When I was a youngster, one of the great competitions was the sword drill.
Deriving from the idea that the Bible is the sword of the Lord, we would then drill into the Bible in competition to see who could find a verse first. Favourites like John 3:16 could be found in a matter of seconds.
So, when asked to lead a sword drill for our Grades 4-7 class, I was will to lead the drill.
Except some of our students had brought their ipads and Blackberries – with the Bible on them. Now, the smartest and quickest of the paper Bible crowd was the one who wanted the sword drill. He thought he could match those with electronica!
So, I started with a fairly hard verse – in the middle nowhere as far as Bible verses are concerned. The studious one found it fairly quickly. But not quickly enough. The electronica gang had merely to click three times and in a matter of a second the verse was found. Attempting an easier verse fared no better.
And so, the sword drill may become a dinosaur! Perhaps we can now ask the students not only to find the verse quickly (which will not take much), but now, because they will have no problem finding the verse, we can ask them to explain the verse in their own words. Competition and content – not a bad idea!!