My Quizzing Testimony

As some of you might know, last week I submitted 50 applications for quiz coach to 50 churches. Most of the application was in the form of a typical resume, but I also included a 3-page testimony on how God has used quizzing to move me spiritually in my life. I would like to share that with you. Now remember, part of the reason for this testimony is also to convince the reader that I am ready to take on a quizzing position, so not every important, life-changing event in quizzing is in here, but most of it is. Enjoy.

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My name is Graham Holcomb. I am a retired Bible Quizzer, seeking to become a quizzing coach. I quizzed in ACC Bible Quizzing for eight years as a Bible quizzer. For my first three years, I quizzed for Ark Bible Chapel in Oley, PA. When Ark Bible no longer had a team, I went to quiz for Spring City Fellowship in Spring City, PA for the last five years. Let me share my quizzing testimony, and how it has made me the person I am today, inside and outside of quizzing.

I am sad to say the picture does not start out pretty. If I were to give you an honest introduction to a 7th grade Graham, you would see a depressed 7th grade student. I was depressed because I felt like I didn’t have any friends. I was depressed because I felt like he is untalented and ungifted, not good at anything. I had taken a survey at my church to discover my spiritual gifts, and I learned that knowledge was one of my spiritual gifts, but did not know how to use it. Little did I know how much the Lord was moving in my life. At my church’s youth group, there was a girl who attended the youth group, but didn’t go to our church. She went to Ark Bible Chapel, and her father was the church’s quiz team coach. Our youth leader, who know about my Biblical knowledge and love for learning the Bible, suggested that I become a part of quizzing. I thought about it, fully debating the pros and cons of joining, and at the last minute decided to be a part of it. It was a good choice. I fell in love with quizzing. I loved the detail studying of the books of the Bible we were quizzing on, and how quizzing made it so much fun. I enjoyed the fast-paced buzzing and the competition between quizzers and teams. I liked the feeling of being needed on the team for my God-given talents. All these factors and more made me want to quiz again. I wanted to do better.

To check to see if I was doing better, I started becoming a statistician of my own performance. It first started with keeping track of how many points I scored on the year and my final placing. Then it become more specific, keeping track of right and wrong buzz ins, right and wrong bonuses, quiz outs and error outs. This helped me see improvement. Being able to see the improvement helped me improve even further. I was able to get more of the good things, like right answers and quiz outs, and less of the bad things, like incorrect bonuses. This also helped me set goals to strive for.

For me, quizzing was never contained to January to March. I was still quizzing in the off-season from April to January, on the material for the next quizzing season. I write very detailed questions for the chapters being studied next year. In fact, I write down every question possible. How many questions I write depends on how many verses and how much free time I have. The most I have written is over 300 questions for 140 verses. I also tried to memorize some passage. Once again, how much I memorize comes down to how much I time I have. I try to memorize whole chapters. The chapters I choose usually is something I believe is hard to remember or important to know, which will be beneficial outside of quizzing. I do believe the entire Bible is God’s inspired, inerrant Word and is all around important, but I also think that some can be more involved than others. Those verses are the one I strive to memorize. Even though I am a retired quizzer, I still find myself writing questions and memorizing verses. I believe as a coach, if I continue to do these things, I can become a better Christian and become a better quiz coach by still learning God’s Word in detail.

But even with the right reasons in mind, things can go wrong. It was good that I no longer saw myself as ungifted or untalented, but now I solely saw my gifts and talents in quizzing. My identity solely was in quizzing. I let my quizzing performance define who I was. If I did good, I became proud. If I did poorly, I would become depressed and not like myself. All I wanted to think and talk about was quizzing. Studying in the quizzing offseason was a way to keep my identity because if I ceased to prepare for quizzing or even stop thinking about quizzing, I would return to my depression state of feeling unwanted or untalented. But my new quiz coaches would not allow me to be that way. Spending my last five years of my quizzing career with my new team and my new coaches, God used them both to help further my process of sanctification. By the end of those five years and the end of my quizzing career, my coach was able to say about me, “When Graham began quizzing with us, his identity was in quizzing. Now I am glad to say Graham’s identity is now in Christ.” May his witness of my change be enough proof to say it’s true.

Ah, yes, my quiz coaches. While I was influenced by all my coaches, my last coaches, Dave & Vicki Deitrick, had the biggest impact on me. They wanted, almost demanded, a team that was united. My coaches were concerned about my spiritual growth helped me spiritually grow. They check up on how I am doing and help in any way. They pray for me and talk to me about my walk with the Lord. They always encouraged me. Every year coach Dave would always say a word that would stick out to me as prophetic. In 2005, the word was “favor” as in “seeking God’s favor.” I took it to heart and began putting my quizzing fate in God’s hands. Whatever happened was God’s will, so I prayed hard that the Lord would help me do my best. I recognize that every point, every quiz out, every win is the favor the Lord’s blessing. Therefore, I prayed to God every day about quizzing. I always prayed to God and ask Him to bless me with His favor. Whether I do good or bad, I thanked Him every day for whatever He is given me, good or bad. In 2006, Dave mentioned “leadership,” the word that stuck with me for the rest of the year I had to be a leader for my team. I was only one of three that returned. Of the three I was ranked the highest. I learned how to be a leader, and tried my best to do so. I led by example and tried to help with studying. From that year on, to the end of my career, I became a leader to every younger quizzer on the team. My coaches in those later years would describe as both an anchor and a pillar to the team. In 2007, two words from Dave stuck out this year: revival and wisdom. Whenever I got nervous in a quiz match, Dave would look at me and say, “Wisdom” and I was at a calm peace knowing if I was wise in my quizzing, I would do well. The other word, “revival,” made me realize that this church pendulum was swinging again, and the people were examining their practices and returning to God. It reminded me to give my generation a bit of hope. The last two years didn’t have a single word for each one, but had one word expand over those two years. That were was “character.” My coaches taught me that the better title that begins with a C is “character” over “champion.” Championships only last a year, but people remember one’s character forever. God seeks to use people with character in His kingdom. And through all those years combined, the coaches made me a humble quizzer, giving God the credit always.

I hope through this testimony you have seen how God has used quizzing to help me spiritually grow. But when I see this testimony of how God has used quizzing in my life, I see something more. I don’t think God intended me to be a quizzer for eight years, and have me drop off the face of the quizzing world. I see God preparing me and equipping me to be a quiz coach.

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It has been 5 days since I sent out all those applications. I'm expecting/hoping to get a lot of responses this week. After all, I did send out 50. I have already gotten a few responses, but nothing tugging at me. I'll have to wait and see. Please continue to pray for me being a quiz coach, that God will point my to a coaching job where I am needed, wanted and can do so much for the Kingdom of God.