I wanted to share a little about one of our family's favorite ways to memorize Scripture: the Fighter Verses from Children Desiring God. Let me first give a short overview of what the Fighter Verses are, and then I'll share about how we use them.
Fighter Verses have a long history at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, first beginning in a sunday school class and then eventually being recommended to the whole church body as a memorization tool. Fighter verses cover a breadth of Scripture from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and they have different tracks aimed at different groups of people (children {foundation verses}, general memorizers {sets 1-5, this is what we've worked on}, and long time memorizers {extended verses, which cover larger chunks of the Scripture}. The sets 1-5 are organized to cover one passage per week, given 52 weeks per year, for five years (260 verses/passages altogether - some are split up over a few weeks if they are longer passages). Another exciting thing about these verses is that most of them have been put to music, making it easier to memorize and review them.
Here is a little more about the Fighter Verses from Children Desiring God:
When our family first heard about Fighter Verses, we were excited to check them out. We bought a few of the CDs and began listening to them in the car. That would have been late 2014, and we enjoyed the songs so much that I downloaded the Fighter Verse App and began learning the verses for 2015 (set 5) with the kids every morning. The app is so easy to open up and use, and it has great features like: songs, audio reading of verse, as well as different quizzes to test your memory. One other thing that I really appreciate about the songs is that they are all word for word from the ESV translation. This is huge to me that the song writers aren't adding in their own phrases or moving words around (sometimes they do repeat a phrase and at the beginning or end they'll sometimes add in a few words that summarize the verse, but never as a part of the actual verse). Additionally, the verse reference (Psalm 1, for example) is sung at the beginning and end of every song so that it is easy to keep up with the verses. Now that it is 2016, Set 1 has begun again. This is the set we first started with in the car, so we already have it mostly memorized, but we are going through them again, week by week, talking about some of the meanings of the words and the implications. We have also stuck a new CD in the car so that we can begin learning another set.
Here is one of our favorite songs from set 5:
In our family music is something that we all enjoy, and so it is quite nice to have a decent selection of songs from the Scripture that we all know well. Enoch often requests that we sing him one of these songs before bedtime now, as well as during family worship and randomly throughout the day. One other exciting thing to me about these verses is that they are oftentimes referenced in sermons. It is so encouraging when our pastor is preaching and he references a Scripture we already know and half-way through him reading it, Enoch looks up at Hugh or I with a big smile because he already knows that verse. It definitely piques his interest level and makes him listen closely!
If you are at all interested in memorizing Scripture, I would highly recommend the Fighter Verses to you! There are plenty of resources and tips on their website, and you can even download the songs from this link. There is such reward in hiding God's word in your heart (as well as your childrens' hearts). Happy memorizing! (The video below includes some of the music, a few testimonies, and a behind-the-scenes look at the songs.)
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Fighter Verses have a long history at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, first beginning in a sunday school class and then eventually being recommended to the whole church body as a memorization tool. Fighter verses cover a breadth of Scripture from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and they have different tracks aimed at different groups of people (children {foundation verses}, general memorizers {sets 1-5, this is what we've worked on}, and long time memorizers {extended verses, which cover larger chunks of the Scripture}. The sets 1-5 are organized to cover one passage per week, given 52 weeks per year, for five years (260 verses/passages altogether - some are split up over a few weeks if they are longer passages). Another exciting thing about these verses is that most of them have been put to music, making it easier to memorize and review them.
Here is a little more about the Fighter Verses from Children Desiring God:
Fighter Verses have been an important part of our ministry since 1997, as we encourage children, adults and churches to wholeheartedly embrace Scripture as the God-ordained Sword we use to fight for faith and memorize it together.
This compilation of 260 verses will help believers fight the fight of faith. The passages provide the encouragement we need daily, channeling our thoughts in three main directions: fixing our hearts on the character and worth of our great God; battling the desires of our flesh; and rejoicing in the work of Christ in the Gospel.
When our family first heard about Fighter Verses, we were excited to check them out. We bought a few of the CDs and began listening to them in the car. That would have been late 2014, and we enjoyed the songs so much that I downloaded the Fighter Verse App and began learning the verses for 2015 (set 5) with the kids every morning. The app is so easy to open up and use, and it has great features like: songs, audio reading of verse, as well as different quizzes to test your memory. One other thing that I really appreciate about the songs is that they are all word for word from the ESV translation. This is huge to me that the song writers aren't adding in their own phrases or moving words around (sometimes they do repeat a phrase and at the beginning or end they'll sometimes add in a few words that summarize the verse, but never as a part of the actual verse). Additionally, the verse reference (Psalm 1, for example) is sung at the beginning and end of every song so that it is easy to keep up with the verses. Now that it is 2016, Set 1 has begun again. This is the set we first started with in the car, so we already have it mostly memorized, but we are going through them again, week by week, talking about some of the meanings of the words and the implications. We have also stuck a new CD in the car so that we can begin learning another set.
Here is one of our favorite songs from set 5:
In our family music is something that we all enjoy, and so it is quite nice to have a decent selection of songs from the Scripture that we all know well. Enoch often requests that we sing him one of these songs before bedtime now, as well as during family worship and randomly throughout the day. One other exciting thing to me about these verses is that they are oftentimes referenced in sermons. It is so encouraging when our pastor is preaching and he references a Scripture we already know and half-way through him reading it, Enoch looks up at Hugh or I with a big smile because he already knows that verse. It definitely piques his interest level and makes him listen closely!
If you are at all interested in memorizing Scripture, I would highly recommend the Fighter Verses to you! There are plenty of resources and tips on their website, and you can even download the songs from this link. There is such reward in hiding God's word in your heart (as well as your childrens' hearts). Happy memorizing! (The video below includes some of the music, a few testimonies, and a behind-the-scenes look at the songs.)
