An Overview of Junior Bible Quiz

Updated August 19, 2001

Junior Bible Quiz is the children's version of the teen's game, and is for kids in grades one through six. JBQ is very similar to its older counterpart, Teen Quiz. There are twenty questions in a game, with two teams of quizzers trying to beat each other to the buzzers to get the first shot at the answers, just like the "big kids'" game.

But instead of studying specific books of the New Testament, Junior Quizzers use the JBQ Fact-Pak for all of their game questions. This is a set of 576 questions and answers covering basic truths and doctrines of the Bible, including some Old Testament material. The question set was written in the early 1970s by George Edgerly, who is often referred to as the father of JBQ; he, along with Ron Clark and Roy Harris, developed the first guidelines for the junior game. (Edgerly, now a pastor in Ottumwa, Iowa, remains active in both Teen and Junior Bible Quiz.)

These questions are printed on cards and packaged in a special box. All of the questions in JBQ games come from this Fact-Pak. Therefore, it is not at all unusual for top quizzers to memorize the entire box of questions, even where the "interruption point" — the point in each question where its wording is different from all the others of that point value — comes for each question. In fact, quizmasters at the national championship rarely read beyond the interruption point of each question before they are interrupted by a buzzer.

There are a few other important differences between JBQ and Teen Bible Quiz:

• There are four quizzers per team, with up to four substitutes (Teen Quiz uses three of each.)
• Fact-Pak questions come in both New International Version and King James Version. Leagues which allow the use of both versions require teams or individual quizzers to declare which version they will use for quotation questions before the match. A few leagues discourage or prohibit use of the KJV answers in order to prepare their quizzers for the teen game, which uses NIV exclusively. On the other hand, King James has been used until recently used by Assemblies of God Missionettes programs, so girls involved in both Missionettes and JBQ often find KJV more convenient, if their leagues allow its use.
• The distribution of questions by point value is slightly different: three 30-point questions, seven 20-point questions, and ten 10-point questions per game.
• Overtime consists of three questions: a 10-point, 20-point and 30-point question, in that order. If sudden-death overtime questions are required after regular overtime, 20-point questions are used. (Teen Bible Quiz used a similar three-question overtime until a rule change prior to the 1996-97 season.)
• The procedure for requesting the reversal of a quizmaster or judges' ruling on an answer is different from the contesting procedure used in Teen Quiz. In JBQ, it is called an "appeal," which is requested only by the coach, not by a quizzer. A rebuttal from the opposing coach is not allowed as in Teen Quiz; if the appeal is accepted, the opposing coach may then ask for his own appeal to reverse the first appeal and restore the original decision. Coaches have a maximum of two minutes to present their argument, and appeals are limited to two per team per game.
• Junior Bible Quiz does not restrict teams to Assembly of God churches only. Churches from the Southern Baptist Convention, the United Methodist Church, the Church of God (Cleveland, TN), the Disciples of Christ, and numerous independent churches have fielded teams. Some have done well in competition—a United Methodist team from Indiana placed second at Nationals in 2001, and a Southern Baptist team from Kentucky did the same in 1999.

Junior Bible Quiz is laregly a grass-roots effort, with limited oversight from Assemblies of God headquarters staff. Unfortunately, that situation has meant that different districts often conducted their JBQ ministries in greatly different ways, including rules variations. Only at regional and national playoff levels are the "official" guidelines published by the Assemblies of God enforced. However, a national advisory committee now oversees competition, rules and promotion. This committee is workign on a revision of both the JBQ Guidelines and the Bible Fact-Pak.

The National JBQ Festival — the de facto national championship — is played each year at Calvary Church in Naperville, Illinois, near Chicago. The tournament is open to the top team from each district. The top four teams in each district also are invited to compete in one of eight regional tournaments; there, the top five teams which did not already earn a Nationals berth (by winning district championships) also become eligible for Nationals. The 2001 edition of the tournament had a record 70 teams.

Not all Assembly of God districts even offer Junior Bible Quiz. On the other hand, the JBQ ministry in many districts is much larger than its Teen Quiz counterpart. JBQ is particularly strong in the Great Lakes region, from which the last five National JBQ Festival Champions have come. Northern and Southern Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania-Delaware, Minnesota, and the three Texas districts all have particularly large Junior Bible Quiz programs, with more than 100 teams in some districts. The Assemblies of God headquarters staff estimates at least 2,000 teams and at least 20,000 children and adults are involved in JBQ nationally. The program continues to grow primarily through grass-roots efforts of its supporters, with help from far-sighted district officials.

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