Already Gone

I've been reading a very thought provoking book called "Already Gone" by Ken Ham.

Several things I've gleaned so far...by college age when we "think" we are loosing church kids, most of them were "already gone".

They say they are turning away because of "hypocrisy" in the church, pastors who preach one thing but live another and a myriad of other reasons.

Ken (Answers in Genesis) and Britt (America's Research Group) wanted deeper answers. From their survey they began to uncover patterns in the stats that showed a large number of these 20's returned for Holiday Services and/or planned to return when they married or had kids.

So, why did they leave? The survey also showed that these kids did not have solid beliefs about the Biblical account of Creation and it went down hill from there. Many of them attended Sunday School and/or Youth Group, but didn't gain a firm grasp of the historical accuracy and the real relationship they could have with a personal God. I would add that maybe parents still struggled with this and neglected, or just didn't know how to teach these things at home. (Not judging...something of which we've been personally convicted and are working to correct).

"They see a great discrepancy between what the people are saying and the way that they are living; they may have been torn by what they heard a preacher preaching and what they saw him doing. I believe it very likely they have heard the pastor compromise in some way on Genesis - and they see this as hypocrisy when the Church claims to believe the Bible as the Word of God. These people want authenticity. They want grace, truth and RELEVANCY in the Body of Christ. They're not going to come back unless something changes on this level."

Post Darwin, "The Church began to make a disconnection at this point. It was the beginning of the road to irrelevancy: the Church gave up the earthly things (e.g., the biological, anthropological, astronomical, geological history as recorded in Genesis 1-11) and focused on heavenly things (spiritual matters, relationships, the gospel). When it came to science, the Church gave in to human notions. It was now acceptable to use the Bible to judge man's ideas to re-interpret the Bible, rather than to use the Bible to judge man's ideas."

"Churches today in America are not a place where one talks about geology, dinosaurs, fossils, or the age of the earth - that is left up to the schools and colleges. Effectively, the Church basically hands over the history of the universe to the secular educational institutions, and concentrates on the spiritual and moral aspects of Christianity. The Church actually disconnects the Bible from the real world. The children (and everyone else, through Sunday School lessons, youth studies, ect.) in the churches are really taught that in church, one doesn't deal with geology, biology, and so on - that is for school. In church, we talk about Jesus - we deal with doctrines and we study moral and spiritual matters - but anything pertaining to understanding geology, biology, astronomy, anthropology, and so forth is left for school."



The point I glean so far in my reading is what a pastor recently said to us. He said he believes the problem is we have compartmentalized our "spiritual lives", or work lives, our home lives, our fun lives...ect, ect...But God, the Creator of the Universe and every intricate thing in it, has placed answers for all of these things in His Word. He is real! He longs to have a real and personal relationship with us! They must be told this...we must stand on the truth...on His Word! If they are not, the church buildings are irrelevant.