I Am Just Syd: American Bible Challenge Hits Dallas

In an effort to achieve one of my goals I talked about in a previous post, I ventured out to Vista Ridge Mall Saturday to take some pictures. I was informed that an open casting call was taking place for a new game show on The Game Show Network. It's going to be hosted by Jeff Foxworthy and the title of the show is American Bible Challenge. From the sound of it, the show is going to feature contestants from around the nation who know the bible the best.

Having not heard of the show before, I did what every person who uses the internet does when they need information, I Googled it. What I found was various blogs and articles asking more questions than providing answers. I did find the basics of the show, those being that eighteen teams of three will compete for a charity that will be the beneficiary of the competing team's winnings. How these teams will compete, how long the show will be on and how much bible knowledge you need to know to actually get on the show Google couldn't tell me. I decided it was time I go see for myself. I recruited my mom and her best friend to join me and we headed out to Lewisville.

When we got to the mall, the audition was easy enough to fine as it was located just inside a popular mall entrance. We first saw a crowd of around two dozen people standing, in movie queue formation, to the right of a pair of well lit stages. The stage on the right was small and had a background with the logo of the show repeated on it, like you would see on a red carpet. A few feet to the left of this stage was a much larger one framed with boldly designed banners announcing the presence of GSN and the American Bible Challenge. To the left of the main stage was a table covered in American Bible Challenge swag and signage and next to that table was a table for the local christian radio station. As contemporary christian pop music blared, we absently took up the clipboards we were handed and strode to our place in line.

As we filled out the forms, the standard "we want to get to know ya!" kind, we struck up a conversation with the lady in front of us. Her name was Clara and she was from Lewisville. She'd heard about the audition on the radio and wanted to participate because it was something completely different. She also wanted to support anything that would encourage people to see Christ in a positive light as she felt society has been discouraging people to have faith. She had one more reason she wanted to audition for the show, a reason I sympathize with, and that was she wanted to see a Hispanic person competing. I looked around and out of the thirty or so people present only half a dozen were people of color. Knowing that Dallas has a huge African American and Hispanic church going population, it was sad to not see more people who looked like me.

We waited in line for about ninety minutes and I got a chance to take a few pictures. Unfortunately, we didn't get to try out for the show as my mom had an appointment to get to. We left Clara and told her we would be rooting for her if she ended up on the show. All in all, it was a good idea to try something new.