Retreat Countdown: 18 Days

That's right everyone, only 18 days until our annual youth retreat at Storybook Lodge! This retreat is going to be awesome! We will have great food, fun games, prizes, powerful times of worship, challenging guest speakers, sledding, skating, basketball tournaments, dodge ball, volleyball, night games and more! You don't want to miss it. Sign up as soon as possible. You have two weeks left to register. Registration requires $50 and an updated 2010 permission slip. Get those two things to me and you are in! Also, think of a friend you could invite to come along - as friends are welcome to join us.

This Wednesday at youth group we will have a BIG announcement about the retreat. Make sure you are there to find out what it is! We have been praying for an awesome retreat and I know that God is going to do some powerful things!

So what is the one thing you are most looking forward to at this retreat?

Night at the White House

This Saturday marks the return of a classic event from our youth group's past: Night at the White House. A few years ago my wife, Sarah, and I began inviting students over to our house to hang out. At the time the President of the U.S. was George W. Bush. At the time our house was white. So we put the two together (our last name being Bush and our house being white) and began calling this event Night at the White House. It was always a blast having students over to our house. We played games, ate food, watched movies, and just hung out. Well then Sarah and I went and started having kids, which of course threw a big curve ball into the event. It has been kind of crazy getting used to having our own kids to go along with our youth group kids! But now that we have settled down we are bringing back Night at the White House! This Saturday we invite all students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade over to our house from 7pm until 9pm. If you need directions on how to get there, just email me or ask me on Wednesday. And if you are in 9th-12th grade, don't worry - we will have a Night at the White House for you coming up in April. I look forward to seeing you junior highers at our place on Saturday night!

-PT

Getting to know you

Last night was so much fun! I really enjoyed hanging out with you guys at youth group. It seemed like a really laid back and relaxed night, and we had a lot of laughs. Our focus last night was on getting to know each other and everyone within our youth group. This helps to build our relationships with each other as we continually are seeking to build our relationship with God. It also helps to build unity within our youth group, something that is really important! (important to me, important to the youth leaders, important for you the students, and important to the life of our youth group.) So having said all that, my question relates to getting to know you. Respond to this post with a comment by telling us something about yourself that we would not normally have already known. It can be something simple or it can be something really deep. You decide. I look forward to getting to know you all a little better.

-PT

Where is everyone at?

Well first I should let you know where I have been. The last week has been kind of crazy. I last updated on here on Monday, February 1st, and usually I get a chance to post something the day after youth group, but last Thursday was crazy. Then Sarah and I took our family down to the Twin Cities for the weekend. We just got back yesterday afternoon.

I looked through the blog and see that there hasn't been much activity lately. What have you been busy doing? Just take a quick moment and reply with a comment to this question: What is one thing you would like to see us do in youth group?

Let me know.

-PT

Bayside Bowl IV results and pictures

Well Bayside Bowl IV has come and gone, and what an event it was! We had about 40 students come out and it was a fun time. There was soccer, dodge ball, video games, snow football, hot chocolate, pizza and much more! It was a lot of fun and I thank everyone who came out. Of course we took plenty of pictures - so check these out.

This first picture is Dylan and Hunter battling it out on Sonic, as Falyn watches:


The next picture is of Team Yesterday. They took third place in the Bayside Bowl!


Here is Grant and Philip enjoying some hot chocolate to warm up:


One of the few good action photos, this is Jordan Johnson reaching for a catch:


Below is a team photo of Well Oiled Machine - two-time champions of the Bayside Bowl. This year they took second place:


Below is the team Photo of Nation of Domination - the Bayside Bowl IV CHAMPIONS. This was the second title for the Nation of Domination. They were led by team captain Tommy Casper, who was the most valuable player of the Bayside Bowl for the third time! Congratulations.


Once again thank you to all who participated. It was a lot of fun. We are looking forward to seeing you out there again next year for BAYSIDE BOWL V!

-PT

Bayside Bowl is SATURDAY!

I hope you all get a chance to come to our Bayside Bowl this weekend. It is Saturday from 11am-3pm. Come for football, games, pizza, and more! We look forward to seeing you there. I will post pictures and results on Sunday...

Mistakes

We had a great night last night at youth group. Glad to see all of you that were there. If you weren't there - we missed you! We had some human tic-tac-toe and we talked about mistakes. Anyone willing to post about the worst mistake they ever made?

Also, here are some more pictures as requested.

This first picture is from youth group back in October:



And here is one of youth leaders Annie, Tom, and Grant. Not sure what is happening here but I think we can all assume!



Hope everyone had fun last night. We'll see you Saturday at the Bayside Bowl!!!

-PT

What do you feed yourself? What do you desire?

On Sunday Pastor Mark preached a sermon about feasting on the word of God. There was a part where he focused on a very important truth for us to remember. What we feed ourselves is what we desire. He talked about when we feed ourselves with junk, we will desire junk. And when we feed ourselves with the word of God, we will desire the word of God. In Sunday school class we discussed this further and talked about how important it is to choose wisely what we feed ourselves, so that our desires will be after God, his word, his will, and his way. So my questions are this, "What do you feed yourself and what do you desire?" How do these two relate? You can share your thoughts in a comment or email me at baysideyouthgroup@yahoo.com

-PT

Bayside Bowl IV is next Saturday!

We are one week away from the fourth annual Bayside Bowl! It is going to be an awesome event and you don't want to miss out on the fun. We will begin at 11am and it will go until about 3pm. There will be pizza, a snow football tournament, video games, foosball, ping pong, and dodge ball! There is something for everyone! So invite a friend and plan on coming next Saturday, January 30.

For the football tournament we are expecting the 2-time defending champions to return in an attempt to win the Bayside Bowl again. However, I am hearing of a few different teams being formed that could give some competition to the defending champs. I can't wait to see how it unfolds. Each year we have had more teams than the last year. For the inaugural tournament we had just three teams. The second year we had four teams. And last year we had five teams. My hope is that we will have six teams this year! That means you have to find some friends and put a team together.

So my question for everyone reading this is: what are you most looking forward to at the Bayside Bowl?

I had to put a new picture in here...

After seeing my ugly face with my prison picture on here, I decided it would be best to post a new picture at the top. Last night we had lots of fun at youth group. We played some serious "Bin" ball, which if you don't know is a variation of dodge ball but with large trash bins that you try to score the ball in. It was lots of fun. Then we had Nate Steel as our guest speaker. He has spoken at youth group a couple times now and will continue to do so periodically. I think he did a great job on his talk. What was the most intriguing thing that you took from what Nate said last night? You can post a comment here or email me at baysideyouthgroup@yahoo.com

Also, enjoy the pictures:

Falyn and Erica getting serious about a game of ping pong!


Erick, Luke, and Ryan make a great totem pole!


Aaron, Philip, and Tyler just hanging out!


-PT