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Product Review Last Revised July 1, 2009 |
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Why Your Kids Will Quit Church and What You Can Do to Stop It by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer, with Todd Hillard published by Master Books, 2009, 188 pages, paperback 
Bear with me for a moment. I suspect that the title will turn some people off, especially if their children are
involved in a church youth group. I ask that you give this book the courtesy of a good hearing.
This book begins with a dare: When you are in church this Sunday, look to the right and to the left. Look at the children and the teens around you. Now imagine two-thirds of them have just disappeared from your church. Imagine two-thirds of them aren't even there. Why? Because they've already gone. Hence the title of the book. How are they already gone? Because they have already disconnected in their heart and mind from their Christian faith and the teachings of the Bible. At least that is one of the conclusions drawn from a national-wide survey commissioned by Answers in Genesis from America's Research Group, led by respected researcher Britt Beemer. The authors admit that some of the results may unnerve parents, pastors, youth ministers, Christian educators, and even homeschoolers. That's why they take about a third of the book to describe the study and present the specific responses from the sample. The target of the study was 1000 “twenty-somethings” who were solidly raised in conservative, evangelical churches but were no longer attending church. Yes, the first part of the book offers charts and graphs of the results, but they are explained in a readable style that is more conversational than research abstract. Of course if you want the dry details, they are included in the Appendix. So are specific resources for those who have to deal with the issues raised in the survey: separate listings of resources for those involved in upholding the Word, for parents, for Christian educators, for youth pastors, and for pastors. The most important part of the book, however, is the center section – Solutions Within Our Grasp. Unlike many research studies, this book doesn't just present the problem and leave you there. In this case, facing what seems like a depressing epidemic of young people leaving behind their beliefs and the apparent ineffectiveness of our programs and approaches to Christian education. There is the sounding of a wake-up call. There's one alarming statistic that may surprise quite a few people involved in training and educating young people. I won't give it away here and spoil the surprise, but I will tell you that it's something we already knew was happening. It's just happening sooner than most of us think. I applaud the authors for not stopping there. Instead, they offer practical, research-based suggestions and recommendations for correcting the situation. I came away believing that all is not lost, even the generation represented in the study. The presentation is positive yet realistic. The approach is Christ-focused. I highly recommend this book as a fairly quick “easy summer read.” As homeschoolers, we may be tempted to think that we are exempt from many of the issues exposed in this book because we are endeavoring to pass along the foundations of our faith and the reasonableness of a biblical worldview. But we are doing so against the flow, so to speak, of our culture. The minute our children step outside our home, they are awash with the mindset of the society in which we live. We would do well to be alert to the flood of undermining thoughts that bombard our children where ever they go. And to equip them and ourselves to stand strong upon the Rock of our foundation so that we can reach out to those who have been deceived and have given up on the relevancy of the Bible and the effectiveness of the principles of our faith.
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