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2009-11-21

2009-11-18

2009-11-05

Agriculture

Lifestyles

Friday, July 31, 2009 11:20 PM

Photo by Elliot J. Sutherland/The Ottawa Herald

Erica Layton, right, 17, Wellsville, discusses a Bible verse Friday morning with fellow senior youth group members Meghan Brenner, center, 16, Olathe, and Kayla Sprague 16, Olathe, during a meeting at Life Church, 16111 S. Lone Elm Road, Olathe. Layton, with other senior group members, planned the week’s youth group activities.

Youth take a walk on the spiritual side

Faithful flock

By COURTNEY SERVAES, Herald Staff Writer

Photo by Elliot J. Sutherland/The Ottawa Herald

Weston Roth, 13, Ottawa, helps Keanen Gorsline, 6, Ottawa, paint a craft project during vacation bible school at Ottawa Bible Church, 1623 S. Poplar St., Ottawa.

Jesus ate with sinners.

He didn’t judge them, didn’t criticize them.

Instead, Erica Layton said, Jesus tried to help them, tried to save them.

And that’s what she says she wants to do.

“That has been on my heart lately,” Layton, who will be a senior at Wellsville High School, said.

Layton said it’s not enough to go to church regularly, not enough to pray, not enough to worship.

Rather, she says you have to help others, have to get involved and try to save others.

“It’s realizing that God is worthy of everything,” she said.

THE WORD

Layton wants to spread her faith to others.

She tries to do that through her church, through youth group, through fellowship.

Recently Layton, who is a member of Life Church in Olathe, attended a church camp that she said reinforced her beliefs and initiative.

“I’m a lot more outgoing,” Layton said about how she has changed since joining the youth group. “I’ve met some people who have changed my life.”

She said she goes to church in Olathe — with more than 200 other youths — because she likes the style and the church’s outreach. She likes the church’s message.

“God created the world all out of love,” she said. “He sent his son to die out of love. He died out of love.”

RAISED IN CHURCH

Amanda Ahrens has been raised in a church.

Her mother, Susan, wanted it that way, wanted her children to know God.

The Ahrens regularly attend Faith Lutheran Church, 1320 W. 15th St., Ottawa, which Amanda Ahrens, 16, said has helped her deal with the stresses and pressures of high school, with friends, with relationships, with life.

“We have a pretty good program,” Ahrens said of the youth program at her church. “A lot of us have grown up together.”

Ahrens’ youth group meets weekly, but Christal Chapman, director of youth at the church, said the children participate in other activities and events — lock-ins, concerts and canoe trips — throughout the year.

“I’m a firm believer that if kids are involved in a youth program somewhere where they are really learning about God, that’s really important,” Chapman, Ottawa, said. “It makes you understand the world.”

Chapman said all of the youth group events help students to understand the role of God in their lives, in their worlds.

“Kids have so much to deal with these days — divorce, peer pressure,” Chapman said. “If kids have a solid understanding that God is where our strength comes from, not only are they doing better themselves, but they are able to tell their friends, ‘God has my back.’”

EMBRACING FAITH

Weston Roth, 13, uses his youth group to meet people, to make friends.

Roth, Ottawa, is a member of Grace Community Fellowship, which worships at Washburn Towers, 526 S. Main St., and said his youth group organizes events to help keep them involved and active in the community and in their church.

“If you don’t have that good of a relationship with God, you won’t go to heaven,” Roth said.

He said recently his youth group participated in a vision quest, where they visited a cemetery.

“It teaches you how to embrace Christian faith more,” Roth said.

In addition to the vision quest, he said the youth group often plays trust games that teach the participants to work together and rely on each other.

CHRISTIAN BY DEFAULT

Prayer helps Layton cope with life, with peer pressure, with relationships.

Layton said when she faces a difficult choice or decision, she’s not alone — the most important person in her life is always listening.

“The biggest thing for me has been prayer,” Layton said.

And it’s not just praying for answers that is important to Layton. She said prayer is very much about helping and praying for others.

“I feel a strong calling,” she said. “I spend a lot of time with it. I love it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

On average, Layton said she spends more than 10 hours a week participating in church activities, but it hasn’t always been that way.

“I used to be one of them — Christian by default,” she said. “Most people believe there is some sort of God.”

More religious insight from local youth.