HELP! I WANT TO START, BUT DON’T KNOW HOW!

All right, you want to get a team started but you’re not sure where to begin. While starting up may seem overwhelming at first, it’s not that hard at all. Let’s break it down into some simple steps:

COMMUNICATE

Talk with your pastor, youth pastor and/or children’s pastor about getting a team started up. While a pastor does not necessarily need to lead this ministry, you will need their support to help it grow and flourish. Because competitions begin anywhere from October to November, you will need to start holding practices for your team in August or September.

DECIDE

You will need to determine if you would like to start up a Junior Bible Quiz team (grades 1-6), Middle School team (grades 6-8), Teen Bible Quiz team (grades 9-12), Empire Quiz team (grades 6-12) or Experience Quiz team (grades 6-12). While children grades 1-6 only have the option of participating in Junior Bible Quiz, teens grades 6-12 have the option of quizzing in different divisions that range in various levels of difficulty and competition.

In general, the most competitive levels to the least competitive levels for teen quizzing are:
Teen Bible Quiz, Middle School Quiz, Empire Quiz and Experience Quiz

Take a look at how many kids and teens are in your church. All you need is two quizzers and a coach to make a team!

⇒ For more information about any of these, please check out our About Page.

SPARK INTEREST

You will need to get the parents excited about quizzing for Junior Bible Quiz. Talk to them to see if they are interested in signing their child up! Since Bible Quiz is for teenagers, you probably will need to talk to each individual to get them interested in being involved. Here are a few more tricks that might spark interest in this ministry at your church:

⇒ Ask a pastor if you can play one of our promotional videos for the congregation (see our Promotional videos)

⇒ Hand out our promotional materials that explain what quizzing is all about to parents (see our Promotional handouts)

⇒ Visit a near-by church that quizzes and ask if you would be able to sit in on one of their practices

⇒ Try a three-week trial period where students can come, check things out, and decide if they want to commit for the entire year

MATERIALS

For All Quizzing…

No matter what type of quizzing you decided to try this year, you will need a quiz box set. While this will be the most expensive purchase you will need to make starting up, it is a one-time purchase and will be used for all quizzing divisions. You can buy a quiz box set from the Quiz Equipment Website. We recommend the Quizbox with the Timer (2nd generation).

For Junior Bible Quiz…

All questions and answers are pre-determined. Quizzers study from a Fact-Pak. The Fact-Pak comes in the form of a box of cards, a manual and an audio CD. These items can be purchased on the National Bible Quiz Website.

We recommend that each church buy at least one box of cards and a few manuals. The cards are a great tool to use for group practices and the manuals are a great way for the quizzers to practice the material at home on their own. The National Website also sells other resources that can help coaches make the most out of every practice.

For Teen, Middle School, Empire and Experience Quiz…

Students study from a Scripture Portion. Each quizzer and coach will need their own. You will also need to purchase practice questions because, unlike JBQ, questions asked are not pre-determined. You will not be given the questions ahead of time, so you will need to practice with questions written by several different authors to get an idea of what types of questions might be asked at the meets. You can purchase scripture portions and questions from the Gospel Publishing House Website.

Because each quizzer will need a Scripture Portion, we recommend waiting to purchase them until you know how many students are actually going to commit. There is no sense in buying Scripture Portions for teens that are not willing to put forth the time or effort into this ministry.

PRACTICE / TEACH

For Junior Bible Quiz…

A lot of people think that the first “practice” is some sort of meeting where you lay out “expectations” and “rules” to the kids and parents. While it is important for everyone to know what is expected of them, the first practice should ideally be a time for the kids to begin quizzing. A great way to begin is to ask 10 to 15 10-point questions to the entire group. Ask only those questions for a period of time until you feel that most of the quizzers are able to answer them, then throw in another 5 to 10 10-point questions to the mix. When you feel as though they have a good grip on those 15-20 questions, add in another 5-10 questions and repeat the process. This method allows the quizzers to quiz right away, and they realize how much fun it can be.

At the end of practice, you’ll want to give each quizzer a schedule of questions to memorize and review before the next practice. For quizzers that seemed able to memorize quicker than others, you might want to consider assigning them questions with higher point values to learn as those questions are often harder to memorize answers to.

The purpose of Junior Bible Quiz is to teach the youngest generation about the basics of our Faith. While a lot of the work they do at first will be straight memorization, as the children grow older and are taught more Bible stories and devotionals, their understanding of the material will grow exponentially. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to collect all the “smartest” kids from the group. The truth is, anyone can memorize if they approach it correctly. Usually learning about 2-3 new questions each day is a great way to start. As your quizzers become more advanced, often they are capable of learning 5-10 new questions each day.

For Teen, Middle School, Empire or Experience Quizzing…

A lot of people think that the first “practice” is some sort of meeting where you lay out “expectations” and “rules” to the kids. Instead, I prefer to have the group of quizzers memorize 2-3 verses right off the bat. Then we go over some questions over just those verses. When we’ve done that, they memorize a few more, and the process is repeated. This gets them into quizzing right away, and they realize how much fun it can be. At the end of practice, you’ll give each quizzer a schedule of verses to memorize and review before the next practice.

Since the purpose of Bible Quiz can be summed up in “discipleship through memorizing Scripture,” you can guess that when starting a BQ ministry, your primary objective is to teach students to memorize. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to collect all the “smartest” kids from the youth group. The truth is, anyone can memorize if they approach it correctly. As you start practices, you’ll assign students to memorize a few verses every day. Usually 3 or 4 new verses per day is a good start. Advanced quizzers can easily do 10-12, but it takes some work to get up there.

For All Quizzing…

Starting up, you will want to practice with your team for about 2-3 hours each week. If your team becomes very competitive and looks like they could make a run at higher levels of competition, you’ll probably want to do more.

REGISTRATION

By September, you’ll need to register your team for competition. To do this, you’ll need to fill out the Online Registration Form. After you register, within 2-3 days you will get a confirmation email from the District Bible Quiz Coordinator with further instructions.

COMPETE

Competitions generally starts in October/November (for exact dates, scroll to the bottom of our Home Page). These meets are local or area competitions against other teams (your sectional coordinator will email you the exact location of the meet as the date arrives).

There are also a variety of tournaments throughout the year that give quizzers a chance to quiz teams from all over the country (also on the Home Page!). One of the best things you can do is get your team out to at least one tournament in your first year. Staying at a hotel, meeting new people, and quizzing against good teams can be a big motivator.

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