BiBLE BEE

This summer I helped out with Bible Bee contestants. You make think this to be lame and sound a little too VBS-ish, but be patient. It was a group of high-schoolers competing for a national prize. 17,000 kids participate across the country. Each student must memorize large portions of Scripture from the OT and NT. They also had to take to memory dozens of Bible facts and random questions. It really was a daunting task for most of these teens. I would say that several of them know more Bible than their pastor. Anywho.

They were awesome to work with. Most of these kids were generally conservative and/or fundamentalist in their upbringing. I do live 12 miles from Bob Jones. And here's the crazy thing. What would you say the prize is for the national winner of this competition?

A gold-embossed, bonded-leather KJV?

A lifetime supply of everything Tim LaHaye has ever written?

How about a scholarship to Liberty? or CIU?

No. The prize for the high school winner of the Bible Bee gets a $100,000 check. Yes. You read those zeros correctly. There will be a kind, happy, conservative, God-fearing, 16-year old kid with their name on a check for $100,000. My lifetime salary might not add up to that until I'm 30.

Here's the best part. One of the kids that I got to "coach" and help this summer went to the national competition [they start with hundreds of regional competitions]. In the national competition, he moved from the top 100 to the top 20. Today they will cut it down to 7. Then a winner will be picked. I'm kind of proud of the whole thing.

And plus, he's an incredible kid... Go Joshua! I'm going to try to watch him live online :)