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How were the Memory Verses selected?
When selecting verses for this year's National Bible Bee, we kept the mission of the Shelby Kennedy Foundation before us: To help families strengthen their personal relationships with the Lord and dynamically impact the world as ambassadors of Jesus Christ. As parents disciple their children to build a strong relationship with the Lord, they must begin with a strong doctrinal foundation.
Therefore, a great deal of effort was spent in choosing the 250 Primary Level verses to assure that they, in themselves, would provide a balanced, thorough description of the Gospel, salvation, and the resulting Christian life. The Junior and Senior Level verses were then chosen to build on that foundation by adding further depth and understanding. If a young person only participates in the Bible Bee for one year, we want him to have the basics of the Christian faith firmly committed to memory. If a child progresses through all 12 years of his Bible Bee eligibility, he will be exposed to an ever-growing variety of Scripture passages, always focused on strengthening his relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Why are there fewer verses this year? The 2010 Bible Bee Competition period is shorter than the 2009 Inaugural, so the participants have less time to memorize their verses. At the Primary Level, children are accountable for memorizing 250 verses in the 12-week time period. Assuming five days for memorization work, one day for review and one day for rest, this breaks down to just over 4 verses per day. At the Senior level, the daily workload is 13 1/3 verses per day - a formidable but manageable task, with concentrated effort.
Successful family discipleship is built upon a sustainable pattern of Bible study, Scripture memorization, and prayer. For most children, the Bible Bee Competition will be a summer-long exercise. They will find that they can memorize far more Scripture than they would have thought possible. Families will find that the discipline of Scripture memorization, family Bible study, and family prayer is a natural, enjoyable process which can be maintained throughout the year... although at a much less competitive pace!
Families with one or more children who have limited time for Scripture memorization, but still want to be fully included in the family study, memorization, and prayer with their competing siblings, will be able to take advantage of the ?Timothy Track.? Since this option features a reduced list of memory verses and does not entail competition in front of an audience, it does not qualify the child to be invited to compete at The National Bible Bee in Schaumburg, Illinois in November. He can, however, enjoy the summer family events, compete in the Local Bible Bee, and be recognized for his performance there.
Why are long passages emphasized, as opposed to individual verses? Our goal is to select verses that capture God's heart, His ways and His person, learned as a whole, within the protection of the context of the surrounding verses. The meaning of verses is much more clearly understood when viewed within a larger passage of Scripture. This protection is particularly important in the Primary Level verses, which apply to the youngest participants.
Therefore, most of the Primary Level selections are multi-verse, more easily memorized passages, while more of the Senior Level verses are single, more challenging ones.
What process was used to choose these verses? The actual breakdown of the verses resulted in 30 - 40% (+/-) of foundational verses repeated from last year. New foundational verses comprise approximately 30 - 40% of the selected verses, with the remaining 20 - 40% tied to the Bible knowledge book.
Our process in selecting verses was very deliberate. We divided all of last year's foundational verses into four categories. These were then submitted to 40 people, who were asked to choose only 40 verses from all four categories - verses that they considered essential for spiritual health and maturation. We took the results of their verse selection and tallied them, using those verses with the most tallies.
To choose the new foundational verses, we asked 25 well-respected Godly individuals to commit to prayer and then submit verse selections to us. We tallied these verses and added them to the mix.
The verses directly tied to our Bible knowledge book were submitted to us by our curriculum writers. They were actually contained in the writing of the curriculum, were logical cross references, or provided explanation of - or background to - the Bible knowledge book. These selections completed the 2010 Bible Memory Verse pool, which was then divided into age-appropriate groups.
When selecting verses for this year's National Bible Bee, we kept the mission of the Shelby Kennedy Foundation before us: To help families strengthen their personal relationships with the Lord and dynamically impact the world as ambassadors of Jesus Christ. As parents disciple their children to build a strong relationship with the Lord, they must begin with a strong doctrinal foundation.
Therefore, a great deal of effort was spent in choosing the 250 Primary Level verses to assure that they, in themselves, would provide a balanced, thorough description of the Gospel, salvation, and the resulting Christian life. The Junior and Senior Level verses were then chosen to build on that foundation by adding further depth and understanding. If a young person only participates in the Bible Bee for one year, we want him to have the basics of the Christian faith firmly committed to memory. If a child progresses through all 12 years of his Bible Bee eligibility, he will be exposed to an ever-growing variety of Scripture passages, always focused on strengthening his relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Why are there fewer verses this year? The 2010 Bible Bee Competition period is shorter than the 2009 Inaugural, so the participants have less time to memorize their verses. At the Primary Level, children are accountable for memorizing 250 verses in the 12-week time period. Assuming five days for memorization work, one day for review and one day for rest, this breaks down to just over 4 verses per day. At the Senior level, the daily workload is 13 1/3 verses per day - a formidable but manageable task, with concentrated effort.
Successful family discipleship is built upon a sustainable pattern of Bible study, Scripture memorization, and prayer. For most children, the Bible Bee Competition will be a summer-long exercise. They will find that they can memorize far more Scripture than they would have thought possible. Families will find that the discipline of Scripture memorization, family Bible study, and family prayer is a natural, enjoyable process which can be maintained throughout the year... although at a much less competitive pace!
Families with one or more children who have limited time for Scripture memorization, but still want to be fully included in the family study, memorization, and prayer with their competing siblings, will be able to take advantage of the ?Timothy Track.? Since this option features a reduced list of memory verses and does not entail competition in front of an audience, it does not qualify the child to be invited to compete at The National Bible Bee in Schaumburg, Illinois in November. He can, however, enjoy the summer family events, compete in the Local Bible Bee, and be recognized for his performance there.
Why are long passages emphasized, as opposed to individual verses? Our goal is to select verses that capture God's heart, His ways and His person, learned as a whole, within the protection of the context of the surrounding verses. The meaning of verses is much more clearly understood when viewed within a larger passage of Scripture. This protection is particularly important in the Primary Level verses, which apply to the youngest participants.
Therefore, most of the Primary Level selections are multi-verse, more easily memorized passages, while more of the Senior Level verses are single, more challenging ones.
What process was used to choose these verses? The actual breakdown of the verses resulted in 30 - 40% (+/-) of foundational verses repeated from last year. New foundational verses comprise approximately 30 - 40% of the selected verses, with the remaining 20 - 40% tied to the Bible knowledge book.
Our process in selecting verses was very deliberate. We divided all of last year's foundational verses into four categories. These were then submitted to 40 people, who were asked to choose only 40 verses from all four categories - verses that they considered essential for spiritual health and maturation. We took the results of their verse selection and tallied them, using those verses with the most tallies.
To choose the new foundational verses, we asked 25 well-respected Godly individuals to commit to prayer and then submit verse selections to us. We tallied these verses and added them to the mix.
The verses directly tied to our Bible knowledge book were submitted to us by our curriculum writers. They were actually contained in the writing of the curriculum, were logical cross references, or provided explanation of - or background to - the Bible knowledge book. These selections completed the 2010 Bible Memory Verse pool, which was then divided into age-appropriate groups.
