just super cool idea. I love it. Well, we will send you guys some stuff. All right. You, you need to stop talking about getting memberships on. We'll send you something out. We'll get you. We'll get you all covered. Yeah. I love that. You know, Natalie was gracious to, you know, give us materials for, you know, the DL Moody runs the DL Moody center runs a go dark, shine bright social media fast. And so they have donated some resources for that. And, and so it's, it's really amazing. Very cool. We just want to help people memorize God's word. One of the things that we always say that I, I really honestly believe is that it's the, it's the thing. Like if I could give you one thing, whether you're struggling or whether you're trying to make a big decision, if I could look you in the eye and see your deepest need, I would give you God's word because that is the actual thing that is going to help you. Absolutely. When your book comes out your Bible study, I'd love to have you back on and we'll talk Philippians. That would be a lot of fun. Yeah, I would love that. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. This has been great. Any kind of last words for folks? What's, what's the scripture verse for this, this month, just out of curiosity. Are we on Ezekiel still? Is it still Ezekiel 36? Okay. So here's my problem when people ask me that question is like, I'm actually working right now in July. No, you're good. You know, like people be like, what verse are you memorizing this month? And I'm like, what verse are we memorizing this month? I don't know. I already recorded all those videos. I already had all those conversations, you know, way back. Yeah. No, I totally get it. Yeah. Yes. I think it's, I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Yeah. That verse. So folks, if you haven't read it, Ezekiel 36, 26 check it out. Go to dwell differently.com. Check out Ezekiel 36, 26. Amazing passage. Like I said, I was excited to see that you guys were doing that one. I thought it was awesome. So it's been one that I've been kind of playing around with for the last month or month or two, probably. I've been doing some work and that key, that verse just keeps coming up. So really fantastic. And love the work you're doing. That context too is just, it's, it's where you have the dry bones and just like, you know, that the fact that God is the one who, who is the, the actor. He's the one that takes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. He's the one that, you know, breathes life into dry bones and makes them come alive. You know, it's just like, what a beautiful message. And how true is that? Yeah, no, it's amazing. And I think when, when you look at the problem that God intervenes to solve and think that it is the human heart that he's got to soften and turned into flesh. It's like, that is, I think astounding for one. And it sort of reminds us that just how bad off we are and how great the gift that Christ has given us really is. So yeah. Fantastic stuff. Really. Thanks for being on. Thanks for what you do. Encourage people to go to dwell differently.com and check it out. It's I mean, I'm on the site now. I kind of scrolling through it and the stuff looks amazing. Your designs are fantastic. And so I just encourage everybody to go and check it out and start memorizing scripture. You're never going to feel, you're never going to feel bad about it. Well, I would love to also just give, like, while we're sitting here, I'm like, I don't think I gave you guys a code, but we'd love for anybody who's listening, who wants to get their first month free. Just give it a shot. Try it out. We'll give you a code thinking and you just go over there, type in thinking and you'll get your first month free. That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. And folks, we'll put all this in the show notes so you can check it out. And

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