Ben Goes For Romans 8
I had an amazing time leading worship with Chris and Wade at Elevation Church this weekend.
During the 2nd service Pastor Steven Furtick walked out on stage right in front of me and handed a kid 100 dollars for memorizing Romans 8.
The look on the kids face was amazing.
It was actually a touching/spontaneous moment with a touching back story.
After I quickly went off stage and started memorizing Romans 8, I started thinking…
We pay our kids for doing chores, getting good grades…why not for memorizing scripture?
My knowledge of scripture is less than braggable.
If someone would have dropped a Ben in my pocket back in the day I might know the entire New Testament by now.
What was the craziest thing you saw on stage this weekend?
Los
RAIN IT DOWN
Hmm…A not so “real” (but funny) Las Vegas contortionist show before the tunes started at Buckhead Church. It was worth a few giggles.
carlos, this doesn’t answer your question, but is just a fun idea that is working for us. i want to memorize scripture, want my kids to soak it up, but suck at follow through. so, we have set a goal as a family and then challenged another family to set their own goal. whichever family “wins” at the end of the school year gets to choose the restaurant of their choice that the other family will treat them too. everybody goes out and celebrates together though. my kids sooo want to choose the restaurant and we don’t want to pay! movitation for us all.
that is cool, Amy. I’m stealing that one! Credit to you, of course!
I’ll be honest, the idea of “cash for scripture” is just a bit too consumerist for my taste. Granted, I don’t know the back story but it doesn’t sit right with me.
We shouldn’t be selling “Brand Jesus” like it’s some sort of new trend. We’ve got salvation on our side that should sell itself and last forever.
Sorry, didn’t mean to threadjack, but that really bothered me.
I think if you heard the backstory, which is too long to tell, you would be ok…
In that case I’ll calm down a bit and trust that there was more too it than I know.
Sean….even not knowing the back story what makes you say its consumerist?
I dind this to be a good incentive for kids to have a better understanding of scripture and where things are in scripture. Is it saying that this will somehow be a work in salvation? No. Could it become a legalistic thing? Yes, but I know for a fact I will try through whatever means possible to help my kids learn more about the god of all creation. Yes obviously without the holy spirit, the knowledge will not be applied into their life, it will just be head knowledge, but we as Christians still have to do our part.
Well perhaps you can teach them that the rewards they will receive for learning the Word of God are eternal. That would likely decrease their expectancy of cash for scripture …
our band played “the pretender” by the foo fighters, and we had a roman gladiator dressed out w/ a real sword attacking a person dressed in pool gear, with a pool noodle.
all to say we’re in a spiritual battle, we won’t surrender, and we’d rather have the spiritual protection talked about in the “armor of God” section of Eph. than a pool noodle!
We are putting romans 8 to music and have many resources to help people learn this particular passage of scripture..free downloads…hope it helps!
We just finished recording The Book of Colossians and will be finishing the rest of Romans 8 soon…we wouldn’t normally promote a project midway…but since you posted this, thought some of the resources may be helpful sooner than later, as people are inspired to memorize
Pass it on…
Go for it…
God Speed
Hope it helps…
JT and Sydney
My media projector blew up. I thought the service would fall apart, but I underestimated the congregation. There was some genuine, heart-felt, obstacle-conquering worship that went on. It was great.
I wonder if Steven thought about the theological implications of cash for memorization? Seems like a bad idea to reinforce the reading of scripture with something Jesus personifies as a rival God…
Maybe, maybe not…
I think the theological implication is to hide God’s word in our hearts….and also for a kid…$100 might as well be a million…you can’t place a dollar value on eternal truth…but you can attempt in human terms to teach its incredible worth.
right after the music ended and as our pastor was taking the stage, a man stood up in the balcony and started yelling to the congregation about how NYC was going to be attacked with a nuclear bomb in the next two years. He repeated that phrase about 3 or 4 times before some guys escorted him out. most people thought he was a part of a skit, but he was actually a mental patient who got loose from a local hospital. We are the third lucky church he has visited for the same stunt. Bring on 2012!
Our band covered the Eagle’s “Life in the Fast Lane” to support a sermon on slowing down, prioritizing, etc….
this also doesn’t answer your question, but…
My dad was an AWANA leader who used to give his kids in that thing 25 cents for memorizing verses. They loved it.
As a junior higher at the time, he didn’t want me left out, but offered me $100 for the whole book of James… I got $20 at the end of the chapter, but only when I recited it with the previous chapter.
Far from being detrimental to my spiritual health, I loved it and it increased an already existent love for memorization. To this day (16 years later) I can still quote the first 2 chapters effortlessly, and at least remember decently well the last 3.
Just saying… i think it’s brilliant.
Saw a lady walk off the platform after leading worship barefoot waving her stanky shoes back and forth before putting them back on when she reached her seat.
No problem with the whole shoeless worship leader, but please don’t share the funk.
I send a kid to Summer Camp for free if they memorize an epistle. We had two girls memorize Colossians this year… $550 in their pockets! I just budget it into the overall cost for camp, so each kids forks out a couple bucks towards it without even knowing it.
On the Scripture memorization, we learn to do it by teaching our kids. They’re all 8 and under, so we teach them a verse with hand motions, and then they repeat it and act it out on our “fireplace stage”. The kids love it, they learn like 5 verses a week, and after doing the motions and watching them, it all sticks in my brain, too.
The best part about it was the letter from the kids mom. An amazing moment.
That’s funny, my parents never paid me for anything… Either did it because I loved to or I had to. But now you got me wishing that I could hear/read the back story.
funniest thing from church was our new associate pastor saying the word crap during his sermon more than a few of us laughed….i’ve caught a few stink eyes for handing out $ for memory verses, excellent worship dances, good behavior (not to the tune of $100) but it does get kids attention and keeps them on their toes. i’ve also heard of churches taping various amounts of $ under the seats to go and give out to someone they thought could use it which i think is a cool ideal
Darth Vader
He make random cameos at our church
I have friends who start teaching their kids Bible memorization when they’re really young. When I met them, their oldest was 3, and he could already recite a page’s worth of Bible verses. I think he was rewarded with pennies for them. I’m not sure what they do now (they now have four kids and I think the oldest is about to turn 8), but I remember being so impressed at Timmy’s memorization. I probably know a fair amount from Sunday school, but I’m terrible with remembering the reference for particular verses. I was in Bible Quizzing for a bit in middle school/high school, so I memorized a few chapters in the New Testament. Sadly, though, I haven’t worked on that discipline in a long time. I need to start working on my own memorization, because you never know when it’s going to come in handy. I got arrested last summer, and the only thing that kept me sane through the time in the holding area was to continuously quote Isaiah 41:10 to myself, along with an occasional Philippians 4:13.