Are You or Were You a Gonner?

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I just read the book Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer. In it, Ken Ham and marketing researcher Britt Beemer seek to understand the plight  of American Christianity as we see more and more young people leaving the church, and in most cases, never returning. They do some exhaustive surveying of those who have left the church and discover some startling statistics.

Of the kids raised in a Bible-based church interviewed who no longer attend church regularly:¹

• 95% attended through middle school,
• 55% attended through high school,
• only 11% attended through college.

It means 90% were Already Gone by the time of college!

From their findings, much of this loss is due to doubts these students have about the Bible. In addition, about two-thirds of the youth leave the church by the time they are a young adult.  Their exhortation is for the church to wake up and be the church (body) it was intended to be, faithfully adhering to and teaching from the authoritative Scriptures in a way that is relevant (defensible) to culture and history.

There is much that I think is very true and that I agree with:

• The dismal state of the church in America and how it is losing it’s youth
• How the authority of the Word has disintegrated in the church today
• The church really can’t change culture (105)
• Music is a minor element to the church at best – truth is relevant and needs to be the emphasis (110). In fact, much of the emphasis and approach for music in the church has no Biblical basis at all (127).
• Hypocrisy and the institutionalizing of church is a major reason why young people leave (110ff)
• The need for more interactive ways of teaching the truths of Scripture and apologetics, e.g., small group settings (125ff), similar to the early church
• Focus on youth and young adults (135) — in fact a major priority should be to equip and let them lead and reach out to their own generations (160-161)
• The need for revolution (141)
• The opportunity to win some of those back who have left the church

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I applaud the authors for their uncompromising view of Scripture as authoritative and the need to quit being lame in the way it is presented or glossed over in favor of “worship”.  I also appreciate their candor and critique of the way we do church. Not only the worship service but also Sunday school — which is not getting the job done.

The modern emphasis on Bible stories and entertainment rather than the real and historical Bible undoubtedly plays into the doubts raised in the minds of teenagers and young adults who encounter sophisticated arguments in school. They also properly cite the reliance on Sunday school to be the source of Bible teaching, while leaving the Bible out of the home.

The Young Earth Problem

However, I must disagree with the Young Earth view advocated by the authors and a missing element to their view of reaching the younger generation.²

First, their emphasis on a Young Earth apologetic overshadows much of the good things they have to say. They might argue such a view fails to uphold the historical truth of the Bible.

But the Scriptures do not mandate a Young Earth view. There are several, valid interpretations of creation account in Genesis 1 which do not hold that “days” refers to 24 hour periods.³  It may be true that science has influenced these alternative interpretations, but the interpretations are still sound.

The fact is that Genesis 1 compresses all the vastness of creation into one page with few details, but what details are given are highly compatible with what little is known from science. The point of Genesis 1 is to explain the creation and fall of humanity and how God is dealing with it, and it is not an attempt to explain everything about creation.

There is a need for effective teaching and training in handling the God’s Word accurately, as well as understanding modern skeptic’s assault on the historical reliability, inspiration and veracity of Scripture. But Genesis 1 really is not the biggest stumbling-block, as the authors believe, and there are several reasonable answers which resolve this issue.

But other issues are far more common and hit at the heart of people’s antagonism towards Scripture, God, and/or the church history, and these require intelligent defense. Some of these issues were was addressed  in Chapter 6 of their book, but they truly require a much bigger stage.  (I’m curious if the age of the universe is something we could “agree to disagree” on. I could easily do so, but the Young-Earth apologetic appears to be so foundational in their view, I’m just not sure.)

Missing the Point

The book is missing or under-emphasizing significant reasons for the exit young people from Christianity. Most notably, the church is not merely an agent of teaching and emphasizing truth, even though this is important. But Jesus came to earth for a purpose: the ministry of reconciliation to the world. Christians are to be God’s ambassadors in this cause, which is a great purpose.

When young people find a worthy purpose, their faith becomes much more relevant. Since Already Gone lacks an outward focus to reach the lost, the book really fails to address this vital issue.

“Speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:16)  requires balance and proper emphasis on both issues.  We are surrounded by people who need to see and experience the love of God in the church, people who are touched by the gospel in a life-giving way, and not merely “converted”. The authors touch this at the end by saying students can be equipped to reach their own generation, but this “ministry of reconciliation” is so much more than that.

For the young, most churches seem stifled by institutionalized, worship service-oriented practices. Students need the experience of the living Body Of Christ where they can learn to wield the Scripture with competency. The real love relationships which should be evident among Christians are seen by the world, people are drawn to Christ and that age group turns from  a declining population to one of vibrant growth.  This remains the greatest hope for younger generations, bar none.

Sourced from: Morschmellow

Footnotes:

1. Their surveys were of kids raised in churches who are now “20-something”. [↩]
2. When trying to show how far things have gone astray, their examples overly emphasize the decay of a Young Earth view of the world with those who have left the church. For example, when listing the negative beliefs of those who attended Sunday school and now have left the church, six of the sixteen characteristics  (more than a third) dealt directly with a view contrary to the Young Earth position. [↩]
3. The account of Genesis 2 where man is created followed bya the population of the garden with foliage, with animals, the naming of the animals, followed by the formation of woman out of man took longer than 24 hours of Day 6 in Genesis 1:24ff. Some claim that Eve was within Adam on the 6th Day (positionally or metaphorically) and was brought out later (on the Eighth day?), but this seems as much of a “reading into the text” as saying that the days of Genesis 1 could be very long periods of time. See Gleason Archer’s A Survey of Old Testament Introduction for different views of the interpretation of “day” in Genesis 1. [↩]

Tags: book reviews, church growth, creation, millennials, surveys

This article was posted on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 7:48 am and is filed under HOT Trends. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS 2.0 feed.