"Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."
- Paul, to the Church in Philippi (Philippians 4:9)
-> NIV (NYI Quizzing)
ESV (BQF Quizzing)
Quiz practices are held weekly throughout the regular season in preparation for the next district quiz meet. Practices vary, but most follow the pattern described here.
Each week practice begins with a word of prayer. Then the quiz team reads through the week’s new Scripture to quiz on. A common engagement method used for this is to have each person read a different part of the week’s new Scripture portion out loud for everyone to hear. Everyone takes time to stop at points, discuss what they just read, share their thoughts on it, share what they find interesting about it, and focus on what can be learned from what the Word says, along with what might be tricky or difficult to quiz on with the passage. This usually takes about 30-45 minutes.
After spending time on this new section of Scripture, one of the practice leaders steps into the role of quizmaster and begins “jump practice” - with quizzers jumping on new questions from the passage they just read. Quizzers typically do better in jump practice if they have read the passage before the start of practice a few times through. This is something adult leaders will want to encourage their quizzers to do (and quizzers often do need the encouragement). With each new passage there will also likely be some new memory verses. Quizzers who have chosen to memorize verses will try to memorize the new passage’s verses before the start of practice as well. After a few rounds of questions on the new content, the remainder of practice is used to focus on everything they have covered so far.
he remaining time can be used to work on ironing out areas of knowledge that are more difficult or which might need review. Sometimes adult leaders may allow quizzers to use this time intentionally to memorize some Scripture, or to quiz them on what they currently know to surface what they need to spend some more time on to make their answers perfect.
An important thing to remember with quiz practice is the effects of time spent together over the long-term add up to something quite substantial, genuine, and real. Relationships form naturally with time, and quiz practice is a great excuse to be together and interact with one another. This is quality time with teens that affords an opportunity to really be real with them, being at their level, having fun with them, playing games, joking together with them, helping them with non-quizzing stuff they might be struggling with, and overall being the light of Jesus in their lives. God is the kind of guy who would leave the 99 to go after the 1 that went astray or got stuck somewhere. This is a great way to minister into the lives of each of your teens as dearly loved children of God.
Normally, the sweet spot for practice duration is 1.5 hours spent together. Any less than 1.5 hours and practice feels a bit rushed or like more time was needed to be worthwhile. Longer than 1.5 hours and you begin to struggle with maintaining the attention of your quizzers, unless you have plans for them to keep them actively focused (meaning, having a practice that is more intentional on study and likely also related to preparation for a higher-level of competition than district-level).
Weekly practices can be scheduled for whatever time works best for everyone. The most common times to meet weekly are on Wednesday afternoons (though this can compete with Youth Group for many churches, which is usually not looked on very favorably by Youth Pastors) or on Sunday afternoons. It is also common to not have practice some weeks throughout the regular season due to schedule conflicts.
Question sets can be generated online from the Set Maker website. Each season there is a one-time fee to gain access to the current season's question sets. Question sets generated in .rtf format are easier/more commonly used than .csv format.
Congratulations!
If you've completed the entire "Intro to Quizzing" series then you now know more than most people do about the Teen Bible Quizzing ministry!
If you have any other lingering questions, please feel free to submit them via email to [email protected].