PRANKS

In 1957, the BBC ran a story about Swiss farmers who were reaping a profit on their farms due to a mild winter. They had never reaped a harvest of this magnitude. The product they were reaping? Spaghetti noodles. After the story ran, they were flooded with calls from anxious and excited people wondering how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC responded, “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.” This has become one of the greatest April Fools Day pranks in history.

Some people love pranks. Whether dishing them out of taking the brunt end of one, some people have such a fun, care-free, (nuts) perspective of it all. Myself, I have to refrain from biting the prankster’s pinky off and telling them it was only a joke. The youth I work with now know not to pull pranks on me when I’m sleeping on retreats (at the cost of a few pinkies). I absolutely despise pranks…….but I do love watching them. On the TV show PUNK’D, Ashton Kutcher sets up celebrities in walking into a well put together prank. The celebrities think it’s just another day, until a series of misfortunate events start to occur. Eventually, the prank is revealed and it all ends in hugs and kisses.
For the past couple of years, I have really notice a drastic change in the youth after they leave mom and dad’s house and start on their journey through adulthood. One trend that is growing more and more every year is how unimportant church is. Not just church, but even following in the footsteps of Jesus. According to a recent seminar I went to, 82% of youth walk away from their church after they leave their parents home. Other studies say 70%, but regardless, both numbers are alarming. I think it's mainly because they have come to see Christianity as one big prank.
We spend years teaching these kids the importance of reading the bible while a non-Christian kid is volunteering at a food shelf. We teach the youth they need to “pray without ceasing” while a non-Christian kid is raising money for AIDS victims in Africa. We emphasize the importance of having other Christians around them while non-Christians are fleeing from them. We tell our youth to tell people about Jesus when lonely kids are just looking for a friend. We've told the youth how to be a Christian, but we haven't helped them walk in the footsteps of their Christ. So when our youth are done with home life and get to be on their own, they have so much Christian knowledge they don’t know what to do with. All that was taught to them becomes nothing of importance. They're confused on why we emphasized reading the Bible; they get along fine without it. Why pray? They believe God hasn’t answered their prayers in a long time, so praying is nonsense. Why tell someone about Jesus? The youth notice that all that’s really needed is love. But not God’s love. They start to see everything that was taught to them by us as irrelevant. They see it as one big prank. In other words, they've come to see Christianity as one big joke.