~Bible Quizzing~
Fast thinking, quick reflexes, technique, and teamwork are all words to describe Bible Quizzing. A nationwide competition, Bible Quizzing is a popular way of learning God's Word while having fun! Run by multiple denominations, our church joined the Nazarene quizzing. We are hoping that eventually, a presbyterian competition will form, but for now, we quiz as the only OPC church. Our team was formed by a couple in our church who saw the oppurtunity for a fun youth program, spanning from ages twelve to eighteen.
Our church, (Providence Presbyterian), started out with one team of seven quizzers. After the first tournament we split up into two teams, the Rocket City Defenders, and the Rocket City Attackers. We studied the book of John, practising after every evening service. Our first tournament was held in Nashville Tennessee.
The tournament was held throughout the church in different rooms. In each room, there would be three sets of five chairs, (this setup is for three team quizzing, while sometimes, as in the next tournament, the layout is for two team quizzing). Five quizzers are allowed from each team at a time, and just like in sports, a coach can call a timeout per round to substitute or to talk with his/her team. There are pads on the seat, which sense when the quizzer is sitting on them or standing. At the Quizmasters table, (the person or people leading the quiz round), a laptop shows the quizzers current position on the screen, (sitting or standing). Once the quizzers are ready, the twenty question match begins.
Here are the four main types of questions in a normal quiz round.
General: These questions are by far the simplist, and they make up twelve of the twenty questions. Based on John 1:1a, (In the beggining was the Word), a question might go like this. "Question number one is a general question. Question number one. "Who was in the beginning?" The answer of course would be the Word. General questions are also an excellent oppurtunities to pre-jump. To pre-jump simply means when the quiz-master is in the middle of a question, you jump. For example, a quiz master is reading the example question and only reads, "Who was," before stopping when he hears the computer beep. After he sees who has jumped, he tells them to finish. They must first finish the question and then give the correct answer. It is not uncommon for a quizzer to jump on the third word.
According to: Four of these questions are asked per round. These questions are much more specific than general questions. When a Quizmaster asks an according to question, they expect to have an answer with information only from the verse the quetsion they are asking is derived from. For example, if they are asking the example question above, they would not want a quizzer to answer "Jesus" instead of "The Word." This would be considered incorrect because this information is not found in that specific verse.
Situation: These questions are my personal favorite. They are some of the longest questions, and are based off of dialogue found in the book that you are quizzing on. For example, in the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman, the Samaratan Woman asks this question. "Sir you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. How will you get this living water?" In this question, the Quizmaster asks for the quizzer to supply certain information from the quote. For example, they might ask, "Who said it, to whom, and in response to what?" The answer would be, "The Samaritan woman said it to Jesus, in response to Jesus saying "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." Only one of these questions is asked per round, and the competition is stiff. Usually you need to jump on the first word of the question to get to it first!
Context: Context questions are simply questions that test your knowledge of the context in which a certain situation occured. There are one of these asked per round, and much like teh Situation question, the competition can be high.
Quote: Finally, the last kind of question is the Quote question. There are multiple kinds of these questions. One of each kind is asked per round. Finish this verse, Quote, and Finish this verse and give the referance. These are the hardest questions, and some quizzers jump before the Quizmaster has said one word of the actual question, hoping the Quizmaster will say a word of the question before stopping. This is risky, but nescessary.
Now that I have gone over the types of questions, I would like to tell you a little about the scoring. Each question answered correctly by a quizzer is worth twenty points. If a quizzer gets a question wrong after question 16, that deducts ten points from their teams score. If a quizzer gets a question wrong, a quizzer from teh other teams is given a chance to answer it correctly and win their team ten points. If a quizzer has gotten four correct answers, they quiz out, and are no longer allowed to participate in that round. They also get ten points if they quiz out without error. If a quizzer gets three questions wrong, they quiz out backwards, and are no longer allowed to participate in that round.
Our team had a lot of fun at these quizzes. The teams quiz seven rounds each, and after that they take a break for lunch. At most of the tournaments the church provides the food with a small fee for the quizzers. After lunch there comes the award ceremony, and sometimes competitions such as best Christmas costume, (this was during the December match). Each quizzer is scored by the points that they recieved through the quiz match, while whole teams are rewarded for their over-all score. My team, the Rocket City Attackers, won first in the normal quiz matches and third in the top three quiz-off.
Our teams have learned a lot over the past months. We not only learned study methods, jumping techniques, and quzzing strategy, but we also learned team work. Most impotantly we've learned from the book of John.
I'm thankful for this oppurtunity to learn God's word, studying His Scriptures every day and learning much from it. I can't wait to start the next years, Hebrews and 1st and 2nd Peter!
