Quizzed in accountability

By Nathan Rosentrater

The room is full of people, yet it is startlingly quiet. Then, the even voice of the quizmaster, carefully annunciating every word, breaks the silence: “According to Luke 4:8, what...?”

A buzzer sounds and one of the eight youth sitting at the front of the room quickly stands up. “According to Luke 4:8, what is written?” the quizzer answers, completing the question.

“Proceed,” responds the quizmaster. “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only,” the quizzer responds. A breathless pause fills the air.

“Correct,” affirms the quizmaster, and a round of applause from onlookers and team members breaks out as 20 points are awarded for the answer. But seconds later, the room is again silent and the quizzers are back in their seats, ready to jump for the next question.

Each year, teams of four BIC youths aged 12–20 memorize hundreds of New Testament verses in order to compete head-to-head in Bible Quizzing tournaments. As a boy watching my older siblings quiz, I was enthralled by the energy and intensity of quizzing competition. But I don’t think I fully realized the work, dedication, and team accountability it takes to succeed in the activity.

Today, after a decade’s worth of Bible quizzing experience and six years as captain of the Nappanee (Ind.) BIC quiz team, I have come to appreciate quizzing’s rigorous training regiment firsthand. Over the last 15 years, our team has enjoyed notable success, yet it has not been without committing ourselves to hard work, unifying friendships, and holding each other accountable.

At the beginning of a quiz season, each member of the Nappanee team commits himself to study time and performance goals in the presence of the coach and all his teammates. At each practice, members recount their preparation during the week and whether or not they met their goals. If a quizzer struggles to satisfy her weekly objectives, her team members explore her circumstances or hindrances, suggest ways of maximizing study opportunities during the week, and encourage the quizzer to do additional study the following week to catch up. At major tournaments, unprepared team members display gracious accountability by deferring to their teammates who are better prepared, often forfeiting some of their question answering opportunities for the sake of team success.

After quiz meets, quizzers evaluate themselves and each teammate individually, praising strengths, recommending improvements, and sharing spiritually influential passages from the text. Typically, if we lose a tournament, the loss alone sufficiently motivates us to accelerate our preparation endeavors. When consistently victorious, our team benefits from motivational admonitions, which safeguard against complacency. In 2004, having won all but a single quiz during the regular season, our coach, Jeff Williams, exhorted us to pursue a benchmark determined not by comparison with other teams, but rather by our maximal capacity to achieve. Accountability—holding ourselves and our teammates to such standards of dedicated study and excellence—led us to that year's denominational championship and continues to drive our program today.

Nathan Rosentrater hails from Bremen, Ind., and attends Nappanee (Ind.) BIC Church whenever a respite from his studies at Messiah College (Grantham, Pa.) allows him to return to home. Nathan loves Bible quizzing of all kinds, but most cherishes the BIC style, in which he has gained four championships and many more friendships over his years of involvement. In addition to quizzing, he enjoys competing in various athletics, writing poetry, and composing songs on a smattering of instruments.