Our Maker's Acres Family Farm: Our youth

This post doesn't have a lot to do with homestead farming, except for an animal reference or two and the fact that we're raising kids in addition to growing crops and animals at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm!

This past Sunday night we had our Church Youth Group over to our house for an end of year get-together. They are a great group of kids ranging in age from around 10 to 17. We had a pizza themed party with an appetizer fruit pizza, which is really a big sugar cookie, iced with fruit on top. Then we had "Make your own pizza" in which we had all sorts of pizza toppings and the kids selected what they wanted on theirs. That's what they are doing in the photo below. Finally, we had a dessert pizza, which was a big chocolate chip cookie, topped with M&Ms, coconut and pecans.

Make your own pizza!

We played a bunch of silly games. Benjamin and Russ got out their arsenal of Nerf guns and Nerf battle axes and light sabers and they had Nerf wars. We then played a game called, "Taste the Rainbow" that they enjoyed. The game involves a bowl full of Skittles on one end of the room and two cups on the other end. You break them into two teams and give them each drinking straws. It is a relay race in which they put the straw in their mouth and suck through the straw until a Skittle is attached on the end. With the suction holding the Skittle, they run across the room and deposit the Skittle into their team's cup. You can't use your hands and if you drop it, you must start over. At the end of a certain time frame the game is over and the team with the most Skittles in their cup wins. They really liked this game!

Then it was time to eat so they made their pizzas. While the pizzas were baking, we had a devotional message in which we discussed with them the following verse in 1 Timothy 4:12:

Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.

We encouraged them not to think that just because they are young that they could not do great things for God. We used the example of the young boy David defeating Goliath as an example. We challenged them to set resolutions for the New Year that are spiritual in nature, like daily Bible reading and commitment to prayer and then we prayed a blessing over each one of them. Prior to releasing them, we tried to inspire them to deepen their Christian walk in the new year.

I'll mention again, these are really good kids. Interacting with them gives you a sense of hope for the future. That is refreshing, especially after hearing lots of bad news all the time about our youth. To be realistic, though, Christian youth are in a tough spot. Barna researchers tell us that 61% of churched kids will become spiritually disengaged and leave church when they leave high school. As Godly parents and leaders, we need to understand why. I did some research on the Internet and the publication Christianity Today lists 6 reasons:

Isolationism. One-fourth of 18- to 29-year-olds say church demonizes everything outside church, including the music, movies, culture, and technology that define their generation.
Shallowness. One-third call church boring, about one-fourth say faith is irrelevant and Bible teaching is unclear. One-fifth say God is absent from their church experience.
Anti-science. Up to one-third say the church is out of step on scientific developments and debate.
Sex. The church is perceived as simplistic and judgmental. For a fifth or more, a "just say no" philosophy is insufficient in a techno-porno world. Young Christian singles are as sexually active as their non-churched friends, and many say they feel judged.
Exclusivity. Three in 10 young people feel the church is too exclusive in this pluralistic and multi-cultural age. And the same number feel forced to choose between their faith and their friends.
Doubters. The church is not a safe place to express doubts say over one-third of young people, and one-fourth have serious doubts they'd like to discuss.

—Adapted from a list by David Kinnaman in You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church … and Rethinking Faith

As Christian adults, it is our duty to address each one of those issues head-on as there are valid Biblical responses to each item in the list. Shame on us if we don't first take care of business within our own homes and then reach out to those kids within our sphere of influence. I've committed to do what I can where I am planted. I read a book called Already Gone, that underscores this problem and gives some action steps to stop the hemorrhaging. Across much of Europe, churches are museums and many have been converted to other uses. If we don't do something about it quickly, America will follow likewise.

We had a very serious message for the youth at our house, but the kids had some serious fun, too! We ended the night with fireworks as the kids shot bottle rockets over the pasture, threw smoke bombs around the backyard and had fun dropping firecrackers in buckets of water and watching them explode underwater. I'm sure the cows were wondering what in the world was going on. I was afraid that the chickens would be so nervous from all that excitement going on that they wouldn't lay eggs for a week! Egg production actually picked up, though. Maybe the fireworks scared the eggs out of them, who knows.

In closing, here are some photos of kids being kids: