Bible Bee "Off-Season" 2017

I already posted this on Google+, but I suppose I'll post it here too.

Many of you are probably settling down to enjoy a nice break from weeks of intensive studying. After the break though, I know from personal experience that it is often a challenge to focus again on diligently studying the Word of God.

Last year, I and a few other Bible Bee-ers and alumni wrote a little study guide for John 13-21 (which turned out to be the Locals study passage). You can find it at www.swaimfamily.net/study_book.

This year, I am planning to do something similar. If you would like to be a part of writing a study guide with other believers on a passage of Scripture over the Bible Bee “off-season,” I would love your help. You can email me at joshuabb@believershome.com to be added to my mailing list. If you know of others who might be interested, even if they were not in the Bible Bee, please invite them too!

I realize you are all probably still exhausted from nationals, so I am not planning to start quite yet. Nevertheless, we can start talking about what we plan to do this year. I am thinking about studying Galatians, just because it is a short epistle that has not been picked for the Bible Bee yet, but I am open to other suggestions. Studying a minor prophet might be interesting.

Not sure how much time I'll have to put into it, but I'd love to be involved this year Joshua!

I'd love to have your help! I'll try to organize the group so that people with busy schedules can still contribute a little. Do you want me to use the email address on your Memverse profile for communication?

Nicolas Alexander is starting a study group to memorise 2 Corinthians, so I think it might be a good idea to write the study book on 2 Corinthians as well so that people can be part of both groups.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

A different Bible Bee off-season thingy (though I do think that it would be possible to do both):

"Each year, I memorize a book (or books) of the Bible in the off-season. I really enjoy this, but unfortunately, the 300-500 verses that I memorize I never review, so of course I have only a very vague idea of what 1 Thessalonians is about three years later. I have been trying to decide what to do this year now that Nationals is over, and I realized that I just really enjoy memorizing the passages that the Bible Bee picks for us. There are lots of random passages that I have been wanting to memorize, but since I haven't taken the time to memorize 2 Chronicles or Lamentations yet :), I've never memorized those passages. So, I've decided to pick a bunch of memory passages, equaling 200 verses. And for those of you who like nicely rounded numbers, this will be exactly 200 verses.

How this works:

• 200 verses in 90 days. Verses are released on January 1st, and the challenge ends on March 31st.
• Just like with Bible Bee, memorize however much you want to! It's great if you want to memorize all 200, but if you only do 2, that's wonderful as well.
• Comment on here with your email address. If you already have my email address, then you are welcome to go ahead and email me that you are interested.
• I will send out emails every now and then. I want this to be very interactive and encouraging, so please hit reply all with encouragement, tips, thoughts, etc.
• Everyone is welcome to join – contestants, siblings, parents, alumni, hosts, everyone!
• It would be neat if people might could send a video of themselves reciting their favorite of the passages when the challenge is over. That would be completely optional, though.

I think that you will really like the selection of passages! There are some beautiful psalms, a Bible story that you've read a few times but may not remember, a speech from Acts, practical proverbs, a warning from Deuteronomy, passages from epistles, and much more. I'm still making the list of passages. The passages are ranging from 1 to 28 verses (though I think that there are probably only two passages that are over 20 verses).

I hope that you will join me! This will take time, but I think that you will probably be able to live a normal life if you do this. Just let me know if you are interested!"

You can either email me or send me a private MV message with your email address if you are interested in participating. It looks like it will be 35 passages. And if you're planning to memorize/study 2 Corinthians, then you might like to know that this challenge includes a chapter from it :).

@"Anna M" I'm considering joining your memorization group, but I'm hesitating because I don't want to overload myself. I guess I have plenty of time to decide though.

Joshua, are alumni allowed to join? :P

Katrina, you aren't alumni! :P :(

I know I'm not technically alumni, but I like to think of myself as "alumni two years early" because it sounds so much nicer than quitter. :P :P lol

Aw! So you won't do the BB next year? :(

I'm about 95% sure I won't, for two reasons. One, when I decided not to do BB this year, the way I understood it was that I quit altogether. Two, I'll most likely be doing college of some sort next fall. :P

@Katrina B Sure! You don't have to be involved in the Bible Bee to join.

Okay! :P

@"Joshua Swaim" It's fine if you're not able to do it all! I know that some people aren't planning to.

@"Anna M" Good point. I'll comment on the Google+ thread.