“Just as I am, though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
Lyrics of this 19th-century hymn rose beautifully from the lips of 21 Union students this Thursday, coming just as they are and singing in the crowded C-26 seminar room. I was gathered beside them to sing, pray and recite in an intimate gathering of believers known as Scriptorium, hungry for fulfillment and rest that only one thing can bring: God’s word.
Marie Tankersley, a junior Christian ministry major who regularly attends Scriptorium meetings, told me that there are many things people do not know about the group.
“I don’t think people went in necessarily for the sake of the community,” Tankersley said. “But it’s a lot of people who just want to meditate on Scripture and who learn these things together. [There are] people who are really passionate about something, who might not be as outspoken about it, but we all get to come together and do it together.”
Tankersley has been involved since the club’s early days, when her brother, Michael Tankersley, and his roommate, Jacob Carbonell, brought the idea to campus after seeing Scripture recited elsewhere in church communities.
“If people join, it will be beneficial, but if people do not join, it will still bless us,” Tankersley said as she quoted her older brother. “Because just us doing it together will be helpful, the meditation on Scripture.”
Benjamin O’Kelley, a sophomore biochemistry major and the current president of Scriptorium, taught me a bit about the club’s history. The name comes from the Latin word meaning a room for writing, which was where monks traditionally copied Scripture.
“For us, it’s about writing God’s word on our hearts through memory,” O’Kelley said.
He also explained to me their key verse from Jeremiah 15:16: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and they became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.”
O’Kelley emphasized that Scripture memorization is a biblical principle, and one that everyone should try to incorporate into their lives. You will see connections in sermons and your conversations, an improvement in your walk with Christ and the word seeping into all facets of your life.
“It’s really an explicit command to eat the word and to have it on your heart and have it in you so that you don’t forget it,” O’Kelley said.
Scriptorium gatherings take two forms. In biweekly sessions, students memorize a psalm together at each meeting using the Hoffmann Method (which I am told is continual repetition and putting together small sections of verses), opening and closing their time with hymns. After students have carefully gone through each line, one of their presidents has a word of history, a devotional or a personal teaching. Then, the room is led in several recitations of the full psalm.
In Scriptorium proper, which bi-weekly goers are not required to participate in, each participant is given a passage ranging from a few verses to a chapter to memorize and then speaks in the midst of other members at a formal recitation, which happens about twice a semester.
Here, the most prevalent fear that keeps people from attending or reciting comes to light: memorization.
“I’ve had several people come up to me as we were tabling this year. And they said, ‘I’m not very good at memorization; can I still come?’ And I told them, ‘Yeah … we’re here to help you,’” O’Kelley said. “Some people do struggle to get it the first time, but I’ve seen them come back again and continue to work at it and succeed.”
I certainly have a heart for these people, having been performing on stage consistently for the past nine years, and without fail, no matter how big the role is or how many people are in the audience, I am hit with nausea and waves of panicking heat before performing. I blank on everything that has ever been in my mind. But so have many others before me.
“When I first started out, I literally asked to sign up for five verses of Hebrews. I was like, ‘I cannot do more than five verses,’” Tankersley said. “And my brother, who was running it, was like, ‘No, memorization is easy; you can do it.’ And he memorized multiple chapters.”
And really, if that does not sum up sibling love, I am not sure what else will. I was inspired as Tankersley told me about how Scriptorium helped her overcome those difficulties. She went from fighting to memorize her five assigned verses to soon climbing to 20 verses, then a whole chapter of 30 verses.
“It is a spiritual discipline that everyone should practice, and our goal is to help people grow in that and introduce it if they’re new to it and slowly build more and more,” O’Kelley said. “It’s like a muscle — like going to the gym — you work out to build muscles. It’s the same thing that we’re doing with Scripture memory.”
Scripture memorization is easier and richer the more you repeat it, especially when in community. Such a community is one of the biggest benefits of Scriptorium. There, one can find accountability partners, friends, avid encouragers and people to celebrate all sorts of things with. In fact, on April 4 of last year, Tankersley told me that Scriptorium hosted Bread Day, based on Matthew 4:4: “Man shall not live by bread alone.” Bread Day involves a day of fasting followed by a feast of loaves.
“We all brought bread that we made. … We all sat in the conference room in the Bowld at this big round table, and we were all just passing around and eating the bread, then we sang hymns together, and we laughed and fellowshipped together,” Tankersley said. “It was so sweet that we could all pray throughout the day about certain things, then at the end of the day, all feast together and be glad.”
Across all of my interviews, Bread Day was a hit. Truly, Scriptorium focuses on practical applications of biblical principles. There is much fulfillment to be had in this fellowship — here, memorization is rest and not work. Starvation is solved by feasting and delighting in the word.
“It’s not hard. It’s work, but it’s not hard. It’s really a kindness of the Lord,” Tankersley said.
As I sat alongside regular Scriptorium goers this Thursday, I felt the impact of those words as we worked through the memorization of Psalm 110 and sang the words of another hymn: “When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave, then in a nobler, sweeter song we’ll sing, ‘Thy power to save.’”
Memorizing and combining all of those passages was not easy. I fought to keep ahead of the distractions and doubts in my mind, but getting to join Scriptorium members in their liturgy and do their unique motions of signaling another repetition or of putting the passages together was a great gift. It was never about eloquence because my “poor lisping, stammering tongue” will always end up “lying silent in the grave.”
I’ll be back to this fellowship, and every other member is inviting you to join in the reading, speaking and doing of the word with us. Come and be blessed! Challenge yourself to write the Word on your heart and experience the bolstering of spirit as you stand at the end of a meeting with others and together say confidently what you could not before. Not for a member quota, not to show how much you can memorize, but to flee to the Lord’s rest, sit at the table among believers and eat the word in a feast that mirrors one on the other side of heaven.
