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We’ll tell you in 45 seconds! You’ll also get everything you need to dig into the Bible the way your unique personality craves!
You’ll also get everything you need to dig into the Bible the way your unique personality craves!
our
STORY
a behind-the-scenes look at how this ministry came to be
Author and Bible teacher Jane Johnson founded Dig Your Well® in 2022 in response to the one question she is most often asked:
“How did you learn to the study the Bible that way?”
The short answer? Over the years, Jane taught herself to dig deeper beneath the surface of the Bible, searching for what was missing from the commentaries she loved to read — the lived experience of a woman waiting for her body to do what it was created to do, but could not.
She began sharing the things she was digging up—first on her blog, then on stages. When women attending the events she spoke at began asking her how to study the Bible the way she did, Jane created a simple how-to pdf that would eventually be morphed into Mercy Like Morning, and, eventually, the School of Scripture.
Our mission is to teach an entire generation of women how to study the Bible for themselves so that they can teach the next.
Keep reading for the backstory of the “Dig Your Well” name, as told by Jane in her first book, Mercy Like Morning. Here's an excerpt:
“I stood in Shawna’s kitchen, looking at photographs on the refrigerator as she expertly pulled shots from the espresso machine in the corner. The motor hummed and the caramel-colored liquid trickled out. She poured it into a cup of ice before topping it off with a swirl of canned whipped cream and a quick finish of sprinkled cinnamon.
“Handing the glass to me and keeping one for herself, she led me into the living room and we took our perch on the well-worn, deep purple couch. Kaleb was stirring in his crib upstairs, not yet asleep. And Shawna began asking the kind of questions you ask someone in the throes of a brand-new discipleship-based friendship.
“Where are you from?
Do you have any siblings?
What is your major?
Tell me your life story.
“This happened once a week—this sharing of learned life lessons. Week by week, we sat there swallowed up in her couch, reading different parts of the Bible alongside commentaries for explanation and insight and application. Shawna knew well that she didn’t have to be a Bible teacher in order to disciple-teach.
“Natural conversation followed. The simplest ones that always lead to the deeper ones. The ones that have grit and meaning.
“The ones that stick to your bones.
“‘Dig your well,’ Shawna said one day. I had been lamenting my struggle through singleness when the pastor’s wife [who would later become my best friend] taught me her most important life lesson. It was a reference from Psalm 84:6 and the people who pilgrim-pass through the Valley of Baca and make it a spring—or, as it can also be translated, a well. The pilgrims traveling through drew water from that spring-well before continuing on their way.
“‘Dig your well for yourself,’ she said, ‘and also for the people who follow along after you. And do it now, while you are single and can dig a little bit deeper and linger a little bit longer.’ She had a point. I really had nothing else to do but pass the hours drinking coffee, studying for exams, working my part-time job, and dreaming of how the rest of my life would shape up.
“Shawna had been digging her own well for years with regular quiet times, letting God fill it with the water of His Word. And on those afternoons, I sipped her handmade iced coffee and drank from her dug-out-well wisdom.
“Of all the things she taught me, that was what stuck. To dig down—and dig deep. Every day, coming to God’s presence whether or not I wanted to, whether or not I had the time or the inclination. In the good days and the ones full of tears. Dig in and dig down and dig deep into His Word. So that when life got busy, and there was marriage and a mortgage and little ones at my morning-feet, I could draw from my dug-out-daily well.
“And when I walked through the desert, I could drink from it.”
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Josh texted me yesterday at 1:03pm that something was going down. Everyone with a cop or a fire fighter was headed east on Empire (the street right by our house - east toward the kids’ school.)
At 1:36, we got the notification that their school was on lockdown. We had no idea why. Twenty minutes after that, we learned of the active shooter at Silver Rail elementary, four miles away.
I shared these slides on my stories yesterday afternoon. And last evening, Rinnah (my always drawing daughter who would rather write something than say it) slipped me a note.
“Today is the worst day ever,” she wrote. She is six. “All i want to do is lay on you and snuggle.”
The details that are emerging are horrific. A 16-year-old armed with a shotgun entered a special ed classroom and began shooting. One of the children was a 7-year-old girl who is in a wheelchair. He shot her in the face.
The relief I feel that it wasn’t our kids’ school cannot be quantified. It’s also mingled with guilt because there are parents right here in my very own community whose children were not, and are not coming home.
Please PLEASE pray for Bend. For the parents who have to bury a child. For the sweet babes in that special ed classroom, and for the families of the teacher who died trying to protect them.
It’s unfathomable when this hits so close to home. And it’s absolutely devastating for all of us - especially the teachers who have the hard and holy gift of keeping very frightened children calm while trying desperately to keep themselves calm and hold it all together.
This is not the world our children should be growing up in. Lord, have mercy.
I cannot tell you how much I needed to read the email that arrived from my publisher this morning telling me that Worthy is No.18 on ECPA’s bestseller list from the last three months at Christian bookstores NATIONWIDE.
I can say, unequivocally, that these last seven months have been the hardest of my life, and a small piece of that was what I thought was a total flop of a book launch. But I had NO idea what God was doing behind the scenes. I prayed so many times, “God, I’ve done my part. The rest is up to You.”
This morning, He pulled back the curtain to give me a peek at what I can’t see. And I’m absolutely undone by it. 😭😭😭
If you already have your copy, THANK YOU for your support! If not, head over to digmywell.com/worthy to read the first 28 pages for FREE (or comment “Worthy” and I’ll DM you the link to purchase)!
There are days that you dig and days that you drink. And I’m over here, just putting my money where my mouth is and drinking from my own well for a little while. 🤎
I’ve been living inside of these wordless prayers lately, the ones I can’t quite articulate and am wholly anxious for Him to move on, to move in, to move through.
These words are an excerpt of my new book, Worthy. Comment “worthy” to get a link to buy your copy today. And, if you’ve already received yours and spent the last handful of weeks working through its pages, can I ask you a favor? Will you leave a review on Amazon or wherever you purchased it, even if you haven’t finished it? It’s so helpful for potential readers to hear even your early experience with the book. 🤎
We booked a last minute trip to Maui on a whim five days before we flew out to squeeze out every last second of summer that we could. But it was more than just a quick trip or a visit home. It was revisiting a place where God moved in ways that have forever changed me.
I cried when we landed, the movie reel of miracles and deep heart healing God did here flashing through my mind in vivid color. And I cried when we left again four nights later.
I was eight years into our wait for a family when we moved here, 36 weeks pregnant with Jonathan when we left. And last weekend we returned to one of my favorite beaches to photograph sunset memories for families I’d never met back in my days as a portrait photographer. Only this time, my family was the subject. I’m a decade removed from our first miracle and I’m still not over it all.
And I never, ever will be.
@loveandwater thanks so much for offering to shoot when I asked to borrow a tripod. This session was everything I didn’t know I needed.
