Already Gone

The book is pretty much divided into two sections. The first one is the details of the stats that were gathered and the interpretation of them. The other half is, in light of the interpretation, what can be done and some possible reasons for the outcome (seem to mostly come from Ken Ham's perspective).

The survey focused on age 20ish people (about 1,000) to determine why they left church, if they planned on coming back, and answers to questions that determined opinions on biblical issues (e.g., creationism, pre-marital sex, is the church relevant, is the Bible true, etc.). It was surprising that many of them were members of Sunday School. Most of them left in high school and then more in college. The book talks about how Sunday School (pre-high school) tended to be in conflict in authority with secular school teaching and the teachings in Sunday School tended to be not taught as fact or have relevant application to daily living.

The book makes the point that two major things to do based on the survey is, 1) "Defend and teach the Bible from the very first verse - the great need for practical and relevant apologetics teaching for all ages" and 2) "To live an authentic, biblically based Christian life as individuals and as a church, so people will see Christ reflected in all that's done. Stop the hypocrisy!".

Ham believes that one of the core problems on the exodus of young adults is because "if they won't believe what the Bible teaches about earthly things, how will they believe about the heavenly things (Page 90). Ham, of course goes into the importance of creation teaching. However, he also focuses on the need to have youths be taught how the Bible can be applied to their daily lives for the hard issues (Page 113).

The three biggest reasons young adults do return to church is because of hypocrisy, teaching, and tradition (Page 121). Hypocrisy of not living out the Word, SEEMING to be harsh towards sinners, and not fully relying on all God's teaching. Teaching is having irrelevant messages, weak in equipping a person to defend the faith (against the world, what's taught in school, and the devil), and not teaching the Word. Tradition is the "well we've always done it that way" trap. The book doesn't call for connecting with youths no matter the cost philosophically. However, the book makes it clear that once young adults feel that the church isn't relevant to them - they leave. There is still a need to maintain the biblical perspective of church - but to define it biblically "a group of individuals that prioritize the sharing of the Word of God and live by the principles of the Word of God".

Overall, the book is pretty well laid out when you consider it about the collection and interpretation of data. The graphs and images help with breakdowns, however it was have been even more helpful to have colored graphics. Ham definitely focuses on his area of expertise (creation apologetics) and it's hard to tell if that skews some of the interpretation. However, the book does a great job and provides in the back the complete survey to check out what the draw data is. I would have like for some more practical application fixes and maybe a survey, of people in ministry those who have read the finding and changed or were implementing change - how did they apply the information. It's not just a church problem - it starts with family application of God's Word at home, runs up to Sunday School, and into the church itself. God's Word IS RELEVANT! Final Grade - B

This book is a huge eye opener. It is so important to instill Christ in our child at a young age. They need a strong foundation in the truth of God's Word from the start. This book teaches how so many kids start to question their faith long before college. This is a must read for parents and churches.

This book explains the importance of providing our children with an education that teaches them apologetics. Ken Ham gives practical solutions for training up our children.

Gotta share my story before giving my review. I never have my children attend our church’s Sunday School. Not that I’m against it, but it just didn’t seem right to me with my family. We live 20 miles from our church. I have a 5 year old son, a toddler and a baby. My husband works every day and tries to limit his work very minimum on Sundays. I don’t feel we should hurry in the mornings to rush to town just to separate our family at church (yes, we do attend church but try to rest in the early morning and enjoy our time together before we attend church together as a family). We’ve even been pressured for our children to attend Sunday School. Even pressure to let our neighbors take our children away from us so they can bring them to Sunday school. It really bothers me. And they assume my children are deprived from His Word because they don’t attend Sunday School. But isn’t that’s the parents job? And not weekly but daily and throughout the day! Too many or most parents pass the biblical teaching to their once/week Sunday School teacher. And when it is reached, the parents have no involvement. It saddens me. It’s bothered me so much that one day I googled my thoughts and this book appeared. In the Chapter 2 it talks exactly what I expressed. And the author calls this the Sunday School Syndrome. He’s so on the dot. I was very shocked as this book went beyond my thinking process. This book also made me realize that I was “Already Gone “ by high school by the many reasons the author mentions. Highly recommend this!

This is an important read for every parent! We are all trying to do our best and yet kids are still walking away from the church. This book gives some insight into why and ways we can protect our own kids better <3

Knowing what kids who leave the church think is vital, and it may not be the reasons you would think. Eye opening and convicting with solutions given. A must read.

I have learned so much from this book! One of my “fears” is that my children will walk away from church and ultimately turn their back on God. This book has made me realize that my children need to know how to defend their faith and how we need to fight back for our children so we can have an upcoming generation that will seek after Him.