My Scripture Memory to Music Story

Later, when I began to read on my own, I would walk around in circles in the living room while studying my "sections" for Awana. I found that walking in this way aided my Scripture memory efforts.

Motivated by candy and other various types of material rewards, I would cram as many verses in my mind as I could hold until the next Awana meeting, in which I would recite them, and promptly forget them all.

After I outgrew Awana, I made a goal to memorize one verse a day in my spare time. I would photocopy pages out of my Bible, fold them up, and carry them around with me so that while I was walking, or waiting, I could work on my verse for the day.

I began to become concerned about keeping the Scriptures in my long-term memory, so I implemented a daily review program. As the verses piled up, however, I found that I could not review them all in one day. So I decided to review one chapter a day, and learn one verse a day.

Within a couple of years, I had 20 chapters on rotation. However, it seemed like no matter how hard I tried, I could never easily recall the chapters I had previously memorized. There were always parts that I never could quite remember without help. And it seemed to take a lot of concentrative effort, even with the regular review, to remember chapters that I had memorized two years ago.

This long-term memory shortage discouraged me somewhat, as I felt like it diminished all of the hard work I had put into Scripture memory. I eventually stopped memorizing Scripture all together for several years.

And Then...

I still, though, could not quite seem to find the perfect "input method" whereby the Scriptures would be there for life without massive and constant reviewing. It seemed like after a few weeks, I would lose my fluency of recall--and all my hard work was negated somewhat. It wasn't a total loss, as meditating on a book of the Bible through memorizing verse by verse is a great way to understand the truths of that book as a whole.

In constant search for a foolproof, long-term Scripture memory input method, I began to carry my photocopied Scripture passages (alas, the plastic coated card company went out of business!) around the 4-mile block I tried to walk every day.

I started to try and make the words fall into order with my walking rhythm, so that the rhythm would help me recall passages better. This helped my short-term memory, as I was able to cram anywhere from 4-8 verses per walk into my head. But it did not help my long-term memory. To this day, I cannot recall the 10+ chapters I memorized in this way. It would be easier for me to rememorize them a second time around, but I don't want to have to do double labor on the same passage.

Breakthrough...

I taught the children (30 children ranging in ages from 5-12) eight verses each week. The class met two times each week for 45 minutes each. We put hand motions to the words, and performed 10 songs for the Christmas program, and 12 songs for the spring program. Some of the kindergartners were the ones that caught on the fastest and learned it the best!

I loved being able to sing Psalm 119 around the house while doing the dishes, or vacuuming. No hard concentrative recall effort here! The melodies came to me anytime I wanted to sing them. The words of the Psalm came with the melodies, and brought calm and peace and joy to my heart.

This was the first time I was introduced to the power of music in aiding Scripture memorization of long passages. I found that even if I went for a couple of months without singing through the entire Psalm, I could still do it fairly easily without too many trip-ups. I was amazed that the addition of music to a Scripture memory passage could ease the recall process as much as it did.

And so...

I found that even doctrinal, repetitive, tongue twister passages could be easily input with a song, and then easily recalled. It was so much fun for me to memorize through music, I forgot that it was suppose to be work. And now, a year and a half later, I am finishing up memorizing Hebrews. I can still sing through the whole thing, with minimal mess-ups, even though I've spent hardly any time reviewing. Once it's in, it's in. I love it!

I am completely sold on the power of music to aid memory, particularly Scripture memory. Click here to hear samples of scripture memory music put to Romans 6-8.