What's your plan now?

Now that Bible Bee is over, what are you all planning on doing? I mean, I know we all have school (and different electives for different people), but what are your plans for Bible reading/studying/memorizing/?

I have lots of ideas, but haven't finalized anything yet. When I do decide, I'll post back here again.

Those of you who are to old to compete next year, can join in the conversation as well! :)

I'm thinking about switching to ESV soon to prepare for next year, when I'll switch to that version; I'll probably memorize quite a bit from that before the 2013 Bible Bee. Unfortunately, I will have to erase all 1400 of my NIV verses from Memverse… it'll be interesting to see how far the groups I'm on drop when that happens… :)

Oh, my! I'm so excited to hear that you'll still do Bible Bee (we were sad to hear that you might be dropping out because of the version thing)! You will be a senior right? Believe me, being a senior is lots of fun!

BTW, congrats on doing so well at nationals! I enjoyed watching you in semi-finals – great job!

Yeah, believe it or not, only last Friday I was convinced that I wasn't competing next year–but now I'm pretty convinced that I am. Switching to ESV will be a big change, but I think it's rather necessary. I can't imagine going an entire summer without doing the Bible Bee. :)

And yes, I will be a Senior next year–yikes! I've been a Junior ever since I started the Bible Bee, so this will probably be quite a change. I heard that the Seniors will be even more competitive next year, and this year at Locals I only would have placed 38th as a Senior with regards to points. :) Also, thanks for the congratulations; I sure didn't deserve to get as far as I did. :)

Also, I have a question. Does anyone know if I can buy the verses from past Bible Bees? I was planning on memorizing the verses I hadn't memorized from the past years in NIV, but now that I'm switching to ESV, I'd like to get them in that translation and memorize them. Is that possible, by any chance?

I think they are on the e-store. But I don't know about the '09 verses.

Thanks; I think I'll check it out. :)

Yeah, my mom bought all the old verses from some past year about a month ago when they were on sale on the Bible Bee estore. I don't know if they're still available but that's an excellent idea! I think that might be what I'll do with them now that I'm done competing but still want to keep memorizing more.

@Nicolas - I'm pretty sure you can get the '10, '11 and '12 verses on the e-store; but not, the '09 verses. I'm thinking about memorizing the 2010 verses as well!

I hope the change of versions goes well for you! I'll be praying for you…I know it's kind of difficult to do something like. My entire life (for pretty much 14 years) I used the KJV (and a tad of NASB), so it was definitely a challenge to switch to ESV. But, over time, it got easier. Now, I don't really think anything of it. Though, I still like KJV the most about how it sounds when someone quotes/reads it.

I had a quick question for you…do you have the link to the reading plan that Doc. Horner made? I know you mentioned it on the Memverse blog, but I don't have the time to search through comments. If you have the link, I'd really appreciate if I could get it from you. Thanks!

Thanks for the info–I'll definitely be memorizing those verses sometime. That's probably what I'll do for memorization until the next Bible Bee.

Thanks for the prayers; this will definitely be a big change. I hardly know the ESV, except that what I've seen so far I've liked. I originally planned to memorize the entire Bible in the NIV, but now I guess I'll do it in the ESV.

And sorry, I can't seem to find that link at the moment. I'll get it to you ASAP. :)

EDIT–Okay, I've got the link:

Thanks for the link…are you still doing this reading plan? Thought it was pretty neat that he was at Nationals. When I first heard him talk, I was like "Hey! I've done this…and so has Nicolas!" :)

Actually, I just restarted the plan a couple of days ago. I was only doing my 1 and 2 Timothy studying as my daily Bible reading during the Bible Bee, but now I'm back into Professor Horner's plan. Next year, I plan to do the Sword Study and this plan at the same time… if possible! :)

Great! Well, I'm planning on starting it as well, again. I'll print it out tomorrow, once we get the computer and printer hooked up again…

Feel free to ask me how it's going, once we get started again! Accountability it a great thing :)

Isn't it so strange to think that we're hundreds of miles away, and yet are carrying on a conversation as if we were talking face-to-face? I'm glad God allowed the Internet to be invented (and Memverse especially!)!

Feel free to ask me the same thing; I don't remember ever having had an accountability partner, but I certainly need one. I tend to get lazy when I'm not being held accountable. :)

Just FYI: You can have different verses with different versions. Even though I've "transitioned" to ESV, most of my verses are still NIV. Since I'm probably not doing the Bible Bee next year, I'm not pressured to switch them all to NIV. I'm just learning all new verses as ESV…

The vast majority of verses seem not to be repeated, so you might spend time just learning new verses instead of relearning old ones in a new translation. Of course, for the few that are repeated, you'd have to relearn those, but that doesn't mean you should relearn all your verses now…

Thanks for the advice! I should probably do that instead of what I was going to do. Of course, eventually, I'll have to delete my NIV verses and relearn them in the ESV, since I'm planning on memorizing the entire Bible in the ESV now. But I'll be sure to do that slowly, rather than all at once. Thanks again, Alex! :)

Yeah, internet can be great sometimes :) I miss all of your family :( I really enjoyed talking to you all (and watching you in semi's!!!! I was SO excited that you made it!) I wish we could see you all more often. If you're ever in MO let us know!

Sure! I'd be happy too! Great to know there are others out there doing the same thing!

I enjoyed meeting your family again as well, and meeting your dad for the first time. :) I'd love to stay here and talk longer, but COS is telling me I have to get to bed; it's 11:30 here. :D Talk to you later!

I'm done with the Bible Bee, but my plan besides moving on in life… Is to memorize Psalm 119, the gospel of John, "The greatest letter ever written" Romans, and refresh my Genesis passages. Then I'll see.

Sounds like a great goal! I pray that you'll meet it! :)

Well, right now, I've been memorizing verses for a 1 Timothy study that someone from our church started. I'm still debating what I'll do after that.

@Nicolas - Did you get to meet my older brother?

How did your first day in the reading plan go? It went pretty well for me. I hope that it improves overtime though…are you just going to read the chapters and then be done? I'm thinking about doing some sort of outline of each chapter that I read (at first, just the theme of the chapter, and then the more I read it, the more in-depth the outline gets). Though, I haven't figured it all out how I'll go about doing it.

Right now, I feel like I have nothing together in my life…school, etc., etc. My plan is to write out some schedules and plans and get busy. I have lots to get done…and so little time!

Well, I'm one of those "aged ones", so to speak. I am tentatively planning to memorize the book of Romans and the book of John, although nothing is definite at this point. I certainly want to memorize more, but it will take some self-discipline and the grace of God to keep going.

@Bethany–I didn't really talk to Daniel at all while we were at Nationals, but I did meet him at your house when we were down in Missouri. :)

My first day went pretty well too. I enjoy the variety involved in the reading plan: history, prophecy, wisdom literature, etc. Yes, I am just reading through the chapters and then I am done, but I focus more deeply on the chapters than Prof. Horner suggested. Your idea sounds good, though. I might consider doing something like that, but it might be a bit too time-consuming for me.

My schedule has been thrown off balance a bit as well, since the Bible Bee is finished. Studying and memorizing took up a lot of my time, and now it's difficult to get back to "normal life." However, my school schedule doesn't seem to be as hard to organize as yours, so I'll pray that you can restructure your schedule soon. :)

As for that surgery, it sounds… uh, painful. I'll pray that you can complete what you need to finish before that time comes, and that you won't be in too much pain when it does. :)

I'm not exactly sure what/where to work on, but right now I'm trying to memorize Matthew 5-7. Any suggestions?

That sounds great, JPIA. I did the exact same thing last year after the Bible Bee. :)

@Nicolas - OOps! I thought I forgot about you meeting him when you came over :P

Things are coming together pretty good…regarding school and scheduling. My hardest will be science - since I'm far behind on that, I'm going to have to work quickly, even though it's my hardest subject.

Yeah, you can be praying that the surgery goes well. I have to get my wisdom teeth pulled next month (YIKES! It's coming up quickly!)…

BTW, I'm planning on memorizing Matthew :) We'll see how far I get…

My plan is to memorize the book of Matthew…as much as possible before Bible Bee starts again. And then after Bible Bee is over finish memorizing Matthew. One of my long-term goals is to memorize the NT.

I will be moving into the junior high part of AWANA - Trek :) It is a WHOLE LOT EASIER than Bible Bee! :D

How so?

I ask the same question as JPIA; I've never been to Awana, so I really have no idea what it's like. Maybe you could give a brief description? :)

I'm not in the Awana program, but my sister and I went with a friend of ours once for the "bring a friend" requirement. I would agree that it is a lot easier than Bible Bee. Since I hadn't been memorizing the verses like everyone else, I was given their Starter Booklet to work on (about 15 verses) and the leaders were shocked when I got through the whole thing in one evening! (I was a little surprised, too.)

Yea - AWANA has always been a breeze for me

First, I'm planning on polishing up 1st and 2nd Timothy. I memorized them for the Bible Bee, but especially 1st Timothy is still pretty rough. After that I'm going to memorize Jonah, then Romans. By then it should be time to start working on next year's Bible Bee.

Sounds like a great plan! :)

Margaret-
That's my plan too!
What a coincidence.

My plan is to memorize Matthew.

I'm going to do an inductive study on the book of Micah, as well as memorize it. Like Margaret, I want to polish up 1 Timothy (I already have 2 Timothy pretty much down). I think I am also going to work on memorizing the 2010 & 2011 Senior verses.

Neat plan, Matthew! My question though (probably because I'm sort of intimidated by studying a minor prophet…) how are you going to go about studying it? I mean, 1 Timothy is kind of easy to understand after reading it several times,, while a minor prophet is not quite so much…

Sorry, if that is to broad of a question…

I'm studying Proverbs. I like how practical it is, and other things about it, too. :D

I'm planning on memorizing the Sermon on the Mount, along with an inductive Bible study on the book of Jonah and Awana. Looks like I'll be pretty busy until the next Bible Bee!

How will I go about studying it? Lots of prayer! :) I've been relying on study helps like Ryken's Bible Handbook for much of the Aerial View. The scholars have really helped me understand what Micah is saying through his abundant imagery. If I were just on my own, I think I would have a much harder time.

Sooo….how is everyone's plans for studying going? I must admit, I haven't come up with a good plan about what I'm going to do, so I haven't been as faithful as I should be….

But, I'm definitely going to think about it today! I still can't figure out if I want to study Matthew, Acts or James - any suggestions?!

I would say Acts is most likely to be helpful for the Bible Bee if (big if) they pick another Pauline epistle, but the others are really good too.

As far as my plans, I'm starting on chapter 2 of Jonah, and chapter 2 of Romans. Hopefully, I'll be done with Jonah by the end of January. Romans will take quite a bit longer, of course.