by George Edgerly

While I was serving as district youth and Sunday School director, a former employer of mine, Bob Brechtel, walked into my office. He had heard about Bible Quiz and wanted to use it in his church. I explained quizzing for teens.

"No, no," he replied. "I want something for children and it needs to cover all the Bible."

A few years later Ralph Harris, then editor-in-chief of Radiant Life curriculum, shared a similar dream. With proper authorization, Ralph, children's specialist Ron Clark, and I sat down to develop the Fact-Pak. Our goal was to provide a fun way for children to learn the great facts about, and from, the Bible-including an understanding of its most important teachings.

The Fact-Pak has now been translated into Swahili, Braille, Chinese, German, Spanish, French, and Lithuanian. More than a quarter of a million children in the United States have been involved in learning its questions and answers. The Fact-Pak, sometimes with minor adaptation, has been adopted by other denominations. Among these are Foursquare, Christian Missionary Alliance, and the General Association of General Baptists.

In its beginning, the development of team quizzing was left to each individual district. Among the pioneers were Arkansas, Pennsylvania-Delaware, Illinois, and Minnesota. The first region to have a structured tournament was North Central in 1981. About the same time, Dan Rector and John Crabtree, children's pastors in Minnesota and Illinois, started the first multi-district invitational. It involved teams from only three states.

This small invitational tournament has grown into the national festival involving over 60 teams from across the nation. Dan Rector still oversees the festival. In 1994, the National Festival was given full endorsement by the national office. At this time a National Advisory Committee was instituted. It is comprised of representatives of each of the eight regions, the two leaders of the festival, and ex officio members from the Division of Christian Education. This committee has authority to guide the program and make any necessary rules changes.

In the early days of JBQ, the national office offered only a suggested guidelines for team quizzing. As a result, many districts modified the rules. Because of the confusion that various guidelines were creating in multi-district quizzing, the national office produced the Junior Bible Quiz Official Guidelines in 1991. It is strongly urged that every district use the uniform Guidelines. All quizzing in multi-district tournaments (invitationals, regionals, or the National Festival) must follow the Official Guidelines.