Reasons to Memorize Scripture

"Reasons to Memorize Scripture"
by Vermon Pierre, Lead Pastor

Following from Eddie's post on how to memorize Scripture, here are some good points from John Piper on why to memorize Scripture.

1. Conformity to Christ - Bible memorization has the effect of making our gaze on Jesus steadier and clearer.

2. Daily Triumph over Sin - As sin lures the body into sinful action, we call to mind a Christ-revealing word of Scripture and slay the temptation with the superior worth and beauty of Christ over what sin offers.

3. Daily Triumph over Satan - When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness he recited Scripture from memory and put Satan to flight.

4. Comfort and Counsel for People You Love - When the heart full of God's love can draw on the mind full of God's word, timely blessings flow from the mouth.

5. Communicating the Gospel to Unbelievers - Actual verses of the Bible have their own penetrating power. And when they come from our heart, as well as from the Book, the witness is given that they are precious enough to learn.

6. Communion with God in the Enjoyment of His Person and Ways - The way we commune with (that is, fellowship with) God is by meditating on his attributes and expressing to him our thanks and admiration and love, and seeking his help to live a life that reflects the value of these attributes.

Thoughts on the Music from 5/23/10

Thoughts on the Music from 5/23/10
by Alden Powers, Director of Music @RCC

Ahh! It’s nice to play some electric guitar for the Lord again! With Karla our bass player out on maternity leave for the last two months, I’ve been picking up the bass duties with Joey supplying the guitar. I do enjoy grooving along on the bass, and Joey’s been a great addition to the worship team, but it is definitely A LOT easier to lead worship from the guitar. With the electric I am free to do more riffs and explore more sounds.

Praise God that Karla has a beautiful, healthy baby girl and now she is ready to serve again! Praise God that He has given us another guitar player in Joey and praise God that we can now be more flexible with our instrumentation!

“Father of Lights”

We began our worship by praising God for being such a great God. He loves us and delights in His children. He supplies us with every good and perfect gift. He is eternal and unchanging. For many of us, we tend to spend our week thinking that our problems and our sins are greater than God. Singing a song like this helps us to re-focus our attention on the awesome God we have.

“The Father’s Love”

Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father, and there is no greater gift than His Son Jesus Christ. We come together and sing praises to the Father because we are now called Children of God through faith in His Son. What great assurance we have of our salvation! This is a great song from Sovereign Grace’s CD Sons and Daughters.

“Praise God”

We continued to praise God with two well-known hymns done a different way. Our arrangement of “The Doxology” is taken from several sources. The original verse has been a mainstay in traditional Lutheran liturgies for generations. Bob Kauflin wrote the other verses we sang in 2000. Our bass player Karla Miller wrote the bridge of the song in 2008.

“What a Friend We Have in Jesus”

Christ is our creator and redeemer. He is also our closest friend. I definitely try to avoid songs that imply “Jesus is my homeboy” theology, but we do know from scripture that Jesus calls us friends (John 15:15) and that God knows us better than anyone else. We cannot be ashamed to bring EVERYTHING to the Lord in our prayers.

Just because we sing a song once doesn’t mean we can’t sing it again; I have not found any biblical commands to do this. So after we sang the verses to “What a Friend” we simply went back and sang the bridge to “Praise God”, as well as the original verse. Reprising songs gives us a chance to further reflect on the truths we are singing about. Sometimes after singing a different song, the words we sing on the reprise have a stronger meaning.

“Give Me Jesus”

After the sermon we responded to the preached word with a very pretty song by Fernando Ortega (aren’t all his songs pretty?). Jesus isn’t someone we connect with on Sunday. We need Him morning, noon, night, when we are alone and when we die.

“Blessed Are the Sons of God”

This is an original arrangement that the RCC worship team has worked up over time. John-Mark’s sermon was about the importance of Church community. I thought this might be a good song to respond to this with. In hindsight, it might have been better to sing this during the first singing set. It might have fit better. Thanks be to God that we have 52 Sundays a year to improve our worship experience!

10 Tips for Memorizing Scripture

"10 Tips for Memorizing Scripture"
by Eddie Cross, Roosevelt's Web Site Coordinator


In light of our new monthly memory verses, here is a short list of tips that can help those of you who are either looking to participate or are working through your own memorization schedule.

1. Find a memorization partner

Talk to people in your home group and see if anyone would be interested in joining you. Check-in with one another once a week and review where you are and what you have learned about the scripture you are working on. By offering our insights and keeping tabs on another, we grow relationships and build accountability.

2. Break-up the verse into segments

It is much easier to memorize verses in portions, rather than trying to absorb the entire passage once. Consider the following verse:

2 Timothy 2:2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. (ESV)

 Slice up the sentence into pieces that seem natural to you (it is important to include the reference, either at the beginning, the end, or both). Here is what works for me:

2 Timothy 2:2

and what you have heard from me

in the presence of many witnesses

entrust to faithful men

who will be able to teach others also.
2 Timothy 2:2

 Once this is done, work on one piece at a time.

3. Recall as often as possible

This tip is related to the one above it. Once you split the verse in question into manageable chunks and are ready to begin with the first part, try not to read it repeatedly. Instead, read it once, then try to recall what you just read, saying it out loud or in your head. You will find that the more you use your recollection rather than your reading skills, the more accurately you will be able to recall the verse later – it works to cement the verse into your long-term memory. Picture the words being branded into your brain, deeper and more striking after each repetition.

4. Memorize to a beat

This is a useful method that many people don’t consider. I thought it may be hard to explain this tip by text alone, so click here for a verbal explanation.

5. Write the verse down

Perhaps this one is for those of you who were disciplined as a child by being assigned a particular statement to write out a certain number of times to teach you your lesson. Exciting debates about disciplinary methods aside, this process works quite well for some (less “green”) people. Essentially, you simply write out the verse over and over again on a sheet of paper. I personally prefer the above strategies, but try it yourself and see if it aids in your mission of memorization.

6. Schedule time to practice

It does not have to be very long, but five to fifteen minutes should suffice, depending on the amount you are attempting to memorize at any given time. Whatever number of minutes you decide to allocate, stick with it – ‘em verses ain’t gonna memorize themselves! Prime times are while you wait for your coffee to brew every morning; before or after your daily Bible reading; when you sit down for lunch; heading to the parking lot a few minutes early before waiting to pick up your kids from a daily activity; as you lay in bed when you wake up/are going to sleep, etc. I have even heard of people who have written their verse on a card, placed the card in a plastic bag, then hung the bag in the shower so they could fit their practice into their busy daily schedule. This leads us to our next tip...

7. Carry your verses with you

Whether by flash card, smart phone, iPod, tablet PC, mini-chalk board, elaborate tattoo…just be sure to transfer your verses onto something mobile that you can pull out and use to practice if and when you stumble upon some down time. For example, I ride the bus or light rail fairly regularly, affording me ample time to sneak in a few practice sessions once in awhile. I am confident you can use your creative genius to imagine situations in your own life that may arise which would give you the same opportunity.

8. Study the content of the verse

Let’s say you are choosing to memorize one verse a week. Choose a day or two, preferably near the beginning of the week, and set aside time to study and meditate upon the meaning of the scripture you have chosen. Use various resources – commentaries, Study Bible notes, sermons, prayer, the opinion of a wandering neighborhood kid – to supplement your memorization and enhance your meditations. John Piper’s website has a wonderful resource library with a scripture index that allows you to query for any sermon, conference message, article, book, poem or study guide associated with any given passage of scripture.

9. Review past verses

O, 'tis sad when wisdom is lost with the passage of time! Does it not seem as though it should otherwise, that we grow in wisdom and knowledge as time progresses? Once you are all memory experts, do not allow thyself to slip into the sins of pride and slothfulness! On top of the time you schedule to memorize your new chosen verses, be sure to consistently revisit past choices. Keep a master list of all the scripture you have memorized, then during a separate time, simply go down the list and practice each verse. There is no need to go down the entire list in one sitting - the idea is that you stay familiar with what you have already worked through.

10. Apply the verse to everyday circumstances

Keep things practical; do not fall into the trap of separating your memorization from your sanctification or the edification of The Body. If you are memorizing a verse concerning anger, recall it to mind when you experiencing a bout of frustration. If a friend is seeking counsel on how to talk to her coworkers about the Gospel, share the Gospel-centric verse you memorized a few weeks ago. If you are walking through nature and witnessing the beauty of His creation, pray a verse about His glory in creation that you worked on 3 months ago. You get the idea.

What are some other tips that have helped you in the past? 
Please, comment below and share your experiences.

Reflections on the Music from 5/16/10

Reflections on the Music from 5/16/10
by Alden Powers, Worship Leader @Roosevelt Community Church

As I mentioned in last week’s blog, the music I pick for the opening set tries to follow a progression from acknowledging our sinfulness and need of salvation, being assured of our salvation and praising God for our salvation. To this end, here are the songs I picked and why.

“More Like You”

Lincoln Brewster’s song “More Like You” sets the worshipper in the right mindset. Using Isaiah 55:9: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”; we acknowledge that we are sinful and God is Holy. Until we admit this, we can never truly worship God because we will have a wrong idea of who God is. God is the supreme, righteous, holy, wrathful, loving and eternal God and we are his fallen creation. We need to be more like Him, and not the other way around which our sinful nature tempts us to feel.

“You Are Good”

So if we are to be more like God, then what is God like? God is good … … ALL THE TIME. He is never changing and his mercy endures forever. Israel Houghton’s song “You Are Good” is a great song to sing about this.

“Those Who Trust”

Now we begin the “assurance” part of our singing. As Psalm 125 tells us, those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, they cannot be moved. When we put our faith in the Lord Jesus and now live for Him, then we will be unmovable and eternal like our great God.

Reading

I then read a passage from Mark Dever’s book The Gospel and Personal Evangelism. The passage in mind is a great reminder of what exactly this good news is that we celebrate and proclaim to the world. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to grow in their evangelistic skills.

“Forever Blessed be the Lord”

This is an arrangement of an old hymn done by Park Slope Church. It’s on an album called Kingsborough Hymns Vol. 1. Now that we have assurance that we stand forgiven because of the righteous sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we rejoice and sing “Allelujah! Allelujah! His shall be the praise!"

“Jesus Draw Me Close”

I love to sing this song after communion. It’s a great song we can sing to help us now recommit our lives to worshiping and obeying Jesus Christ.,which is what is called of us after partaking in the Lord’s Table.

The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation

The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation by Michael Reeves
A Review by Dennae Pierre

The Unquenchable Flame by Michael Reeves gives us a glimpse into a world where “justification by faith alone” was a truth that had been "hidden" from the Christian world for a long time. It reminds us there was a time when hundreds of years passed in which believers had little direct access to the Bible and were often at the mercy of a priest to explain God’s living word to them.

This work reminds us that Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Tyndale, Knox, and many others spent their lives and often died for the Reformation. They did so because they knew that central to the heart of the gospel is the fact that we can only be justified (be made right with God) through the blood of Christ Jesus. They ached for people to know that they could not merit God’s favor through works and good deeds.

A basic understanding of the Reformation should drive each of us into God’s word with greater fervor. As a Puritan once said,

“Lord, whatsoever thou dost to us, take not thy Bible from us; kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods; only spare us thy Bible, only take not away thy Bible.”

This statement may sound extreme in a Christian culture where we all have multiple Bibles in our home yet still “struggle” to find the time or the desire to read God’s word but, as Reeves explains “for the Puritan, the Bible was the most valuable thing this world affords.” How I pray that would be true for me as well!

I just finished reading this book and enjoyed every paragraph. If you love history, especially church history, you will enjoy this book. If you don’t like to read and especially do not like history, I still think you will enjoy this book because Reeves uses words to paint such a vivid picture of the Reformation.

Roosevelt Worship Matters

Roosevelt Worship Matters
by Alden Powers, Music Director @Roosevelt Community Church

When I was asked to contribute to the blog, I wasn’t really sure how I could contribute. I’m not much of a blogger. I try to spend as little time on the internet as possible. I’ll check email, glance at my Facebook, check email again, maybe back to Facebook, read a Bob Kauflin blog and call it a day. Maybe when I’m really bored I’ll actually check my Myspace page (does anyone actually do that anymore?)!

So I thought this blog would be a great place to share some of my thoughts about the music ministry at Roosevelt Community Church. My plan is to share insights into the songs we do from week to week during Sunday Worship. Hopefully I can share with you the biblical and theological reasons for singing the songs that we sing. So this week, I’d like to share with you some of my philosophy on why I lead worship the way I do.

With all of our Sunday services, my goal is to:

“magnify the greatness of God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit by skillfully combining God’s word with music. Thereby motivating the gathered church to proclaim the Gospel, to cherish God’s presence and to live for God’s glory.” (Quote by Bob Kauflin).

Whenever we come together as the gathered church, we are called to proclaim the greatness of God and worship Him for who He is, and what He accomplished on the cross through His son Jesus Christ. Doing this can take many different forms and look different from week to week. We can do this with any style of music, and I think we should do this with as many different styles as possible (Col 3:16).

RCC’s style seems to be contemporary choruses, traditional hymns done in a modern way, quasi-country and some gospel and rap. While it’s important to be diverse because God’s kingdom is diverse, I try to stay within genres that I feel our worship team can do reasonably well. We have been blessed with musicians from all different backgrounds and styles that love the Lord more than the music that they play.

However, we can’t all be good at everything. We stay away from classical or traditional styles because we don’t have those kinds of people in our church that can play that well (i.e., an organist). We also don’t sing in Spanish for the same reason. With our limited instrumentation it’s difficult to do Gospel all the time. Gospel tends to sound best with a large band and lots of singers. Because we are limited in stage size, it’s difficult to have a large group or a choir.

God has given us what we have and it is important to be faithful with that. God does not need our voices or instruments to glorify Himself, but he does enjoy our worship and I praise Him for that.

We also want to be diverse with the content of the songs we sing. There are many great hymns that are very theologically rich. There are also many contemporary songs out there now that are rich in this way too. There are also very simple songs that allow us to rejoice in the Lord without thinking too much about the words. I think it’s good to have a balance of both.

I think it’s important to sing songs with a lot of theology because we can learn from them. Sometimes it’s easier to remember a song than scripture or the sermon. However, too much of these kinds of songs can be overload. They tend to be hard to learn and if we sing too many of them then the congregation spends too much time thinking about the words and not entering into God’s presence.

The simple songs are a good antidote for the more theological songs because they give us a chance to simply rejoice in the Lord and sing His praise from the depth of our hearts. But if we get into the habit of singing too many simple songs, then we miss a valuable opportunity to learn about the character of God.

I always avoid choosing songs that are theologically vague or inaccurate. Sadly, there are many songs being sung in the church today that are like this. “Jesus is My Boyfriend” songs are unacceptable at RCC. If a song sounds like they took a love song and replaced “baby” with “Jesus” then we won’t sing it.

For the opening set of singing, we try to follow some kind of progression from acknowledging our sinfulness, being assured of our salvation and rejoicing in our Lord for the Gospel. This can be accomplished several different ways. We might do this with one or two songs that emphasize one of each category. We might do one of these with a scripture reading. Sometimes one song might cover all three. We also try to frame these songs within the context of that week’s sermon text. Sometimes this is easier to do than other times. But in any event, the goal of the first set is to come into God’s presence and Worship Him. We are called to do this regardless of the sermon topic.

We usually reserve the singing we do after the sermon to respond to the sermon we just heard. In scripture, we see numerous examples of God’s people worshipping after hearing the word of God (Neh 8). I don’t think it’s enough to hear a sermon and just go home. We should respond to what we have heard and worship God for the message that His word is delivering to our particular church community at this particular time.

If you want to learn more about worship, I recommend visiting worshipmatters.com. There are tons and tons of great articles about all aspects of worship and leading worship.