On December 31, 2024, a bunch of us at PCF finished reading the whole Bible together over the course of two years! I’m enormously grateful to God that we were able to do this.
In 2025, we’re going to memorize Bible verses together as a church family.
Dallas Willard once said: ‘Bible memorization is absolutely fundamental to spiritual formation. If I had to choose between all the disciplines of the spiritual life, I would choose Bible memorization, because it is a fundamental way of filling our minds with what it needs. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth. That’s where you need it! How does it get in your mouth? Memorization.’
Over the years, I’ve found that to be true. Memorization helps me to internalize and savor Scripture, and it allows me to have the Bible ready to encourage others.
Throughout this year, we’ll memorize (together as a church family) one verse or short passage of Scripture per month. Each verse will be tagged to the sermon series we’re in at the time. We’ll post the monthly memory verse on our website, in the bulletin, and in the PCF News to help you know what we’re memorizing.
We’re choosing just one verse/short passage each month because we want all of us (kids included! older people included!) to be able to memorize it – and more than that, to be able to savor it and see more of God through it, to allow it to change us and shape our lives. We hope Life Groups, women’s groups, and youth group will memorize and recite these verses together.
I’d encourage you to memorize the verse early in the month. Then ask God to use it to shape the way you’re living each day, to give you opportunities to pray that verse over someone, and to share it with a Christian friend and with a non-Christian friend.
Our January memory verse is Acts 20.35. ‘In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”’
Let’s do this together!