The Most Stressful Thing I Do

This evening the 2016 Bible Quiz Fellowship Nationals Tournament begins in Colorado Springs, Co. As we (Midland Ministries) are "hosting" the event, in addition to the "normal" quizmastering, I will be overseeing the table officials (quizmasters/scorekeepers/timekeepers)

I ask for prayers particularly that we who serve as table officials serve well.

I love to preach.

I take seriously "Let not many of us presume to become teachers, for as such we shall incur the stricter judgment."

So every time 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 almost four  decades (what is such a young guy like me doing in such an old body???) 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! We need a staff masseuse to help us recover...

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 I 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 I get to do 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.

You can learn more about this year's tournament, find links for video feeds and more at www.biblequizfellowship.org
Here's a photo of me quizmastering the 3rd and final championship quiz in 2013 at the Bible Quiz Fellowship National Tournament in Green Lake, Wisconsin: