​In Nazarene-style Teen Bible Quizzing, a quiz match is composed of five different question types, randomly distributed over twenty questions.  The number and type of questions differ slightly between a single- and multiple-book Bible Quiz season:

​As you can see, the General questions make up the majority of the game.  However, it is unlikely that every quizzer will memorize the entire scripture in order for the team to answer all 11 of these questions.
 
In most sports, having players on a team with different talents is essential in order to not be weak in any one aspect of the game.  Babe Ruth may hit 4 home runs in a game, but the Yankees will still lose if their defense gives up 5 runs.  Similarly, if none of your quizzers commit to learning the memory verses, you are only participating in 85% of each match.  In 1 Corinthians 12:12-20, Paul says:

My family and I love to play board, card, and dice games. There is at least one game on my Christmas list every year. Though we all enjoy the bonding time and delicious snacks, it seems to me that my family has the most fun when they team up against me. While I prefer strategic games like Settlers of Catan, Risk, and Ticket to Ride, my wife enjoys simpler games like Mexican Train Dominos and Yahtzee. And when we play cooperative games like Pandemic or Escape Room the Game, I am often amazed by our genuine selflessness and impressed by our collective ingenuity to solve the challenges of the game.

It is not surprising then that I fell in love with Teen Bible Quizzing. In addition to the Bible study, disciple-making, and spiritual growth this ministry offers, the game appeals to my fondness for strategy and teamwork.

Yet at times home study or team practices can get routine or even boring. And if you are bored, you are not learning. To keep everyone engaged, it is good to add a little variety every now and again.
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With the goal of making reviewing at home and team practices fun and engaging, playing Tribute: The Youth Bible Quiz Board Game just might do the trick (assuming, of course, you enjoy board games as much as I do). Now you can review at home without it feeling like you are studying. Or play it during a team practice to keep practices from getting stale. In addition, the beauty of this game is that it is different every time you play. The types of questions are in a different order every game and you decide in advance from which chapter or chapters you want questions asked. There are 2 versions available: physical game board or a print-your-own version.
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While some of the board games I like to play are so complicated that they take hours to learn, this game is so simple that you can learn how to play almost faster than you can set it up.

Reflecting on the Field and National Quizzes I have attended the past dozen or so years, I can confidently say that the most successful teams always have a skilled According To question person.

For those who may be unfamiliar, every quiz match asks four According To questions. The preamble of these questions supply the quizzer with the chapter and verse for the subsequent question. The intent of this type of question is to direct the quizzer toward a certain passage of Scripture which may be similar to other passages being studied. While the answer does not have to be word-for-word from the verse, the answer must be contained to just that verse and be precise enough to distinguish it from other verses. An example would be: According to John chapter 5, verse 1, where did Jesus go? Answer: Up to Jerusalem. Jesus went to many places in the Book of John, but in John 5:1, he specifically went up to Jerusalem.

Since answering an According To question as a multiple is permissible, it is common for these quizzers to get the jump (pun intended) on everyone else by interrupting the reading of the question as – or before – the Quizmaster is announcing the verse number. The quizzer rattles off several possible questions and their respective answers within 30 seconds in the hopes that one of them was the intended question.

Seemingly, According To quizzers appear to have not only memorized the entire study scripture, but can recall a specific verse instantaneously. In awe of this apparent superpower, I asked three former According To quizzers who have competed multiple times at the national level to share their stories and study methods: Cole Hodge and Leah Augustine from the MidSouth District, and Lydia Hutchison from the Florida District.

Having been involved with Teen Bible Quizzing for two decades now *shudder*, I thought I had a firm understanding of the fundamental structure and shifting trends within this wonderful ministry.

But what I have since discovered is that - for some things – I simply didn’t know that I didn’t know. 

Earlier this year, I invited subscribers to this blog to participate in a survey about their local Bible Quizzing ministry. As an amateur statistician, even I knew this would not be a scientific study and it would have a large margin of error. Of the estimated 3,000 Teen Bible Quizzers and Quiz Leaders in the U.S., my sampling method would only capture those Quizzers and Quiz Leaders who are subscribers of this blog.

“So, what is the margin of error?”, your inner geek asks. “16%”, my inner geek replies. But I wasn't necessarily looking for precision of values. Rather, I was looking for patterns of evidence.

​Here are the results to the survey questions and how they either fundamentally changed or affirmed my assumptions:

I love Amazon. One of the biggest perks of any online store is that you get to shop from the cozy comfort of your own home while wearing pajamas. And besides being able to compare prices without burning a tank of gas and wasting your day, have you ever noticed that Amazon uses “frustration-free” packaging? That means no impenetrable hard plastic clamshell cases or M.C. Escher-esque wire ties, and a lot less – if any – chances of being one of the nearly 6,000 people who go to the emergency room annually for an injury inflicted by the razor-sharp shards of packing material. Additionally, the majority of Amazon orders are shipped in corrugated containers that contain 43% recycled materials and are 100% recyclable. So, in effect, I am helping the environment by ordering from Amazon!
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But while Amazon takes this whole “shopping from home” thing to a whole new level by offering everything from toilet paper to video games, coffee, adult Madagascar hissing cockroaches and more, they fall short with resources for Teen Bible Quizzing.

Congratulations! By now most of you have completed the Bible Quiz season that covered the Gospel of Luke. As a faithful reader of this blog, I’m sure you prepared for the season by reading 1 chapter of Luke as part of your daily time in the Word during the summer. When the season started you set up a dedicated study area where you blocked off time to study in 25-minute chunks with 5-minute breaks every night immediately before you went to bed and got plenty of sleep. You followed a plan that varied what you studied every day to prevent mid-season burnout. You used the NPH Bible Quiz App to take advantage of the idle moments that happen randomly throughout your day. You asked others to hold you accountable and you rewarded yourself for achieving your study goals.  You dedicated yourself to learning 2 Memory Verses a week because you know it is the practically guaranteed* way to be a top 10 Bible Quizzer. But most importantly, as you read Luke God revealed Himself to you through the Scripture. With God’s leading, you are finding direction for your life and learning how to best serve the Lord who gave His life for you.
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And now here you are. Relieved that you made it through the longest book of the 8-year Youth Bible Quiz cycle. You are looking forward to the relative ease of studying 1 & 2 Corinthians next season.
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So to help you prepare after you return from your summer break, here is a brief statistical analysis of the upcoming quiz material:

In Pixar’s Finding Nemo (and again in Finding Dory), Dory has a problem encoding new information due to recursive anterograde amnesia. In other words, she has short-term memory loss. While the urban myth that goldfish only have a 3-second memory has been debunked by marine biologists, the movie plays on that misconception by having Dory forget everything every few seconds.

As a quiz coach, I’ve seen many Quizzers come down with something that resembles recursive anterograde amnesia. And no matter how much time they spend studying, the information doesn’t seem to stick. What I’ve come to discover, fortunately, is that how you spend your time studying is often more important than how much time you spend studying. So contrary to popular belief, “studying” doesn't have to be a combination of the words “study” and “dying”!

Years ago, I came across a lecture from psychology professor Dr. Marty Lobdell from Pierce College called “Study Less, Study Smart”. In it he presents several techniques, backed by research, that help students improve retention and perform better academically. 

​The NPH Youth Bible Quizzing app for iOS and Android is back! Covering the Gospel of Luke, the app returns with all of your favorite features:

• Memory Verses: Listed in verse order and alphabetical order; pre-jumps highlighted
• Study Questions: Thousands of questions! Study by Chapter or by Question Type
• Team Practice Questions: Question sets organized by Chapter and by Groups of Chapters
• Scripture Portion: Memory verses highlighted, includes footnotes
• Coaching & Quizzing Guides: Study method for new quizzers, Team Practice ideas for coaches, Quiz Material recommendations, Official Rule Book
• Live updates: As errors or inconsistencies are found in the questions or scripture, corrections can be pushed immediately to your device. No need for you to update the app!

While these returning features alone are worth the price of the app, this year’s YBQ app includes 5 amazing new features. As we go through each one, I’ll share my thoughts regarding how to get the most out of them:

I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t like to improve one aspect of their life or another. Some people want to be a better friend. Or be a better writer. Or be more compassionate to those in need. Even the best athletes spend time practicing and learning ways to get better. That same desire to improve can be found in practically every Teen Bible Quizzer.

Now that the quiz season is over for most of you, it is common to think, “If I start studying next year’s material now, I’ll do better next season!” But my advice to you is: Don’t do it! Take a break and recharge your batteries! Enjoy your summer. Avoid the inevitable burn-out from a non-stop grind.  Quizzing is supposed to be fun, not a burden!

But at the same time, you shouldn’t put on hold your daily time in the Word. Growing closer to the Lord is the one thing that everyone should be working to improve! So there must be a way to avoid burn-out and yet expose yourself to the new quiz material as part of your continuing conversation with God during the summer.  

​Following are my 3 suggestions. Choose to do as many as you would like!

​I’ve been around quizzing virtually my entire life, and the most common problem I see with my fellow quizzers is mid-season burnout. For some reason, after all the holidays, quizzers start to drop out one by one. And for those of us who don’t drop out completely, mostly our averages drop because we don’t study as much.

​If I were to ask all the quizzers who experienced the infamous burnout what happened, I imagine the majority of them would say either, “I don’t have the time anymore!” or, “I got bored.” If you really want to be involved in this program and excel in it, then you need to do something about this burnout. There’s only so much your coach can do for you!