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How to memorize better.

samluce —  May 21, 2013 — Leave a comment

CATECHISM

I did a few posts on Catechism and the importance it’s role has in the church and in the family. I thought I would pass on some of the tips Tim Keller includes in his introduction to his New City Catechism.

MEMORIZATION TIPS

There are a variety of ways to commit texts to memory and some techniques suit certain learning styles better than others. A few examples include:

  • Read the question and answer out loud, and repeat, repeat, repeat.
  • Read the question and answer out loud, try to repeat them without looking. Repeat.
  • Read aloud through all Part 1 questions and answers (then 2, then 3) while moving about. The combination of movement and speech strengthens a person’s ability to recall text.
  • Record yourself saying all Part 1 questions and answers (then 2, then 3) and listen to them during everyday activities e.g. work-outs, chores, etc.
  • Write the questions and answers on cards and tape them in a conspicuous area. Read them aloud every time you see them.
  • Make flashcards with the question on one side and the answer on the other, and test yourself. Children can color these in and draw pictures on them.
  • Review the question and answer at night and in the morning. For children spend a few minutes at bedtime helping them remember the answer, then repeat at breakfast the next morning.
  • Write out the question and answer. Repeat. The process of writing also helps a person’s ability to recall text.
  • Drill the questions and answers with another person as often as possible.

Super helpful and super practical. Hope they help you make catechism a practice and tradition in your family’s home.

 

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What Catechism?

samluce —  May 20, 2013 — 3 Comments

CATECHISM

Last week I discussed why Catechism is a good idea for kids and parents alike.

I thought I would give you a few options as sort of a launching off point for you to pick what works best with your kids.

1. The Heidelberg Catechism - The Heidelberg Catechism, written in 1563, originated in one of the few pockets of Calvinistic faith in the Lutheran and Catholic territories of Germany. Conceived originally as a teaching instrument to promote religious unity in the Palatinate, the catechism soon became a guide for preaching as well. It is a remarkably warm-hearted and personalized confession of faith, eminently deserving of its popularity among Reformed churches to the present day.

2. The North Star Catechism - Whether or not we sail across troubled seas, Christians are all pilgrims. For thousands of years, travelers have been guided on their journey by focusing on a fixed point in the night sky: the North Star. While other stars seem to shift with the passing of time, the North Star remains anchored in the same position. This celestial gift allowed people to know where they were and where they needed to go. Our prayer is that the North Star Catechism will offer this same kind of clarity.

3. New City Catechism - New City Catechism consists of 52 questions and answers so the easiest way to use it is to memorize one question and answer each week of the year. Because it is intended to be dialogical it is best to learn it in pairs, in families, or as study groups, enabling you to drill one another on the answers not only one at a time but once you have learned 10 of them, then 20 of them, and so on.

- What to look for in a catechism -

  • Make sure you can understand the language and vocabulary used.
  • Make sure the delivery system works for you – Heidelberg uses website and books – North Star is a PDF at present and New City is primarily through the iPad.
  • Make sure it’s something your kids can grow into
  • Make sure you have a system to track your kids’ progress.
  • Make sure it’s something you can stick to.

 

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Mother’s Day gift ideas for your Church?

samluce —  May 16, 2013 — Leave a comment

freeset

One of the things we find difficult to do every year is find a gift to give our mothers on Mother’s Day that is more than a trinket. We live in a culture that spends millions on souvenirs. We used to give fathers key chains and mothers carnations, both are fine but eventually end up in the junk drawer of your home or the city dump. We had this thought a few years back what if leveraged these 2.00 trinkets to make a difference in someone’s life forever. So in the past few years we have made donations to Love146 and smile train.

This year we found a company called FreeSet that helps women who have been freed from sex slavery by giving them a meaningful skill that gives hope to them and their family where they can earn a decent wage in dignity. When you buy bags these women make you are  not just buying a bag you are giving hope. We bought all our mom’s makeup bags. They were a huge hit. So if you are looking a mother’s day gift for next year or a conference tote for this year consider FreeSet.

Here is a video that shows a little of what FreeSet is all about.

 

 

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Are you a Christian Hedonist?

samluce —  May 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

Desiring God

I am a big John Piper fan but have only recently gotten around to reading his book Desiring God – Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. In this book Pastor Piper delivers a compelling argument that our lives as Christians are to be lived chasing satisfaction, joy with reckless abandonment so long as the pursuit of those things find their purpose in God and ultimately glorify Him.

The theme throughout this book that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” God gets the glory and we get the joy. Such a powerful thought. That thought alone is worth the price of the book. This truth is so fundamental. As a pastor I see so much dysfunction in people trying to be happy rather than finding their joy in God. I find myself so often allowing my service to Christ and others to be what it was never intended to be. I am created to glorify God not through depriving myself of happiness but in finding my happiness in Christ.

CS Lewis explains this concept so beautifully “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

Every chapter had a few points that really rang true. The chapters that challenged me most personally were Money, Missions and Suffering. I plan on adding this book to a short list of books I reread.

Desiring God should be read by every christian at least once in their lives because of the truth Piper pulls from scripture are so precisely accurate and so horribly convicting.

Here are a few quotes that stood out to me.

In the New Testament, God is clearly active, creating a people for Himself by calling them out of darkness and enabling them to believe the gospel and walk in the light. John teaches most clearly that regeneration precedes and enables faith.

The pursuit of joy in God is not optional

Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable but also that He is desirable.

True worship must include inward feelings that reflect the worth of God’s glory. If this were not so, the word hypocrite would have no meaning.

The great hindrance to worship is not that we are a pleasure-seeking people, but that we are willing to settle for such pitiful pleasures.

Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others.

Faith is born and sustained by the Word of God, and out of faith grows the flower of joy.

A failure in our prayer life is generally a failure to know Jesus.

Prayer is the antidote for the disease of self-confidence.

The great danger of riches is that our affections will be carried away from God to His gifts.

Generosity confirms that our hope is in God, not in ourselves or our money.

My assumption is that people without the gospel are without hope, because only the gospel can free them from their sin.

Suffering of sickness and suffering of persecution have this in common: They are both intended by Satan for the destruction of our faith and governed by God for the purifying of our faith.

How many Christians do you know who could say, “The lifestyle I have chosen as a Christian would be utterly foolish and pitiable if there is no resurrection”?

God’s universal purpose for all Christian Suffering: more contentment in God and less satisfaction in self and the world.

Paul’s suffering complex Christ’s afflictions not by adding anything to their worth, but by extending them to the people they were meant to save.

In the pursuit of joy through suffering, we magnify the all-satisfying worth of the Source of our joy. God Himself shines as the brightness at the end of our tunnel of pain. If we do not communicate that He is the goal and the ground of our joy in suffering, then the very meaning of our suffering will be lost. The meaning is this: God is gain. God is gain. God is gain.

*I was provided a free copy of Desiring God by Multnomah press in exchange for my willingness to write an honest and personal review of the book.

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Why Catechism?

samluce —  May 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

CATECHISM

Why Catechism?

Catechism in my mind has gotten a bad rap. The reasons I believe that is because people equate catechism with a nun walking around with a ruler. While this may be a bit of a caricature I do think the idea of Catechism in a classroom is less than ideal. As a father and a pastor I believe there is strong biblical support for parents teaching truth to their kids (Deut. 6). Catechism was never meant to be a classroom subject but was meant to be lived out and learned in the context of life. Parents you live catechism before you teach it. I love how Tim Keller describes the Biblical basis for it. I can do no better so I won’t try.

A BIBLICAL PRACTICE

In his letter to the Galatians Paul writes, “Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor” (Galatians 6:6). The Greek word for “anyone who receives instruction” is the word katechoumenos, one who is catechized. In other words, Paul is talking about a body of Christian doctrine (“catechism”) that was taught to them by an instructor (here the word “catechizer”). The words “all good things” probably means financial support as well. In this light, the word koinoneo—which means “to share” or “to have fellowship”—becomes even richer. The salary of a Christian teacher is not to be seen simply as a payment but a “fellowship.” Catechesis is not just one more service to be paid for, but is a rich fellowship and mutual sharing of the gifts of God.

If we re-engage in this biblical practice in our churches, we will find again God’s Word “dwelling in us richly” (Colossians 3:16), because the practice of catechesis takes truth deep into our hearts, so we find ourselves thinking in biblical categories as soon as we can reason.

When my son, Jonathan, was a young child my wife Kathy and I started teaching him a children’s catechism. In the beginning we worked on just the first three questions:
Question 1. Who made you?
Answer. God
Question 2. What else did God make?
Answer. God made all things.
Question 3. Why did God make you and all things?
Answer. For his own glory.

One day Kathy dropped Jonathan off at a babysitter’s. At one point the babysitter discovered Jonathan looking out the window. “What are you thinking about?” she asked him. “God,” he said. Surprised, she responded, “What are you thinking about God?” He looked at her and replied, “How he made all things for his own glory.” She thought she had a spiritual giant on her hands! A little boy looking out the window, contemplating the glory of God in creation!

What had actually happened, obviously, was that her question had triggered the question/answer response in him. He answered with the catechism. He certainly did not have the slightest idea what the “glory of God” meant. But the concept was in his mind and heart, waiting to be connected with new insights, teaching, and experiences.

Such instruction, Princeton theologian Archibald Alexander said, is like firewood in a fireplace. Without the fire—the Spirit of God—firewood will not in itself produce a warming flame. But without fuel there can be no fire either, and that is what catechetical instruction is.

Timothy Keller, October 2012

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