Friday, March 6, 2009

Bible Bowl

a Biblical thought...
"As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. 27 I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. 28 So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD." And he worshiped the LORD there. (1 Samuel 1:27-28)


a Book thought...
If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sure sign you’re not trying anything very innovative. (p114)
a Dave thought...
Just when I thought I’d heard of most of the innovative discipleship ideas for youth, yesterday over lunch I was made aware by our very own TC’s of a USA initiative called Bible Bowl.

Bible Bowl is a ministry for youth in grades 6 to 12 which combines Bible study with Christian competition and fellowship. The purpose is to give youth a firm foundation for their faith through the systematic study, memorization, and application of Scripture. Each season, a designated portion of Scripture is chosen as the study text. Weekly practices consist of learning and applying the designated text, devotions, quizzing, plus lots of fun and fellowship. From October to May, local competition is held monthly. Teams of 3 to 6 players compete against teams from other churches, Christian schools, or home-schooling associations. The season culminates with the National Bible Bowl Youth Conference held in late June or early July. http://www.biblebowl.net/AboutWelcome.aspx

Just a thought.

1 comment:

jsi said...

My corps (here in the USA East)when I was a teenager had two Bible Bowl teams, and we participated in Bible Bowl competition for about 8 consecutive years. The competition aspect of it is exciting, but the concept of spending an entire year within a section of the Bible is more profound. The year I spent in Romans (age 15) was a foundational year of spiritual development and growth. Our team competed on the territorial level and it was great fun.

I spent more times in Romans studying during this Bible Bowl year than I did in my seminary class devoted to Romans. There is no way to calculate the weight and value of encouraging teenagers to commit Scripture to memory, even if it needs to be through the format of a quizzing game. I have never been able to concentrate that much of my life exclusively to memorizing chapters and chapters of Scripture. (My life is full of family and children and ministry and community and everything, you know.) The doctrinal understanding that I have now as an officer was greatly influenced by the hours of study spent in Romans, both Thessalonians, Luke, John, Matthew, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Hebrews, Philemon, Acts and both Corinthians letters.
It helps that my family nurtured a competitive streak in my brother and myself...Bible Bowl quizzing brought teamwork, and trophies, but it also nurtured spiritual fruit which is still bearing healthy, spiritual fruit 2 decades later.