The Church Memorization Challenge

Time Posted on December 02, 2009 User Andy

There is a new link under the home tab to the Church/Group Memorization Challenge. Any group with three or more members can participate. (I agree that there is strong scriptural support for allowing groups of two to participate but our measly server has protested and for now you have to get two other people to join you to participate.)

Don't feel that you have to limit yourself to a formal church or group. Feel free to be creative. Start a family group, give your small group or bible study a name and memorize together, or just get a few friends with a heart for knowing God's Word.

Currently your score will simply be the sum of the verses that any active group member has memorized. I realize that this strongly favors larger groups but we'll leave it that way for now as an incentive for people to recruit others to join them. With time, we will probably tweak it so that groups with around eight members can still feel as though they have a chance.

Most importantly, keep it friendly and have fun!

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. Nothing is chiseled in stone yet.


Cat Churches and Groups
Tag church challenge

23 responses to The Church Memorization Challenge

1575c466bffd5e7fd60d18c3b4c12bed?d=wavatar
Phil Walker

Great idea, Andy. Always fun to have a little competition, especially in a win-win situation like getting to know the Living God better through His awesome Word! We welcome the challenge from any group who tries to topple "1 TIMOTHY project" from 1st place (after we complete our, Lord willing, ascent to the top) and will cheer you on and celebrate with you WHEN (not if) you beat us. To God be the glory as we together fight Biblical illiteracy in our churches.

Df0d022db8a0de120f18f964a1d23f17?d=wavatar
Jeanine

This looks like the place for our Bible Bee group. I'm looking forward to introducing them to this great tool.

1575c466bffd5e7fd60d18c3b4c12bed?d=wavatar
Phil Walker

Jeanine,I believe this is a fantastic tool for Bible Bee groups to keep their Scripture, especially in the off season and for years to come in the future, but some may also want to use it while studying each summer. I hosted a Bible Bee in Clinton Corners, NY and am also associated with one in Hannibal, MO where I now live. Where is your group?

C0578557877162d79386dfe51dcdf048?d=wavatar
clint craig

This is a really great thing to do with your church and even greater for the youth group! I know i have trouble reading my bible everyday and such but this helps me a lot because before going on like Facebook or something I go on this for 'bout half an hour and i love it! its cool to see what churches are doing it and its a fun challenge!I go to First Baptist Church Lynn Haven and we just started this so it will help our youth and i'm 'bout to go into the navy so i'll miss this website till i come back!!!

1575c466bffd5e7fd60d18c3b4c12bed?d=wavatar
Phil Walker

Clint, I saw that FBC Lynn Haven was a new group with 5 people, but I had no idea you were a youth group. That is awesome!! I would give anything to see youth groups throughout the USA encourage Scripture memory to inspire young to get to know the true Biblical God for themselves. I pray that many will take your lead and I will also be praying for the FBC Lynn Haven youth group. Hopefully you will be able to encourage the group a lot before you leave for the Navy. Is the youth leader involved with you guys in the Scripture memory? It is also cool that you are taking Scripture with you as you serve our country!!

303ccac99e5ba0606d061003122d9f03?d=wavatar
Kyle Brannen

I think that the church challenge thing sounds cool

1575c466bffd5e7fd60d18c3b4c12bed?d=wavatar
Phil Walker

KY, I agree. Do you have at least two people who will join you in forming a memorizing (church, school, or other) group? I would love to cheer and pray for your group as you use memverse to memorize together.

It's great to see your enthusiasm about Memverse. I'm curious, does KY stand for your initials, or for Kentucky, or something else. My parents live in KY, outside Lexington.

303ccac99e5ba0606d061003122d9f03?d=wavatar
Kyle Brannen

Phil,
I have a group at a church and KY stands for my initials and thank you for wanting to pray for me it means a lot!
KY

1575c466bffd5e7fd60d18c3b4c12bed?d=wavatar
Phil Walker

KY, thanks great!! Is your group listed as one of the 17 groups on memverse?

303ccac99e5ba0606d061003122d9f03?d=wavatar
Kyle Brannen

I do not know.

A5add584fd0f556712d9e039c68fa698?d=wavatar
Andy

If you click on the name of someone in the blog it takes you to a page with some details on the user. It still needs a lot of work but it includes the country and group that they belong to. FBC Monroe isn't currently in the group list because it only has two members.

303ccac99e5ba0606d061003122d9f03?d=wavatar
Kyle Brannen

Andy,
Thanks
KY

98f295de3e93ce4f6e513a9508c39203?d=wavatar
River La Belle

Andy,

I'm just curious if there is some way that you could arrange it that people have the option to sign up for two different churches/groups/organizations because I'm in the Bible Bee, but I would like to be able to maintain that connection after it finishes as well as add my name to my own church. . .

Thanks,
River Jordan

A5add584fd0f556712d9e039c68fa698?d=wavatar
Andy

River - we're thinking of letting people belong to both a group and a church. Just trying to figure out whether there are enough groups and how feasible it is to migrate some of the churches over to the group section. We'll keep you posted.

98f295de3e93ce4f6e513a9508c39203?d=wavatar
River La Belle

Andy, I'm not sure how much you can do as the website administrator, but I seem to be seeing a lot of situations where the same group has several names; users are all divided up when they should be together, but a simple abbreviation makes that difficult.

I discovered this by browsing through all the church/group names by just typing in a first letter in my profile. For example I typed in B, and I found three different names for Bina Bangsa Semarang School (I think they were all the same, but I'm not Indonesian, so I wouldn't know if there was a difference or not.)

Maybe this isn't common enough to remedy, but I just thought I'd bring it up.
River Jordan

A5add584fd0f556712d9e039c68fa698?d=wavatar
Andy

Yep - there's not much we can do about that but I've noticed that people gradually converge on the same name and then we eventually delete the groups that have no members. So over time it sorts itself out. I think some people are still on old browsers or keep their head down when they type and they miss the autocomplete.

98f295de3e93ce4f6e513a9508c39203?d=wavatar
River La Belle

Andy, why does "Recently on MemVerse" say that 1 JOHN project entered the church leaderboard as #50???

A5add584fd0f556712d9e039c68fa698?d=wavatar
Andy

River, it's because some people are listing their group as 'I John' and others '1 John' (Roman instead of Arabic numeral)

1575c466bffd5e7fd60d18c3b4c12bed?d=wavatar
Phil Walker

That makes sence. Is there any way we can encourage the l John group to join the rest of us in 1 JOHN? With my font, I can barely tell the difference between the two.

5c3d80d9bf04a645711fc934afb54a80?d=wavatar
ZachB

Rather, this is found under Leaderboards>Church Leaderboard.

@ Jeanine: The Bible Bee is already there, ranking #3--that's where I have my "church" with. I suggest going with that one, so that the Bible Bee does not have 2 "churches, like the 1 John Project/I John Project, you see.

890a149d583a64ca0de5d30b5a548c93?d=wavatar
Marie Morris

I like the idea of spiting up churches and groups. I would like to be in 1 John and Bible Bee and my local church but I can only chose 1 church or group right now.

2e5ee25fd48278be4899f1f4c9003420?d=wavatar
Grace Mieczkowski

Hi Marie,

The idea of joining multiple groups/churches on Memverse has also been under discussion on Get Satisfaction here: http://getsatisfaction.com/memverse/topics/organizational_leaderboard

...and here: http://getsatisfaction.com/memverse/topics/user_tags_clean_up_church_leaderboard

It sounds like something that might be in the works, and if you add your voice over on Get Satisfaction, it will probably keep the idea fresh!

1575c466bffd5e7fd60d18c3b4c12bed?d=wavatar
Phil Walker

Marie, I like the idea of being able to join multiple groups in the future. For now, I would say the Bible Bee and 1 JOHN have plenty (with several people doing both) and I would love for you to recruit 3 for your local church to be listed. Speaking of 1 JOHN, are you joining us for the quiz Wednesday at 9:00am EST (2:00pm GMT) Lord willing, we are expectantly a lot more competition than last time.


Trans