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With 116 teenagers signed up, Bethany Evangelical Free Church might have the largest teen Bible study group around. How did the church get that many teenagers motivated to study the Bible over their summer break? Take them water skiing.

Church member and water ski group founder Herb Wunsch, wanted a way to bring teenagers together to learn about God in a fun way. Twelve years ago, he started the group with his own three children, and it didn’t take long before more kids showed up at Airport Beach for the four or so hours of skiing and one hour of lunch and Bible study.

Wunsch died suddenly in February 2007, but the teenagers — from novice skiers to river rats — are still coming for summer fun. They meet every Wednesday throughout the summer at Airport Beach.

On one recent Wednesday, Amanda Jenks, 15, a first-time skier from Holmen, was having fun until she fell in the water.

“I didn’t know what to do at first,” she said. That’s when instructors and teammates encourage novices to relax, lean back on their skis and when they fall, wait to be picked up by the safety boat.

Tanner Dunn, a 14-year-old from West Salem, is a first timer with the club but he has skied before. He joined the church group because his soccer friend talked him into it.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Dunn said. “I wanted to ski a lot, and you ski a lot more in this group.”

The teenagers are discovering the sport is harder than it looks. “You have to lean back and keep your arms straight,” said Jacob Kane, a 14-year-old from West Salem in his first year. “It’s a lot harder to get up on the skis than I thought.”

“They’ve got to learn to not lean forward,” said Rick Teska, the organizer of the water ski group. “People have a tendency to lean forward in a crunch stance but they’ve got to lean back on their heels.”

Jenks, Dunn and Kane were part of a team of eight that also included Aubrey Symons and Christy Noffke from Holmen, Hannah Schumacher from La Crosse, Holland Kabat from Onalaska and Jared Witt from La Crescent.

Symons, a 16-year-old from Holmen, was the leader and seemed to be an old hand at the sport. In the program for four years, Symons was part of the core group, made up of teen leaders who meet to discuss what skiing activities they want to focus on each week and which Bible lesson to address. It is led by Ray Martinez from UW-La Crosse’s athletic department.

“There’s lots of new activities,” Symons said. “We’re doing pyramids, ballet lines, dock starts, core team pulls and a large pull.” Last year, 53 skiers were in one large pull.

The 116 teenagers are grouped into 13 groups that stay together the whole day. The day starts at 8:30 and ends at 2:30 with lunchtime devoted to small-group Bible discussions. That’s when the adult volunteers get to relax. There were about 35 adult volunteers who were either “beach moms,” boat drivers, rope throwers, safety boat captains or all-purpose gofers.

To get all those teenagers into the water, there were seven boats. Everyone was donating his or her time and boats and some equipment.

The “beach moms” said they had it best. Walking about with bullhorns and bright yellow T-shirts with “Beach Mom” written across it, they said they liked being able to get in the last word with the kids.

Their role is to organize the kids into the water, make sure everyone is getting out, make sure the loners are bonding with other kids and do everything from providing bandages to picking up glass and other debris.

“We do like to get the last word in,” said beach mom Mary Aschenbrenner of Onalaska. She’s been a beach mom for two years but is not part of the church.

“The kids need a place to meet other kids,” she said. “They need a safe place to hang and bond. They learn leadership by helping beginning skiers by getting involved.”

Beth Stay of Onalaska was the rope thrower in John Aschenbrenner’s boat. The rope thrower tosses the rope to the waiting skiers in the water and makes sure the rope is secure in the boat.

Stay wound up in the water herself after one throw when she knocked her sunglasses off and tried to capture them before they went over board. She saved her sunglasses but not before everyone on shore had a chance to poke fun at her.

Teska has been involved as an adult volunteer for the past 10 years. Every other day of the week, he’s an insurance representative. He takes Wednesday’s off during the summer and donates his time to the church.

He said they accept 8th graders to 12th graders in the group and the teenagers don’t have to be a member of the church congregation. “We accept kids with a wide range of skills; we’ll teach them how to ski. They don’t have to be a member, but they do have to spend a little time with Bible study with us for one day a week. But they don’t mind.”

The cost for the summer is $135 and the 2008 summer is booked up.

The water skiing is a good hook to attract teenagers to the Bible, according to Jay Twite of Onalaska, who is in his fifth year of driving boats for the group.

“It’s a hook to bring kids to a church setting, a safe setting and a place where they have positive role models,” he said. “When we talk with other churches around the country, they can’t believe how many kids we have in the summer. When we tell them we take them water skiing, they’re like, wow! And they start seeking different ways to attract the kids.”

Participants also have to bring their own lunch and their own personal flotation device. The club provides the skis, although kids can bring their own if they have them.

The group ends the summer with a big show the second week of August. Some of the kids will move on to be part of the River City Water Ski Club, which performs weekly shows and travels to skiing competitions.