It’s hard to believe that just four months ago, I pitched the idea of P2R – Partnering to Remember and the Memory Moleskine with a focus of memorizing the book of Philippians with friends and family. Little did I know or could have ever imagined that the P2R Philippians Moleskine would be download by 40,000+ people and translated into multiple languages around the world. Children as young as three joined in. I heard from countless families employing P2R in the family dinners and devotions. Numerous churches and youth groups embraced the challenge corporately. Testimonies haven been shared across Facebook and Twitter on a daily and weekly basis, encouraging one another to press on in the meditation and memorization of God’s Word. There has even been a P2R iOS app created for those who have an iPhone, iPod, or iPad.
The 16 week challenge officially ended yesterday, Easter Sunday. It has truly been a privilege and joy to partake of this with so many folks both in my local church and the church worldwide. I know that there are many of you who are still working on finishing the book of Philippians, and I strongly encourage you to press on. The 16-week schedule was employed simply as a guide and template to provide accountability and challenge you to press on in memorizing Scripture. The rewards and dividends of treasuring the Scripture in your heart and life will multiply in the weeks, months, and years to come.
Where do we go from here?
Because our minds are so quickly to forget and lose the impressions made through the pattern of memorizing large portions of Scripture, my encouragement for the immediate future would be to mediate, reflect on, and repeat again and again the book of Philippians from memory. Work it over for the following weeks and months so that the book of Philippians can be quoted with little struggle for retrieval. The longer and more sustained your reflection and repetition, the better it will be permanently sealed in your mind and heart.
Having said that, if you feel very comfortable with Philippians and have it securely embedded in your mind, you may want to consider memorizing smaller portions of the Bible, such as various Psalms or chapters in the Bible like Romans 8. You can create a miscellaneous memory moleskine with various portions or chapters of Scripture that you are memorizing intermittently between books of the Bible.
Speaking of books of the Bible, I do plan to start another P2R Memory Moleskine until the new year. Below is a poll asking for your input. Which book of the Bible should P2R seek to undertake? Let me know your thoughts!
Again, thank you for partnering to remember with me and so many others. Don’t stop now. Memorization is for meditation, exhortation, application, and daily transformation. May God’s Word be fresh manna to satisfy the appetite of a soul hungry to know God.
[polldaddy poll=4968939]
There are some verses that, of the power of the Holy Spirit, are ‘engraved’ on our hearts.
Thank you for this project. What a blessing it has been!
I am looking forward to partner with you all in the future. And even though I really like the idea of an iPad app, I am more excited about the Moleskine, I just love mine. 🙂
Blessings!
Thanks for doing this. We’re in Southeast Asia and my wife and I worked on memorizing it together, but it soon developed into the format for our family worship. Our three year old managed to learn a good chunk of it just from listening to the two of us quote it to each other. We’ve already talked about adding some Psalms and then some shorter passages into our wannabe-Moleskines to work on next. 🙂 Grace and peace to you!
I memorized the Sermon on the Mount in for a spiritual disciplines class two years ago and still remember much of it. BUT, I memorized it in 4 days…. 😉
Tim,
I have been so blessed by the challenge to memorize Philippians. I had never heard of you or the P2R project until a dear friend asked if I’d do it with her. SO glad God brought it my way!
Is there any possibility that the format for creating a moleskine might be available? We’d really like to memorize another book together this year (say September-December?) and are considering I Peter. The format was SO easy to use! I hate to reinvent the wheel – thus the request for a blank of the layout.
I understand if it isn’t possible but I thought I’d ask.
Thanks again for fanning the spark that has caught fire in so many hearts!
Thank you so much for the work you have done to put this all together. It has been an incredible blessing to many families in our church who have taken part in memorizing Philippians. It has been a very challenging and wonderful experience to successfully memorize this entire book of God’s Word with my family. To hear my little 5 year old boy recall most of Philippians is an enormous joy to his mother and I. In fact we are so encouraged, that I’ve gone ahead and put together a similar weekly PDF outline of Psalm 119, with the goal of memorizing it by the end of the year. If anyone else is interested, let me know ([email protected]) and I’ll be glad to email you a copy. Thanks again Tim
Susan,
I have put together a similar PDF of Psalm 119 if you’re interested. I can email you a copy. I’m at [email protected]
I stumbled across the P2R Philippians project on facebook back in February of this year, and although I was out of sinc with the others on the project, I decided to give it a go. I (along-side my sister) was caring for my dad at the time, my mother having just gone to be with the Lord in Dec., and I really struggled to be faithful. Daddy joined Mama in April and I didn’t begin working in earnest until June, but, by God’s grace, I’ve finally finished and am reciting the entire book daily to cement it in my memory. I found this post in searching to see if you had started another P2R project. I would love to know it if you have, or do. Thank you so much for doing this! I can’t express what a blessing it has been to memorize and meditate on this book, even when I felt as if I might have had “sorrow upon sorrow”.
Hi, is there already a decision made, which book, we are going to memorize in 2012?
Kind regards
Daniel
Do you know what book you are going to format for the Moleskine for next year? Can you give any instructions/helps so I could format my own scripture selections for a Moleskine? I really liked using that tool! Thanks!
Sharon,
We had a group at my church memorize Matt. 5-7 over the fall. I recently finished describing how I made the pages for the moleskine. The link is http://www.fbchsv2.org/partneringtoremember/memory-pdfs/making-memory-pdfs/. I hope it might be a help.
Looking forward to working through this again for 2012. Any update??
Just a quick word of encouragement here. I am working on Ephesians this year. Glad to have the app. Thanks!!!!