Learning how to memorize scripture in different ways [0:00-5:02]

How Pyroga serves as the pastor of discipleship and family ministries at Cityview Community Church in Elmhurst, Illinois, and is the father of three boys. Passionate about the church and home partnering in the discipleship of the next generation, he has written a devotional, storing up treasure. It's a practical, engaging strategy for memorizing and applying scripture as a family. Kyle, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. So you have shared, I saw this, three reasons to help memorizing scripture helps our kids. What were those three reasons? Yeah, we really want to make sure our kids have the foundation for all of life and that is God's Word. And so I wanted to make sure that they have everything at their disposal to be able to memorize and know that they can do that. We want to be able to have them battle the lies that they're going to hear in the world and I often tell my kids, the more that you're in the word, the better you're able to filter everything through that and say, that doesn't sound right because we know it's counter to what God's Word says. And so really just trying to make sure that they understand that there are more than three reasons, but of course we want to start with some simple things for them to kind of grab onto. Yeah. Well, there's 30 memorization scriptures in this book and it's divided into 30 weeks with five sections each week and as the week goes on, you're not just memorizing, but you're understanding how to apply it. But actually you've described this as structured but flexible. Can you explain how this can be used? Yeah, a lot of devotionals kind of go by day of the week and we try to kind of take that away to say, here's five blocks to use. And maybe you're going to use two blocks in one day. Maybe you're going to be able to do it over two weeks. So don't worry so much about the day and missing a day here there, but just as it kind of comes into the rhythm of your family life, how can you spend a few moments everyday memorizing or spending time in the word to really see these truths kind of get into our hearts and minds. For me, memorization is something that needs to be done a lot and it's repetition. So if it takes you two weeks to do one of the devotionals, that's okay because there's no time wasted when you're constantly memorizing and talking through God's Word. So I wanted to make sure that was flexible enough for people to not feel guilty, that oh no, we miss Monday or we missed this day of the week, but instead saying like, all right, let's just pick up where we left off last time because it is sort of like a curriculum which can be very intimidating. And I think for any parent trying to make a regular rhythm of sitting down and studying scripture, learning scripture, it can be intimidating. But you actually make it really fun for families. We're going to touch more on some examples of that, but maybe as we touch on that, what are those blocks? Explain the flow and how you make it engaging. Yeah, so really just trying to start off with just something where everybody can kind of imagine like what would this be like if a certain scenario happened and really trying to make sure that everybody understands like this is, oh, the word actually applies to life. And so this is why we want to spend this week in this verse around this theme. And then we really kind of want to just see what the scriptures say. And so we're going to discover what God's Word says about this theme, whether that is something emotional or a life situation that we're going to go through. Then we want to really want to dig deeper and kind of see where else in scripture does it talk about this. So kind of getting away from the memory verse itself, but seeing this isn't the only verse that talks about this. We see Jesus talk about this and the gospels, we see a Psalm talk about it. We see it in Genesis and just trying to say like, let's dig deeper into this theme and see what God's Word has to say kind of across from Genesis to Revelation. And then we kind of do a creative section where it's just something fun. Everybody learns differently and so knowing the personalities and the things that my kids that they really kind of resonate with, it's going to be different. So some kids love to do hands-on things, some like to write or draw or create things with legos. And so really try to have that be something that somebody can be doing something and that the verse will stick with them because they remember what tangible thing they were doing at that time. And then really just kind of wrapping up the week and saying, alright, what have we learned from this verse? Do we have it all memorized? What does something new that we learned from it and then kind of listening to a song and just kind of bringing it all together? So it's really trying to meet everybody where they are and in what way they learn. I love that you do include a song recommendation in there and a lot of them at a radio station we know these songs. It's just songs that people are singing in church and it's a great way to just incorporate worship in your time of memorization together. Have you found works for your boys? What is sort of the better part of the flow or what sticks more for them? Yeah, anything for my boys is going to be competition. So anything we can do that's going to be a game with it.