Comments on: Sword Drills

By: grace2live

grace2live — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:21:42 +0000

Another variation on a sword drill: have the leader call out a word like “door” or “camel”, and when he says go, the kids have to find and read a verse containing that word. How fast can you find concupiscence?

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 12:31:41 +0000

You cheated at the Sword Drill?!? I’m pretty sure people go to Hell for that.

By: Darren

Darren — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 12:16:13 +0000

If I knew the verse, I would just open my Bible to a random place, stand up and start quoting.

By: Alecta

Alecta — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:31:17 +0000

I didn’t grow up fundie, but my childhood church and the summer camp I attened (all girls, of course) was preeeeetty evangelical and we did this without the sword metaphor. I hated it as I wasn’t a competitive kid and didn’t get how this was supposed to be fun – I’d usually sit there and look grumpy.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:00:49 +0000

Didn’t “sword drills” pop up on an episode of The Simpsons? I vaguely recall an episode dealing with them (of course, the Flanders were involved). I just remember being surprised that the show would joke about something so relatively obscure (though you didn’t have to watch for long to catch on).

By: Camille

Camille — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:49:08 +0000

I won them a lot too.

Until that blasted little new kid brought his mother’s *indexed* Bible. Grrrrr. . . . I was both horrified and intrigued at the possibilities.

But yes, using the Bible as a weapon is an early skill.

By: Ada

Ada — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:42:06 +0000

I loved these as well. Maybe because I won them all.

By: maria bergh

maria bergh — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:49:08 +0000

I grew up with all of this, too. I remember thinking: why couldn’t the BIble be like other books? Why not in alphabetical order?” As a Grandmother of 2, I still want the Bible in alphabetical order!
At the church we currently attend (with a BJU grad pastor, even!) the kids do NOT do sword drills. When I taught Sunday School, I saw a need for the kids to at least learn the books of the Bible, and what was contained in the books. Then I introduced the little song “The Devil is a sly old fox, if I could catch him I’d put him in a box” well, that got me kicked out of children’s ministries!

By: Reader Mo

Reader Mo — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:08:43 +0000

Trina- if you’re ever looking for a fundy husband, I’d make sure to put that on your resume, right under “plays piano” and “does not own pants” (or, “britches”, as it were). you can say “holy enough to beat the boys at sword drilling, but fundy enough to submit to they’re authority, right or wrong”.

Staci- You said: “Oh, the things we did with our BiblesÃ¢â‚¬Â¦except read them. We memorized them and competed with them and carried them everywhere (always on the top of the stack; never on the bottom), but we missed the message entirely.”

I say: I’ve never heard fundyism so accurately and succinctly described!

Morgan- Ha! Also, we’d get the extra-heavy bible covers, with room for a legal pad, pens, and several highlighters. Mine had a stainless steel Jesus fish on it too. The extra weight made the word of God non only “sharper than any two-edged sword”, but also heavier that any sledge hammer. that’s gooooooood thumpin’!

By: Trina

Trina — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:56:46 +0000

I have to ditto Jordan M Poss, Becca, Nathan, Reader Mo, Laura and Staci. lol. Usually we did girls against boys and just kept score for 20 minutes or so. I always made it so the girls would win. Then I’d feel bad because the guys are supposed to be leaders so I would start losing on purpose to help encourage them.