​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:

Have you ever wondered how some churches – regardless of the size of their youth group – continually bring in new Quizzers every year while other churches have not had a Teen Bible Quizzer in several years, decades, or ever? Though a minority regrettably cannot participate for legitimate reasons, I find that the majority of adults and students decline to participate due in part to an inaccurate or incomplete perception of what it entails – despite multiple attempts to highlight the program in newsletters and at Teen Camps, Retreats, Children Quizzes, and Conventions.
 
For them, Teen Bible Quizzing is simply not a part of their church’s culture – and that may be just fine for their unique situation. On the other hand, they could be so much more fruitful if they offered this highly effective youth leadership and discipleship program to their teens. They just don’t know that they don’t know what they are missing.
 
Alternatively, why do some quiz programs regularly produce quizzers who excel in competition while other similarly mature quiz programs do not? The answer is the same: it is their culture.

​Culture is simply the beliefs and values that determine how someone acts. Culture is developed by what we do – or do not do – regularly. When you hear things like, “My church just doesn’t do that”, that is culture.
 
Jesus, too, sought to change the church’s culture of His day. His message was radically different from what they were accustomed:

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.