HISTORY

TBA began in 2003 when a few young adults were looking at the lives of high school students and wishing there could be an environment that would be more conducive to spiritual growth. They began to look at summer plans and to ask themselves, “where can we go, where can we take kids to help them get closer to God?” They saw that a three-week block of time was open that summer, and so they went to God in prayer asking what should take place during those three weeks. The deep conviction of their hearts was that there seems to be three significant elements in spirituality that are needed for balanced spiritual growth:

1. Solitude—time away from distractions to seek God and hear His voice

2. Study—a deeper look into the Bible and spirituality

3. Service—the natural outworking of a relationship with Him.

PURPOSE

The purpose of TBA is to provide an experience for high school students to grow in their relationship with God. TBA provides an environment where they can meet and experience God by spending time with Him personally, digging deeper into the Bible and serving others. Prolonged exposure to these elements with a minimization of distractions helps TBA have a greater and longer lasting impact than many other programs which are shorter in duration. TBA has also been found to be a bridge program for the Youth Rush colporteuring program. After students have experienced 3 weeks of TBA, they are often ready to devote 10-weeks of their next summer to colporteuring.

GUIDELINES

1. Commitment—Students must fully commit to participate in all aspects of the program.

   • No Dating Relationships—The goal of TBA is for students to find a relationship with God. To minimize drama and distractions, students must put relationships on hold for the duration of the program.

   • Own Will- Students must desire to come, not by force by parents or friends, but because on their own, they desire to be closer to God

2. No secular—media, conversations, electronics etc. Self phones will be taken and given to students for short periods on several nights during the second week. By the second week, students don’t even want to be on their phones.

3. Positive attitude- students must bring and maintain a positive attitude throughout the program as it will heavily impact their experience and the experience of their peers. This makes everything soooo much more fun!

failure to comply with guidelines as per direction and warnings of staff can result in being sent back home. While we do as much as possible to avoid this happening, cooperation is required

COVID-19

Due to the pandemic, we ask that all students and staff are willing and able to uphold the protocols maintained by Central California Conference for the duration of the program. As time draws closer to the program date, more updates will be posted about this, come back to the website for more information.