Hope Church Wins 2026 Teen Bible Quiz Championship

A trio of siblings from Hope Church in Springfield, Missouri, claimed the 2026 Teen Bible Quiz championship during the 37-team competition held June 27 – July 3 at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson.

The Hope Church team, consisting of Meghan, Alyssa, and Drew Ramsey, and coached by their mother, Lisa Ramsey, completed the championship bracket with a 15-4 record, edging out Braeswood AG in Houston and Radiant Quizzers of Radiant Life Church in Dublin, Ohio, who finished second and third, respectively, with 14-5 records. Calvary Church of Naperville, Illinois, placed fourth and Fiery Arrows of Bellevue Neighborhood Church in Bellevue, Washington, placed fifth, with 13-6 records. In the Championship bracket, tie breaker rules had to be used to break ties among 14 of the 20 teams for final placement.

This year, teams were quizzed over their knowledge of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon during the weeklong event.

Radiant Quizzers’ Nathan Nimako led all individual quizzers with an average of 125.3 points per match. He was followed by Greetings from Painesville’s Justin Klco from Painesville AG in Painesville, Ohio, who averaged 108.2 points; Shaylee Powell from Calvary Church who averaged 106.1 points; Fiery Arrows’ Yatin Mokana who averaged 102.9 points; and More than Conquerors’ Steve Joy from Atlanta Indian Prayer Fellowship in Marietta, Georgia, who averaged, 100.3 points per match.

The Hope Church squad led all Championship bracket teams with an average of 193.4 points per match, with Meghan, Alyssa, and Drew finishing 10th, 12th, and 40th, respectively in overall scoring. Of note, Meghan and Alyssa coached the 2025 Junior Bible Quiz National Festival championship team, of which Drew was a member.

Exactly how tough was the competition? One might think that Hope Church would have taken at least some of its losses against the other top five teams. However, a look at the bracket reveals its four losses came against teams who finished eighth, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth. And second place Braeswood fell not only to Hope Church, but to teams that finished as far back as 18th place — meaning the competition was intense and no match could be considered an “automatic” win.

“I’ll tell you how tough the competition was,” states National Bible Quiz Coordinator Bernie Elliot. “On any given day, any of those championship bracket teams could be national champion. It used to be maybe one superstar quizzer would have memorized the entire books of the Bible we were quizzing over. This year, 100 young people had all the books memorized — entire teams and their substitutes had all the books memorized!”

Although the quizzing competition tests the speed, accuracy, and memory of participants, Elliot says that there is a strong spiritual emphasis to the week.

“This year, Holly Davis, the director of Student Discipleship for the AG national Youth department, spoke on the Parable of the Sower in the Sunday morning service,” Elliot says. “She really challenged quizzers not only to hear and learn the Word, but to put it into action that results in producing disciples who produce disciples.”

Elliot also noted that services the next four days had quizzers ministering from the pulpit.

“Some of these quizzers I’ve known for years, and they seemed to be quiet and sedate,” Elliot says with a chuckle, “but then they got up to preach — it was tremendous how they brought the Word home . . . I was just really impressed.”

Next year will mark Elliot’s 50th year in Bible Quiz and 2027 will also be the 65th national finals for Bible Quiz.

“We already have some special plans for our 65th year,” Elliot states. “For a start, for the first time ever, we’ll be holding the national finals in Louisiana, June 26 – July 2, 2027. “We’ll be quizzing at the Shreveport Convention Center, which connects directly to a Hilton hotel.”

To keep up to date on Bible Quiz happenings or learn more about it, consider joining the AG Bible Quiz Community on Facebook, sign-up to have access to relevant events at Biblequiz.com, and subscribe to the official newsletter. A complete listing of the 2026 Bible Quiz National final team results and more can also be found on the Bible Quiz website.