Memorization Tip – Conversational Terms

This past Sunday night at our club, there was a boy struggling with a few verses in the Start Zone. I was busy during their handbook time, but  I was able to break free to talk to him for a little bit to see if he needed help. He said he did want me to help him and so I looked at the section, Checkpoint 4. He said he knew why sin was a big problem and explained it to me, but didn’t know the verses, so I initiated the conversation about who has sinned and worked Romans 3:10 into a conversational style, saying that we could say that no one is righteous, not even one.

And then as we went on to the next verse in the section, the harder of the two, I tried to explain it in terms  he could understand. The verse, Psalm 130:3, “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?” I asked him if he liked sports. He said yes, basketball. And I referenced keeping a record of sins to the scorekeeper keeping a record of fouls. As they keep a record of fouls, you can’t stand, stay in the game, because you’ll foul out. Likewise, if God kept a record of sins, we couldn’t stand before Him without being cast away from Him.

By putting one verse in conversational terms, and the other, comparing it to something they can relate to personally, they were able to memorize the verses and complete the section.

It’s great to see when a child understands and they can relate Scripture to their life after being frustrated trying to learn.

It’s when we take the extra time to help them understand, that we see God do great things.

So when you’re able to, learn the verse in a conversational style, and relate it to something they can understand so the verse make sense to them and it isn’t just a bunch of words connected together.