Youth Group Activities

Some of the best times that I ever had at TCBC were at youth group activities. We had the best youth pastor, Dave Bunt. He came a couple years before I got into the youth group and was at TCBC for ten years or more. From my perspective, I don’t think they’ve had a better one since. Pastor Dave wore many hats and his biggest one was being a father figure to many of the kids and being a mentor to many others. Some of the kids that came out from under Pastor Dave’s ministry have gone on to have a major impact in the lives of others in Christian ministry in one form or another. I don’t have anything bad to say about Pastor Dave. I’ve always admired him even though we never had a close relationship.

Every summer I went to summer camp. We went to Colorado a couple times. We had great times up there with 4-wheeling, hiking, swimming in the icy cold river during the middle of summer, games, and even the preaching services. My parents came on a couple of them. My mother and her best friend would work in the kitchen. My dad would be one of the chaperones. 

We had winter camps a couple times. They’d only be a couple days long and they’d be somewhere north of Phoenix where there would be snow. I remember one time taking over the gym of a church with sleeping bags and Bibles. I remember the older kids trying to give the younger kids wedgies. I was one of the few strong enough to be able to fight them off. That was also the year that I was going to go skiing for the first time but there was very little snow and the ski resort didn’t open.

We also took day trips up to snow and Pastor Dave would find a spot on the side of the road and we’d all get off and tube, sled, or whatever for a couple of hours and then we’d head home. Everybody would be wet, cold, and dirty but it was a great time.

We also had local activities. A favorite of mine was when we’d take the bus up to Indian Bend Rd and skate down Indian Bend Wash down to ASU where we would skate around for a while. There was a time when we’d have to take some city streets out of the wash because it wasn’t completely connected. Some would stop at the DQ we passed and get ice cream. Later the path was completed to ASU and that made it nicer and then after doing this for a couple of years we were not allowed to skate on ASU property any more. 

I also loved the all-night activities. Sometimes we’d have all-night bowling and sometimes it started out as an all-church family activity but most families did not make it all the way through like the teens. Typically, youth group all-night activities would consist of roller skating and bowling. We’d spend 8pm to midnight skating and midnight to 6am bowling. Some would go to breakfast afterwards but I usually had to go home and go to sleep.

I’m sure if I thought about it I could think of more but that’s the highlights. The activities always included a preaching or teaching time before or during the activity. Pastor Dave loved to have fun but his primary focus was on training young men and women to serve God. I believe he did a pretty good job.