The Beginning
In the spring of 1998, Greg Weisman was in his second year of serving as the pastor of Junior High Ministries at Bayside Church. He had grown the ministry to include several hundred students and a thriving body of volunteers serving alongside of him.
One of those volunteers, Bryan Stewart, enjoyed riding off road motorcycles with his father and brother. He invited Greg to go for a ride one day and offered to let the youth pastor ride his own bike, a 1995 KTM 300, at Mammoth Bar Off Highway Vehicle Park. Having ridden in his youth on smaller motorcycles, Greg had absolutely no idea how exciting it was going to be to ride one of the best engineered dirt bikes ever made. After an afternoon of riding, it took a significant amount of time to scrape the bugs off of his teeth from smiling so broadly during the ride.
After the ride, Bryan explained that he and his family knew lots of people at Bayside who rode dirt bikes like they did. Greg organized a community meeting at a local restaurant in Roseville, CA early one March morning. There he met eight men who loved the Lord, had a passion for dirt bikes, and all had becomes friends through their participation in the sport.
Ministry on Bikes
In April 1998, they planned the first ever event for this newfound group of friends – a Saturday ride at Mammoth Bar. About 40 people went and there were bikes, quads, heaters for keeping warm outdoors, and more.
They combined playing follow the leader on the trails, track riding, huddling around butane heaters for lunch, and a raffle with some great dirt bike prizes donated by people like Mark Correa of MC Concepts. People walked away with smiles, plans to do it again, and some pretty cool free stuff!
Participants of the dirt bike group met and began dreaming about forming a ministry that focused on people who rode dirt bikes. There was even talk that someday, there would be a dozen or so dirt bikes for kids, so we could turn it into a family focused ministry.
Little did they know that within a couple of months after the meeting, one of the leaders would hear about a training program for volunteers to teach the Dirt Bike School sponsored by the local Police Activities League (PALS) chapter.
Five Baysiders – Greg Weisman, Mike Stewart, Clay Frederick, George Boyse, and Steve Keys – underwent 40 intense hours of training to become licensed PALs Dirt Bike School instructors. Equipped with a dozen Honda motorcycles and complete gear, they gave free professional dirt bike riding lessons for at-risk children aged 10 and older at Prairie City OHV State Park.
That same period, Greg and his family invited a number of other families to go camping in Yosemite National Park and up the famous 17-mile Half Dome trail. This was the beginning of the annual Yosemite trip that continues to this day. Since 1999, BAS has taken an average of 250 people a year to Yosemite to go camping, and 750 people to traverse the Half Dome trail.
The first “Extreme Sports Ministry”
By fall of 1998, the leadership team had evidently grown to a significant ministry banner of their own. Mike Stewart helped Greg Weisman launch the “Extreme Sports Ministry” and began offering options such as dirt bikes, hiking, mountain biking, skydiving and others. Bayside Church let them have their own table at the Granite Bay High School Breezeway on Sunday mornings to spread their ministry and get people involved. By 2000, this initially small group of friends officially called themselves “Bayside Adventure Sports”.
Alongside Bayside Church
In 2003, Bayside Church was going through the process of building their first facility. Their insurance carrier did an overall evaluation of Bayside ministries and when they evaluated BAS pertaining to liability risks for the church, they concluded a separation was needed.
Through evaluations with insurance and legal counsel, it was determined that BAS should be separated into a different entity due to the nature of the programs. This began the spinoff of BAS as a separate organization with its own identity. Despite this, BAS leadership was determined to continue close collaborationwith Bayside Covenant Church. Fortunately, Senior Pastor and founder of Bayside Church Ray Johnston and other leaders valued and supported the development of BAS as a separate California Religious Non-Profit Corporation 501(c)3.
BAS now serves as a true “para-church” (para means “alongside”) organization, serving alongside Bayside Church in partnership with the goal of reaching people for Jesus Christ and assimilating them into the local church where they can become fully devoted followers.
BAS Today
Today, BAS offers over 300 events per year from beginner to advanced levels, in over 24 divisions. There are 25+ trips per year lasting three or more days. Most events are small and offer terrific relational connections and training, but some are large with hundreds participating. We have an amazing team of volunteers that help us pull off these events.
BAS and the Future
In 2020 Greg began discussions with Bayside Leadership about a succession plan that would insure a great future for BAS. We came to a great solution that the Bayside Leadership loves! We have begun the search for a new director for BAS. Bayside has generously agreed to keep Greg on until September 2023, at which time he will then transition off the Bayside Pastoral Staff to work with our new non-profit, G1 Outdoors, expanding adventure ministries everywhere while he gets to mentor and train our new BAS Director! Imagine a world where there are ministries like Bayside Adventure Sports in every major city, networked together to fulfill the Great Commission by engaging volunteers to use adventure sports to attract and attach people to Jesus and his church. BAS is going to impact the world by modeling how to do adventure ministry for every other church.
BAS is going to fund its future, ensuring its ability to honor God. BAS will begin by donating 50% of the new Director’s salary monthly, and will increase funding by 10% every five months until fully supporting the Director’s salary about two years from his/her starting date. It’s important that the director be a Pastor on the staff of Bayside Church (and it’s in the Bylaws). How will BAS handle the additional financial need? For years you have heard our pastors say, “You don’t give to Bayside, you give through Bayside.” Donations to Bayside provided the funds to pay Greg's salary to lead BAS. I ask you now to consider supporting the new BAS Director by donating to BAS as well as Bayside Church (don’t stop supporting our church) which will in turn allow BAS to fund the Director’s position. Bayside Church will cover the person’s health/retirement benefits from the start and for the future. I believe we can and will fund most of the needs.
We are exploring other income options to assist, like:
A few other details:
In the spring of 1998, Greg Weisman was in his second year of serving as the pastor of Junior High Ministries at Bayside Church. He had grown the ministry to include several hundred students and a thriving body of volunteers serving alongside of him.
One of those volunteers, Bryan Stewart, enjoyed riding off road motorcycles with his father and brother. He invited Greg to go for a ride one day and offered to let the youth pastor ride his own bike, a 1995 KTM 300, at Mammoth Bar Off Highway Vehicle Park. Having ridden in his youth on smaller motorcycles, Greg had absolutely no idea how exciting it was going to be to ride one of the best engineered dirt bikes ever made. After an afternoon of riding, it took a significant amount of time to scrape the bugs off of his teeth from smiling so broadly during the ride.
After the ride, Bryan explained that he and his family knew lots of people at Bayside who rode dirt bikes like they did. Greg organized a community meeting at a local restaurant in Roseville, CA early one March morning. There he met eight men who loved the Lord, had a passion for dirt bikes, and all had becomes friends through their participation in the sport.
Ministry on Bikes
In April 1998, they planned the first ever event for this newfound group of friends – a Saturday ride at Mammoth Bar. About 40 people went and there were bikes, quads, heaters for keeping warm outdoors, and more.
They combined playing follow the leader on the trails, track riding, huddling around butane heaters for lunch, and a raffle with some great dirt bike prizes donated by people like Mark Correa of MC Concepts. People walked away with smiles, plans to do it again, and some pretty cool free stuff!
Participants of the dirt bike group met and began dreaming about forming a ministry that focused on people who rode dirt bikes. There was even talk that someday, there would be a dozen or so dirt bikes for kids, so we could turn it into a family focused ministry.
Little did they know that within a couple of months after the meeting, one of the leaders would hear about a training program for volunteers to teach the Dirt Bike School sponsored by the local Police Activities League (PALS) chapter.
Five Baysiders – Greg Weisman, Mike Stewart, Clay Frederick, George Boyse, and Steve Keys – underwent 40 intense hours of training to become licensed PALs Dirt Bike School instructors. Equipped with a dozen Honda motorcycles and complete gear, they gave free professional dirt bike riding lessons for at-risk children aged 10 and older at Prairie City OHV State Park.
That same period, Greg and his family invited a number of other families to go camping in Yosemite National Park and up the famous 17-mile Half Dome trail. This was the beginning of the annual Yosemite trip that continues to this day. Since 1999, BAS has taken an average of 250 people a year to Yosemite to go camping, and 750 people to traverse the Half Dome trail.
The first “Extreme Sports Ministry”
By fall of 1998, the leadership team had evidently grown to a significant ministry banner of their own. Mike Stewart helped Greg Weisman launch the “Extreme Sports Ministry” and began offering options such as dirt bikes, hiking, mountain biking, skydiving and others. Bayside Church let them have their own table at the Granite Bay High School Breezeway on Sunday mornings to spread their ministry and get people involved. By 2000, this initially small group of friends officially called themselves “Bayside Adventure Sports”.
Alongside Bayside Church
In 2003, Bayside Church was going through the process of building their first facility. Their insurance carrier did an overall evaluation of Bayside ministries and when they evaluated BAS pertaining to liability risks for the church, they concluded a separation was needed.
Through evaluations with insurance and legal counsel, it was determined that BAS should be separated into a different entity due to the nature of the programs. This began the spinoff of BAS as a separate organization with its own identity. Despite this, BAS leadership was determined to continue close collaborationwith Bayside Covenant Church. Fortunately, Senior Pastor and founder of Bayside Church Ray Johnston and other leaders valued and supported the development of BAS as a separate California Religious Non-Profit Corporation 501(c)3.
BAS now serves as a true “para-church” (para means “alongside”) organization, serving alongside Bayside Church in partnership with the goal of reaching people for Jesus Christ and assimilating them into the local church where they can become fully devoted followers.
BAS Today
Today, BAS offers over 300 events per year from beginner to advanced levels, in over 24 divisions. There are 25+ trips per year lasting three or more days. Most events are small and offer terrific relational connections and training, but some are large with hundreds participating. We have an amazing team of volunteers that help us pull off these events.
BAS and the Future
In 2020 Greg began discussions with Bayside Leadership about a succession plan that would insure a great future for BAS. We came to a great solution that the Bayside Leadership loves! We have begun the search for a new director for BAS. Bayside has generously agreed to keep Greg on until September 2023, at which time he will then transition off the Bayside Pastoral Staff to work with our new non-profit, G1 Outdoors, expanding adventure ministries everywhere while he gets to mentor and train our new BAS Director! Imagine a world where there are ministries like Bayside Adventure Sports in every major city, networked together to fulfill the Great Commission by engaging volunteers to use adventure sports to attract and attach people to Jesus and his church. BAS is going to impact the world by modeling how to do adventure ministry for every other church.
BAS is going to fund its future, ensuring its ability to honor God. BAS will begin by donating 50% of the new Director’s salary monthly, and will increase funding by 10% every five months until fully supporting the Director’s salary about two years from his/her starting date. It’s important that the director be a Pastor on the staff of Bayside Church (and it’s in the Bylaws). How will BAS handle the additional financial need? For years you have heard our pastors say, “You don’t give to Bayside, you give through Bayside.” Donations to Bayside provided the funds to pay Greg's salary to lead BAS. I ask you now to consider supporting the new BAS Director by donating to BAS as well as Bayside Church (don’t stop supporting our church) which will in turn allow BAS to fund the Director’s position. Bayside Church will cover the person’s health/retirement benefits from the start and for the future. I believe we can and will fund most of the needs.
We are exploring other income options to assist, like:
- Building out a Sponsor Portal in our software through which paid advertising could occur
- Expanding benefits for Premium Members to incentivize more people to join
- Charging a nominal fee for all BAS events
- Hosting several different annual fundraising events
A few other details:
- We are partnering with Bayside to find Greg's successor. If you know someone who might be a good candidate for the BAS Director, please have them read the job description and FAQs found on our website: www.baysideadventuresports.com/jobs. The job is also on a portal Bayside uses called Church Staffing: www.churchstaffing.com/job/262513/adventure-sports-director/bayside-church
- If you are ready to set up a monthly donation to BAS to begin helping us prepare for the new Director, please go to www.baysideadventuresports.com/donate
- If you would like to help us with the expansion of G1 Outdoors, please get in touch with Greg at 916 847-4734 (text is best).
- Yes, we are also running our Christian Adventure Tour Ministry, G1 Adventure Tours. This ministry is a resource to all the churches launching adventure sports ministries with G1 Outdoors. I’ll be leading the Everest Base Camp trek next month. More information about other trips like Machu Picchu, Adventure Israel, Tanzania, and more at www.g1at.life
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