Steve's Final Book Review

This is the final blog for Steve Roux. This book has opened my eyes up. It has given me some insight on how I should educate my children as well as the youth group. It looks like we have alot of catching up to do. Not to make it sound like our job is impossible, but I believe it will be hard road to regain what we once had. We are up against college professors that seem to have this respect simply because the are educated. So what if you are educated when you don't have the truth on your side. Or not willing to face the truth.

It will be tough. Maybe God wants it to be hard. If it was easy we would take it for granted. God wants to see what we are made of. Are we going to trust Him and stand up for our beliefs or sit back and let all the hippies from the 60's continue to distort the truth. We have to state what we believe with intelligence and love. We keep doing this until His return. I say all this to encourage us to do our studying to be ready. If we don't have the answer we will learn where to get it from. Let's stand up.

Annette's Final Review - Already Gone

I think one of the toughest things for me in reading this book is trying to figure out how to have balance!  It is obvious that apologetics must be taught in our churches, and that we must be an influence in our world!  But does anyone really believe that the Bible is going to be allowed back in our schools and courtrooms as a legitimate source?  I would LOVE to hope that could be possible...but is it the best use of resources to spend years fighting for that in court?  Is that going to change lives for eternity?

I think one of the most poignant questions Dr. Ham asked the 1,000 young adults was if church was essential.  53% said no.  That is disheartening.  But I think instead of making excuses or trying to "reason" why they would say that, I think we just need to seek wisdom from God.  Is that true in our community?  Do we care enough to seek God's heart about what to do to address it?  No matter what we try to do or say, the reason for this always comes back to hypocrisy.  That is a tough one to swallow.  And no amount of apologetics is going to solve that problem.  Christians must LIVE what they say they believe. 

The church is often falsely judged too.  Christians will never be perfect - we are people after all.  But if we learn to live the transparent life that Christ did, our witness will be more convincing.  We need to remember that our message should be about how Jesus Christ affects REAL LIFE.  The Bible is not some history book that doesn't apply today. 

I was excited about the things he shared about rediscovering church.  We've talked about this in life groups and worship rehearsals lately.  We're looking at the New Testament church and seeing that we have veered away from that in some ways.  It's not that we have to change everything we do.  It's that we're sensing a restlessness that is causing us to examine whether we're doing everything God has called us to.  The Gospel won't change, but perhaps our way of sharing it can. 

This book isn't just about answering the HOW TO's for changing these alarming statistics.  It's about challenging the church to examine the way they present Biblical truth, and the way we live it!  I'm okay with being challenged.  If we passionately seek God's direction, He will show us how to respond.

Kristie's April, May & June Reading

When I first started reading “Already Gone” it seemed as if there was a somewhat of an easy solution to this ‘epidemic’ - just start teaching apologetics. Now that I have spent the last six months reading and pondering this book and Mr. Ham’s ideas; I have come to the conclusion that I now have more questions than less.

I am not saying Mr. Ham is wrong, I think apologetics is good however I think there is more to it! What about the spiritual aspect - are we as a church teaching the deep spiritual things such as speaking in tongues, being slain in the spirit, etc. Is it evident in the lives of the adults; yet alone our students? Are we helping people to get this whole Christianity thing in their hearts. Are we just whitewashing this whole thing or are we really taking them as deep as we need to? I know the old saying ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink‘. So how do we get our youth and ourselves to thirst for a deeper, closer walk with Christ? Because none of us are immune from this epidemic.

I don’t understand Mr. Ham’s statement “It seems to be more a matter of heart issues than head issues.”. To me apologetics is head knowledge? Maybe I am misunderstanding what he is trying to say. Don’t get me wrong I see the importance of apologetics - I am just trying to put on paper the thoughts and ideas going through my head.

Reading this book has been good - I feel it has pushed me to look at things from maybe a little different angle and given me some new insight. I don’t feel like the true ’vaccine’ is in this book. But it has shown us ideas to use to help avoid becoming one of the statistics.

And the pondering goes on.

Dear Lord help me to defend your Word and to live your Word!
Lead us Holy Spirit!!