How to help your children successfully memorize Scripture March 20, 2009

I attended my first homeschool conference when my oldest child was only two years old. (Let’s just say I’m a little eager in the homeschooling department.) Anyways, I bought some CD’s of workshops given by Rick and Marilyn Boyer, who were featured speakers at the conference that year.  The Boyers, who have a double-digit number of children, spoke of how they use the Scriptures to train their children. I was truly inspired by what I heard and by how deliberately they applied the Scriptures on a daily basis in the raising of their children, especially with Scripture memorization. It was at that point I started regular Scripture memorization with my daughter (who is now 4 1/2) and I haven’t looked back since.  Over the last couple of months, I’ve started the same thing with my two-year old son.  A year ago, I also started working with my daughter on memorizing the Baptist Catechism and we have successfully memorized  almost half of it. (I say “we” because it’s inevitable that I will memorize it, too. We memorize what we hear over and over.)

For those who want to teach their little ones (and even some of their bigger ones!) Scripture memorization, I thought I would give some tips based on my own experience on how to be successful at it. I hope you find this helpful.

1. It has to be important to you! If you don’t think memorizing Scripture has any real value, then your children won’t think so either. (And in case you don’t think it’s useful, here’s a good post on the benefits of young children memorizing the Scriptures.)You must have a passion for the Scriptures and let your children see your passion. Also, notice that I didn’t say it has to be important to them. Remember, our children are at best baby Christians and very likely they may not be regenerate at all. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the day when your child approaches you and says “I’ve been thinking that memorizing Scripture is a good discipline for me to develop. I want to hide God’s Word in my heart so I might not sin against Him. Could you help me get started?” In all likelihood, this is not going to happen. To be honest, I know very few mature adult Christians who undertake the discipline of systematic Scripture memorization. But as Lou Priolo says in his book Teach Them Diligently, you want your children to “catch your enthusiasm for the Scriptures”. So, what are we to do until that happens? See number 4 below.
2. Give it a scheduled time in your routine. In other words, make it a habit. Our scheduled time is at breakfast. It’s understood by my children that this is what we do at breakfast. We eat. I read a devotion or a Bible story. We practice verses. We practice the catechism. We clean up.  I think it’s wonderful to do Scripture memorization together during a family worship time or Bible study time. It shows that Scripture memorization is important and necessary for every one in the family and not just them. Also, I’m sure our children would love to quiz us on their memory verses. Other times that may work for your family could be after supper or during the ride to school.
3. Have a plan of action. Of course, you don’t have to purchase a scripture memorization program for your child, but because the Bible is so vast, it helps to have a little bit of direction. We chose to start with Foundation Verses by Children Desiring God Ministries. My daughter has finished these, so now we’re working on the verses that go with Wise Words for Moms by Ginger Plowman. The Sunday School program at your church may also have memory verses. Or maybe your child struggles in a particular area. Memorizing verses in this area would be a good place to start. Ephesians 6:1 has always been number one on our list!
4. Be prepared for your child to say “I don’t want to do this”. Even though I don’t get much resistance anymore, I guarantee you that my daughter would rather be dancing around the living room in her tutu and big cowboy boots than be sitting at the table and memorizing verses. And I’m sure just about every other kid on the planet can think of at least one thing that they would rather be doing than memorizing verses. But there are many things that parents will make their children do even if they “don’t want to”.  For example, how many parents would let their children go for days without brushing their teeth just because they didn’t want to?  Is Scripture memorization any less important? When I hear the “I don’t want to do this” complaint, I have one short answer that I sometimes give: “I understand that you don’t want to do it. Sometimes Mommy has to do things she doesn’t want to do, too. But we’re still going to do it”. However, I often expound this a little when I’m dealing with Scripture memorization (or even listening to a devotion or the Bible  being read). I say “God created us. God loves us. He sent his own Son to die for us even though we didn’t deserve it. He gave us His Word so we could know who He is and how we can please Him. It is the sin in our hearts that makes us not want to take time to learn and read God’s Word. Memorizing God’s Word is important because it hides it in our hearts so that we might not sin against Him. Now, would you like to work on your verses or catechism first?”"
5. Understand that it doesn’t take THAT much time. I think our entire breakfast time takes maybe thirty minutes. That includes the eating, the refilling of cereal bowls (a few times for my son), refilling milk glasses, making additional pieces of toast, preparing the baby’s breakfast, feeding the baby, asking my son “how are we supposed to be when mommy is reading?” and listening to my son answer “quiet” (repeatedly), the reading of our devotion, reviewing verses with my son and practicing a new one, ditto for my daughter, reviewing the Catechism, and practicing a new question with my daughter. Now understand that I do some of these things simultaneously. But I noticed this morning that in the time it took to make my daughter a third piece of toast, she had said all 15 of the review verses I wanted her to do today. She was finishing the last one when the toast popped up. It really doesn’t take that much time…..and that includes review. I would suggest just scheduling a time to do it (number 2 above). You’d be surprised at what you can accomplish in ten minutes!
6. Application, Application, Application! We want God’s Word to be relevant to our little ones. We want them to see how they need it. It’s so important to apply it.  In fact, we want it to teach, reprove, correct, and train in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). Also, seeing how it applies to them will help motivate them to learn it. You may think that you don’t know God’s Word well enough to minister it to your children. Well, I feel that way sometimes, too. But you know what? We have to start somewhere and trust God to bring it to fruition. Remember His promise in Isaiah 55:11 :“so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” We’ll all get better in the application department by the grace of God as we spend time in God’s Word. We can pray and ask the Lord to help us apply His Word daily in our life and our children’s lives. Actually, I’ve found that as we’ve memorized verses, the Lord has brought them to my mind at appropriate times to apply them in our day to day life. Wise Words for Moms is an excellent resource for application because it is organized by the problems that inevitably arise with children. Lou Priolo’s book Teach Them Diligently: How to Use the Scriptures in Child Training is also a good resource.
7. Technical Considerations So, how do you actually do Scripture memorization? The Foundation Verses that I mentioned earlier have a picture associated with each verse that can be very helpful. Setting verses to music can also be useful. Here’s a post that lists a couple music resources. For a long time now, I have let my children listen to music Scripture CD’s at naptime and bedtime, and I can testify that music does work!  They can memorize effortlessly this way. However, I don’t let them listening to music be a substitute for me interacting with them with their memory verses. (See number 1 above about showing your passion for the Scriptures). I want them to know that learning their verses is more important than memorizing “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt” (or anything else that finds its way into their CD player). Scripture memory time and Catechism memory time with my daughter go something like this. I read the new verse (or question) a couple of times. I then take one section and have her repeat after me. We do this a few times and then we say that section together three times. She then tries it on her own with my help. We repeat this daily until she has it memorized. We always review verses she has already learned. Now, as we learn more verses, it becomes impossible to review all of them everyday. We usually review 10-15 verses per day. Right now, a verse gets reviewed every week and a half or so. Newer verses get reviewed daily. Sometimes, I’ll start a new verse and I find that she already knows it from one of her CD’s. We talk about it, it goes in our review pile and we start a new one. Now, for my 2 year old, things work a bit differently. He doesn’t quite have the concept of “repeat after me”. So I say the verse and he tries to say it with me. Eventually, we’re saying the same thing at the same time! I also stop sometimes and he will fill in the missing word. Once he can say the verse by himself, we move onto a new one. Let me add at this point, that you have to be patient. Kids learn at different paces, and they’re more attentive on some days than others. My daughter has greatly improved in her memorization skills the more we do it. I think this is probably the rule rather than the exception.  They eventually get the hang of it. I also think that as they learn that they can memorize, it motivates them to press forward and not be intimidated by longer passages or catechism questions.

I hope these suggestions will be helpful to someone. The task of teaching Scripture to our children must be bathed in prayer. Only God can change our children’s hearts. We have to pray that as we plant these seeds in their hearts that the Lord will make them grow!

Secular Humanism a Religion? December 16, 2008

Article from Australia:

Religion in schools to go God-free

Michael Bachelard
December 14, 2008

VICTORIAN state primary school students will soon have an alternative — religious education lessons taught by people who do not believe in God and say there is “no evidence of any supernatural power”.

The Humanist Society of Victoria has developed a curriculum, which the State Government accreditation body says it intends to approve, to deliver 30-minute lessons each week of “humanist applied ethics” to primary pupils.

Accredited volunteers will be able to teach their philosophy in the class time designated for religious instruction. As with lessons delivered by faith groups, parents will be able to request that their children do not participate.

Victorian Humanist Society president Stephen Stuart said: “Atheistical parents will be pleased to hear that humanistic courses of ethics will soon be available in some state schools.”

Read rest of article

I actually commend them for putting humanism in the “religious” category, because that is exactly what it is. Humanism is the “belief that humanity is the highest of all beings and truth and knowledge rest in science and human reason.” (Noebel, Understanding the Times) It is atheistic. Paul Kurtz, the editor of Free Inquiry, a Secular Humanism magazine, says “Humanism cannot in any fair sense of the word apply to one who still believes in God as the source and creator of the universe. Christian Humanism would be possible only for those willing to admit that they are atheistic Humanists. It surely does not apply to God-intoxicated believers.” (The Humanist Alternative, 178)

David Noebel in his book Understanding the Times discusses the worldview of secular humanism and addresses the issue of secular humanism as a religion.

On pg. 34, Noebel writes:

Secular humanism is the dominant worldview in our secular colleges and universities. It has also made gains in many Christian colleges and universities (especially in the areas of biology, sociology, politics and history.)

……….

Secular humanists recognize the classroom as a powerful context for indoctrination. Since they understand that many worldviews exist and are competing for adherents, they believe they must use the classroom to flush out “unenlightened” worldviews and to encourage students to embrace their worldview. Secular humanism, operating under the educational buzzword “liberalism,” controls the curriculum in America’s public schools thanks to the National Education Association, the National Academy of Sciences, and a host of foundations including the Ford Foundation. Christianity has been deliberately, some would say brilliantly, erased from America’s educational system. The same has been the case in all Western nations for a number of years.

On pg. 35-36, Noebel writes of secular humanism as a religious organization and quotes Paul Kurtz (an author of the Humanist Manifesto II (1973)) in his writings “Is Secular Humanism a Religion?” Free Inquiry (Winter 1986/87): 5 and Eupraxophy: Living Without Religion (Buffalo, NY): Prometheus, 1989), 80.:

Kurtz–who has written a book that denies that Humanism is a religion throughout its first half and, in the second half, encourages the establishment of Humanist churches, calling them Eupraxophy Centers–admits that the organized Humanist movement in America is put in a quandry over whether Humanism is a religion. Why? Simply because “the Fellowship of Religious Humanists (300 members), the American Ethical Union (3,000 members), and the Society for Humanistic Judaism (4,000 members) consider themselves to be religious. Even the American Humanist Association,” says Kurtz, “has a [501(c)3] religious tax exemption.”

Kurtz’s recent denial that Secular Humanism is a religion is not based on truth; it is a calculated political maneuver. Kurtz seeks to dodge the all-important question: If Secular Humanism is a religion, then what is it doing in the public schools? If Christianity is thrown out of secular schools under the guise of separation of church and state, why shouldn’t we banish Secular Humanism as well? Kurtz understands this, admitting that if Secular Humanism is a religion, “then we would be faced with a violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

Humanists attempt to downplay their violation of the present interpretation of the First Amendment by claiming that they present a neutral viewpoint. But no educational approach is neutral, as Richard A. Baer notes: “Education never takes place in a moral and philosophical vacuum. If the larger questions about human beings and their destiny are not being asked and answered within a predominantly Judeo-Christian framework [worldview], they will be addressed with another philosophical or religious framework–but hardly one that is ‘neutral.’”

Don’t teach it as true in Sweden October 24, 2007

October 18, 2007 Guardian Unlimited

Andrew Brown

God’s honest truth?

The Swedish government is making it illegal for schools to teach religious doctrine as if it were true. Britain should follow suit.

The Swedish government has announced plans to clamp down hard on religious education. It will soon become illegal even for private faith schools to teach religious doctrines as if they were true. In an interesting twist on the American experience, prayer will remain legal in schools – after all, it has no truth value. But everything that takes place on the curriculum’s time will have to be secular. “Pupils must be protected from every sort of fundamentalism,” said the minister for schools, Jan Björklund.

Read entire article.

Permission to reincarnate August 22, 2007

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue – In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.”(full article)

Yes, you read that correctly. The laughable part of this is obvious.Of course, it’s also very sad. The article mentions that a Barna survey found that 25% of Christians, including 10% of all born-again Christians, “embrace it as their favored end-of-life view.” How sad. How clueless.

On the subject of reincarnation, John MacArthur has this to say:

Romans 1:18 says, “The wrath of God is revealed,” right? and that is the heart and soul of the Gospel, that God is going to pour out wrath on sinful man. Now, how can man deny that? So that’s his dilemma, he doesn’t want to accept God, he doesn’t want to accept the truth, he doesn’t want to accept the gospel. So somehow he’s got to replace this concept of judgment. The Bible says in Hebrews 9:27, “It’s appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.” So the Bible denies reincarnation in that one verse.

Now, at that point the system of man says, we deny judgment. In 2nd Peter it says, “Where is the promise of His coming, all things continue as they were from the beginning…” so forth and so forth…they don’t want to admit judgment. Now the way they get out of judgment is by this constant cycle of reincarnation, you’re never judged, you just keep cycling through human existence again and again, there’s no consequences to what you do, except a lowering or a raising of your karma in life. It is a calculated design to evade the reality of judgment.