NCFCA 101
Is NCFCA right for my family?
NCFCA Christian Speech & Debate is a nationwide league with over 1500 families who participate in our tournaments.
Our mission is to challenge and equip ambassadors for Christ to communicate truth with integrity and grace.
NCFCA 101
Explore this page, including many helpful videos, to see if NCFCA is right for your family!
Mission & Beliefs
We are always delighted to welcome new families to our league, and we’re committed to helping them succeed. We are equally committed to maintaining the distinctives of our mission, as explained in the Mission of NCFCA 🖥️. Therefore, it’s important for us to be clear about who we are and who we serve.
Before affiliating with NCFCA, it is critical for a parent in each family to review our Mission, Core Values, and Foundational Beliefs to determine whether this league will be a good fit for the family.
- Our mission is not just a tag line. It sets our course and defines our boundaries.
We exist to equip ambassadors for Christ to communicate truth with integrity and grace.
- Our Core Values are grounded in principles from Scripture, and they apply directly to our rules and policies.
Godly Wisdom, Redeeming Truth, Gracious Communication, Enduring Excellence, Constructive Community
- Our Foundational Beliefs define who our league is meant to serve and undergird our policies and rules.
Our Statement of Faith defines who we believe Jesus Christ to be and accordingly what we mean by “ambassadors for Christ” in our mission statement. Our Position Statements on scriptural inerrancy and marriage and gender have application within our rules and policies.
- Our League Affiliation Policies place responsibility on parents for supervising how their children interact with our principles, policies, and rules.
If a parent, in good faith, understands and can agree with our mission, values, and beliefs and is willing to uphold the parental responsibilities for how their children will interact within our boundaries, they should affiliate with NCFCA.
Consider the Commitment
If our mission, values, and beliefs fit with your family, the next thing to consider is whether the time, money, and participation requirements will work by learning about the commitment and investment of League Affiliation 🖥️. (video transcript)
The commitment to participate in NCFCA is similar to travel sports, except that parents don’t watch from the sidelines–they work as hard as the competitors. The tournaments you choose to attend are up to you, but each one is a big commitment.
Time & Participation Requirements
- Tournaments are generally three full days in length (some are even longer).
- Getting there may require travel time.
- You are committing to attend and participate through the whole event.
- Parents are expected to serve from start to finish (see the policy).
Financial Costs to Consider
- Affiliation Fees
- Required for participation at events
- NCFCA offers two Affiliation Types
- Qualifying Affiliation – $160 (Required for most tournaments)
- Non-Qualifying Affiliation – $30 (Practice Events and Juniors Only)
- Tournament Registration Fees
- Each tournament requires a Student Entry Fee and Event Fees
- Example costs for one student competing in debate plus 2 speech events:
- For a Practice Event: $50
- For a 2-day Regional Qualifier: $99
- For a 3-day Regional Qualifier: $110
- For a National Open: $125
- Travel Expenses
- Travel to tournaments (often necessary)
- Overnight accommodations for the duration of the tournament (often necessary)
- Meals (bring your own or pre-purchase ahead of the tournament)
- Student Attire
- Professional dress is required of competitors
- Learn more: Competitor Dress Code Policy
- Educational Materials
- Any classroom or curricular materials you choose to use for your family or club
- NCFCA materials are available in the NCFCA Shop
- Please note that NCFCA is not prescriptive about what educational materials families use to prepare students for competition
- Other Odds and Ends
For more details, please see: Tournament Types and Commitment Overview
Participation Requirements
NCFCA is not a drop-off activity, and competitors generally can’t be sent along with a coach or a friend to tournaments.
Parent involvement and full Tournament Participation 🖥️ is essential for our tournaments to run smoothly. (video transcript)
Every single competitor increases the amount of judge support we need from adults, and the majority of that support is provided by parents. Therefore, we can’t and don’t flex our parent participation requirements except in truly extenuating circumstances.
Please read our Parent Participation and Designated Adult policies carefully.
Parents and DAs must either serve in administrative roles for the entire tournament, or they must serve as part of the full-time parent judging team for the whole tournament.
Most parents find the teamwork and camaraderie enjoyable and rewarding. Adults learn new things at every tournament and find new ways to connect with their children through the shared experience.
Skills for Life
The investment to participate in NCFCA is considerable, but the return is tremendous as shown through the testimonies of experienced parents: Parent-to-Parent 🖥️.
God has used our league for over 25 years to radically transform the critical thinking and communication skills of thousands of young people. They gain maturity beyond their years as they accept feedback, overcome fears, and learn to see complex issues from multiple angles.
The prospect of competition and positive peer pressure motivates students to prepare in ways academic classes can’t match.
At the tournament, caring adults and fellow competitors listen to what each competitor has to say. At the end they generally walk away with individualized, written feedback and scoring from 6 different debate judges and at least 9 different speech judges for each event.
Our method works to achieve our mission of preparing well-equipped ambassadors for Christ who know how to communicate truth with integrity and grace.
Hear what others are saying on our Reviews Page.
Tournament Types
NCFCA holds several types of tournaments. For a comprehensive overview, please see: Tournament Types and Commitment Overview.
Students can participate in several kinds of tournaments throughout the year:
- Junior Tournaments are designed for students age 12 and under from families with either a Qualifying – OR – Non-Qualifying Affiliation. These events focus on growth and feedback and offer no advancement.
- Practice Events are for students age 12 and older from families with either affiliation type. These tournaments are generally only offered from October through early December, and like junior tournaments, these are for growth and feedback only, without advancement.
- Qualifying Tournaments are for eligible competitors from families with a Qualifying Affiliation. These events give students the opportunity to earn advancement to higher-level competition.
- Regional Championships are the next level of competition, with invitations earned when a competitor advances in competition at a Qualifying Tournament.
- The National Championship is the end-of-season national event. Entry is limited to competitors who qualify through our Qualification System in National Opens, Regional Championships, or the National At-Large System.
Regional vs. National Tournament Events
Regional events serve families within a designated geographic region, while
- Generally, each of NCFCA’s 14 regions holds one 2-day, in-person qualifiers; three 3-day in-person Qualifiers; and one Regional Championship each season.
National events are open to competitors from any region across the country.
- National Opens are Qualifying Tournaments and are hosted both in person or online.
- The NCFCA season concludes with the National Championship in June.
In-Person vs. Online Events
Most NCFCA tournaments are held in person at host locations such as churches or universities. NCFCA also offers online competition, where students compete live from home with real-time judges connected through NCFCA’s online platform.
Each Nationals or Regional tournament includes multiple stages of competition:
- Preliminary Rounds: Every debate competitor will debate in prelim debate rounds (occasionally a competitor will have a bye for one round), and every speech competitor will deliver each speech in three prelim speech rounds.
- Elimination Rounds: The top-ranking students advance to elimination rounds. In NCFCA culture, this is called breaking. Students who break at a Qualifying Tournament are invited to their Regional Championship.
- Junior Programming: Many in-person tournaments include Junior Activities and Junior Tournaments for students age 12 and under
Experience NCFCA
If you haven’t had a chance to visit us in person, here are a few ways to see what tournament life is all about:
- Introducing NCFCA Christian Speech & Debate 🖥️
- Sample In-person Regional Qualifier Schedule
- There’s a Monster at the End! whimsical NCFCA blog post depicting a day-in-the-life of a tournament attendee.
Junior Activities at Tournaments
Our league is for families, and that includes the young ones!
Most regional NCFCA tournaments offer two types of juniors programs for students who are not old enough to compete in qualifying tournaments (generally ages 7-11), including Junior Activities and Junior Tournaments 🖥️.
- Junior Activity Programs
- For younger siblings of competitors in our qualifying tournament
- Scheduled sessions throughout the tournament
- Register at the tournament
- Junior Tournaments
- For pre-registered participants from qualifying or non-qualifying affiliate families.
- One-day event with a specified timeframe
- Junior Activity Programs
Find a Club
The best way to start strong in NCFCA is to start or join a Speech & Debate Club 🖥️ and walk with friends on the journey.
Most of the training for competition in NCFCA takes place through independent speech and debate clubs all over the country. We strongly encourage families to join a local club or gather some friends to start one of their own if they plan to participate in our league.
You can find a club through the Find-a-Club filters on the Club page of our website.
We also have a dedicated club support manager who will connect you with the right people and resources if you want to find some friends and start a small club of your own. It really can be done, even without any prior experience! We’re here to help. Email gro.ACFCN@troppuSbulC to get started.
Visit a Tournament
Watch the video above to see what it would be like to visit one of our tournaments while we are in competition season.
During our competition season, from December through June, we would love to welcome you to one of our in-person or online tournaments!
Visiting a Tournament 🖥️ will let you experience the atmosphere of constructive community, meet our people, and see what speech and debate competition really looks like. Our visit-a-tournament page will tell you all you need to know.
Visit a Club
In the spring, many clubs around the country host open house nights, and some of them allow visitors to come to a club meeting to see what it’s like. You can use our clubs page to find clubs in your area.
Explore our Events Page
The events page on our website will let you know about conventions we may be attending, educational events offered through the NCFCA and independent clubs, and information on how you can watch live online elimination rounds for major tournaments like our National Championship.
Our Regions
We have people from Hawaii to Florida who are ready to help you get going with speech and debate, and our league and many independent clubs host activities throughout the year.
We have 14 geographical regions and each region has multiple clubs and its own set of tournaments each season. You can reach out to the leaders within your region for help with connecting to other families that might be interested in starting the NCFCA journey with you.
Season Timeline
We are in motion all year!
- Summer: Learning and Skill Building
- NCFCA offers online education events.
- Many independent clubs hold in-person camps.
- Fall: Preparing for Competition.
- Clubs and families prepare for competition, and NCFCA provides support to help them get ready.
- Tournament opportunities will start to appear on the Tournaments page of our website. (You can see past tournament locations using the filter on this page.)
- Practice Events are offered online through NCFCA and in person by many clubs around the country.
- Winter and Spring: Qualifying and Championship Competition
- December: NCFCA hosts an Online National Open, featuring debate and limited prep speech events.
- January–April: Qualifying Tournaments take place in person and online.
- April–May: Regions host their Regional Championships.
- Early June: The season concludes with the NCFCA National Championship.
- Summer: Learning and Skill Building