But I take seriously "Let not many of us presume to become teachers, for as such we shall incur the stricter judgment."
So everytime I speak...prison, church, youth group, camp, social club...whatever...I have a sense of holy terror.
But it's not the most stressful thing I do.
For over three decades I have had the immense privilege of "quizmastering." A rather pompous term, but it describes the one who asks questions of Bible quizzers.
It's kind of like music and money...no matter what you do, you are wrong; in the sense that someone won't like what you are doing, how you are doing it, etc...
As Aesop observed, "Please all and you please none."
But at the end of a quiz day..whether local, regional or national...I am one tied-in-a-knot individual!
My main desire is to honor the quizzers by being consistent...in my cadence, in my rulings, in my attitude.
They are under much more stress than I, and they deserve my very best.
Will it please everyone? Of course not...
Some will say I "give words." Others will say I ignore fouls. Some will say I stop reading too quick. Some will say I flop on flips (only some will understand this :)
Some will say I talk too rapidly; others will grumble that I'm too slow.
Whoever, or perhaps whomever (again, only some will understand this :)...says whatever...it matters not.
I know that I've tried my dead level best to do the very best job I can.
To be just.
To act with my head rather than my heart (most of the time).
And, again, to honor these teens who work so hard and take the risk of competition.
It's one of the most cherished things in the ministry to which the Lord has called me.
And though I hope to do it til I croak; I also hope that I have good enough friends that they will tell me when it's time to hang it up.
Here's a photo of me quizmastering the 3rd and final championship quiz last month at the Bible Quiz Fellowship National Tournament in Green Lake, Wisconsin:
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