Book Review
You Lost Me
William Leicht
YOUT 350-B01 LUO
Professor Vandegriff
February 4, 2022
1David Kinnaman and Aly Hawkins, You lost me. Why young Christians are leaving
church… and rethinking faith (Grand Rapid: Baker Books, 2016). 64-65.
For a little bit now, the talk is about the students who do not come to church
and those who do not come back, there is a dropout issue. Someone like myself is
still new to those who are here, who use to come, and those who dropped out. From
my conversations with those experience church members, the majority say that “kids
are kid’, or “they will come back”. Many adults I have talked to feel that this is just
the generation and that we as adults cannot figure them out but ultimately, they
need Jesus. Even though the adults in the church admit that the students in today’s
world need Jesus, so many of those adults do not know where to even start. They do
not know that in order for the students to be here in the future, the students need to
be the Church of today.
“You Lost Me”, written by David Kinnaman, the president and majority owner
of the Barma Group, is based on a study of young adults who once thought of
themselves as Christians but who have left the church and left their faith. The Barma
group conducted a series of public surveys between 2007 and 2011, also with
decades of collected information. This book is stacked with surveyed interviews
conducted with those interviews along with a great supply of charts, graphs, and has
included actual questions that were used in the interviews.
The first part of the book broke down those who dropped out into three
different categories: Nomad, Prodigals, and Exiles. The Nomads are Christians who
still view themselves as Christians but believe their involvement in the Christian
community is optional.1 The second group of those who left the church are the
2. Kinnaman.
66. 3. Ibid.70.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid. 76-77.
6. Ibid. 92-94.
7. Ibid. 94.
Prodigals. The Prodigals are those students who leave their faith completely.2 This
group would those young people who would considered themselves as atheists,
agnostics, and the “nones” and also those who might have switch to a different faith.
About 11% of those who left fit this category.3 The reality is that one out of nine
Christian youths will leave their faith entirely.4 The third group would consider
themselves Exiles. This group is explained by David in this way
5
The second part of the book gives us six themes that give a great explanation
Of the disconnection between the next generation and the church. The sex themes
are overprotective, shallow, anti-science, repressive, exclusive, and doubtless.6 This
section also provides us with information on the struggles of those who dropped out
and how we are to shift our thinking to reach out to them. David provides us
suggestions for the “turn”. These suggestions are to help the youth dropouts to turn
or change their reason for leaving into a hunger for a deeper faith, and to help those
older generations in the Church to turn the frustrations and the occasional feelings of
failure into renewal.7
They want to inform and transform the “foreign” culture that surrounds them, rather than
withdrawing from it. But many do not know how. They are trying on new ways of Christ-
following that make sense to their communities and careers. Their rejection of some
mindsets and methods common to the North American Church stem from this desire.... As a
consequence, many of today’s exiles, while they are not political exiles, in the Old Testament
sense, feel isolated and alienated from the Christian community – caught between the Church
as it is and what they believe it is called to be.
88. Ibid. 213.
The third and final part of the book provides us with many insights from the
study that will be a very critical application in the changing or re-creating the
approach to those dropouts. The chapter also gives us fifty ideas to help cultivate this
generation to have a “new mind” for understanding and designing the next
generation.8
This book started off a little hard to get into. I felt it took a little bit for some
of the chapters to sink in. After I got to the second part, I was able to start
understanding where this book was going to go and was able to read 250 pages of
this book. As a part-time youth pastor, I struggle with low numbers in our groups
when there are so many hurting youths in our area. Not only those who do not know
about us, but most importantly all of those who have come to our groups and have
never come back or those who came for same many years, and just stopped showing
up. I have only been in this position for six months, so I am still digging into some of
the issues. This book will be an important asset as I reach out to those who no longer
attend our group.
Although the book might seem a little gloomy with the reality of what is
happening with the youth in our church today, it is an extremely helpful look at what
is causing the youthful Christians to leave the church. While this book is not for
everyone’s reading, I do hope it serves as a wakeup call to those who do have a care
for those youthful Christians who are blessed to still be in the church and to those
who hopefully can still be reached to come back. This book is to be an
encouragement to those who are having a hard time discipline and to give some
upbeat sprit to how to disciple those.
Bibliography
Kinnamon, David, and Ally Hawkins. You lost me. Why young Christians are leaving
church…and rethinking faith. Grand Rapids: Bake Books, 2016.
