Welcome to Prophetic Documenting
Student Preparation
Adobe Stock Image. Used with permission.
GETTING STARTED
If you are currently working on a scribal project or have a project in mind that you would like to document, I am encouraging you to pull it out for use in this course.
It doesn't matter whether you are at the beginning of your project or the end. Start from where you are! You can use what you learn to launch, evaluate, verify and/or improve your efforts to document.
If you do not have a project, now is a good time to consider where you would like to begin. Use this week to consider those ideas. Your project could be as simple as conducting a series of family interviews and preserving them or as complex as documenting the impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic through the eyes of a loved one in a nursing home or on the frontlines of the crisis. You might be looking for ways to accurately document your own story.
The possibilities are endless. For others, the goal could be to gain skills, know what to look for, and understand how to create credible documentation - whether its audio, video, written interviews, photographs or other artifacts or evidence.
GET ORGANIZED
Organization skills play a key role in documenting. So much so, that while we research, collect, and create what we need for our projects... we must also consider issues of storage, protection, and presentation. Now is the time to think about those things. Not everyone is keen on this part of the process. As a prophetic scribe, however, I've learned to take all the pretense off of organization when working on certain scribal projects and simply think of organizing as "project care and concern." I look at what the project means to me... and I care for it with that same interest.
My husband always says: "You can't remember where you left your keys, but you always seem to know where those books are!" Well, I love my books a lot more than I do those keys... even though I need them. I have found that I am emotionally and spiritually attached to my prophetic projects! Come on! Some of you know what I mean.
From a prophetic perspective, we develop committed relationships with our scribal projects because the Lord's hand is upon them. So my challenge to you is not to create "the perfect" organization process so-to-speak, but to create a "care plan" for your project. One you are willing to nurture and be accountable for before the Lord. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it does need to organized in a way that makes sense to YOU and YOUR process. Below, I've listed some resources that may be of benefit to you. I've also given you my ebooklet resource, "Protecting Your Scribal Projects." Don't forget to download it.
WHAT IS MEANT BY DOCUMENTATION?
Dictionaries collectively define documentation as material that provides official information or evidence that serves as a record. The keyword is official. In journalism that simply means "verifiable by a credible or proven source." I will explain this in great detail later. That documentation is what we call or refer to as "artifacts, evidence, or proof."
For example, let's say I would like to document the life of my sister, "Jane Doe," who is serving on the frontlines during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Let's say I have been regularly interviewing her concerning her life as a nurse in a small-town hard-hit by the virus. One of the first artifacts I might need to provide for my "written story" of her journey for my family is proof that she is a registered nurse.
The documentation that would help me do that would be a photograph of her license as a registered nurse, and perhaps a roster of employees listing her as a nurse on staff, a copy of one of her pay-stubs and dated photos of her with other staff members or even patients inside the hospital in addition to an image of her in uniform wearing her staff badge. This would become "evidence of record" that would - in generations to come - prove that my sister was a real person and a legit nurse working at that specific hospital.
Documentation isn't simply writing - it includes photography, video, physical objects, printed material, some kinds of digital evidence, magazines, newspapers, articles, radio broadcasts, CDs, DVDs, birth records, employment records, gravestones, census records, medical results, DNA tests, etc. The list of document types is endless! In looking at them, however, each one provides avenues and ways to dig further -- helping people weed out truth from lies.
For now, take note of these two definitions: documentation and artifacts. Also, keep in mind that an artifact is an "official record" that has the potential to be beyond dispute. These artifacts can even be archaeological, scientific, medical, anthropological, cultural, etc. We know dinosaurs existed because of indisputable archeological finds. We know people had weapons thousands of years ago because spheres and arrowheads have been dug up with the remains of fossilized people. We know certain insects and animals exist because someone took the time to document them. These things are artifacts or evidence.
1 Chronicles 26:22 KJV, "...the sons of Jehieli, Zetham and his brother Joel. They were in charge of the treasuries of the temple of the Lord." Treasuries were also called storehouses or repositories in the Scripture.
History, documenting, and archiving is EVERYWHERE in the scriptures. Its importance was critical to the making of the Bible. We would not have our varying canons if the books contained in them were not believed to be authentic -- verifiable by some means. Guess what? There are non-biblical artifacts in existence today that prove THE BIBLE. Who knows what archaeological discoveries will produce in the decades to come that open up the scriptures even more!
There are artifacts that tell us "these biblical events happened and these people mentioned in the scriptures really lived." It's no wonder that we find the sons of Jehieli, Zetham and his brother Joel serving in holy, scribal capacities over the treasuries in the temple of the Lord. They were CALLED and CHOSEN to document, protect documents, and archive the histories of our Father's narrative of the congregation and the people of Israel.
Let's get back to 1 Chronicles 26:22. Treasuries were places where the king's RECORDS and WEALTH were stored. They recognized that the wealth of a nation is not just in its money, but in the truth of its histories. These treasuries, storehouses were archives of ARTIFACTS. It would have been guarded and managed by trusted scribes. In addition, the history of the reign of kings, census records, an account of the people, lineages, etc. would have been kept in those repositories as well as a means of preserving history.
Thank God for scribes then and now! The scribes and leaders who had scribal assignments in the Scriptures are responsible for recording the prophetic and natural histories of our canon. DOWNLOAD YOUR E-BOOKLET NOW! REVISED BOOK FOR 2022.