Video for September 11th, 2025
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video.
Unusually the media seem to be showing a disproportionate interest in what has been referred to as the quiet revival. In case you hadn’t heard about it, it stems from some research conducted by the Bible Society on church attendance in 18-24 year olds. Their research seems to indicate a substantial increase in numbers attending since the pandemic. The claim is that in 2018 4% of that age group attended at least monthly. That has now increased to 16%, a fourfold increase in young women and a fivefold increase in young men. The figures have been criticised. The Radio Four statistics programme, More or Less, took a view on a range of data. They observed that people saying they go to Church is not the same as going to Church. American research indicated that whilst 30% said they went to church, only 20% actually did! They also pointed out that the figures are not borne out by the British Social Attitudes survey nor the attendance statistics for the Church of England nor those for the Roman Catholic Church. In defence the Bible society defended the robustness of the research and the fact that it was more recent data.
I was at the New Wine conference over the summer and there was much talk of the revival there and plenty of anecdotal stories of young people coming to church out of the blue, often in response to dreams about God. I certainly think there has been a substantial change in the cultural landscape over the last few years which has made Christianity more socially acceptable than it has been for many years. The dismissive tone with which the More or Less programme delivered their sceptical conclusions was a bit of an outlier. I don’t think they would use the same tone had they been describing an Islamic or Hindu revival. I’m not completely sure what to think myself. I have seen tiny signs in some churches of youngsters turning up, especially in the Cathedral. However, my tragic experience when I visit parishes most weeks is an absence of children and young people, other than in a small number of larger centres. We must avoid cynicism at all costs, as Paul said, “love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth”. If even a few youngsters are abandoning the bankruptcy of secular materialism to discover meaning and purpose in Christ, I will rejoice greatly, wherever it happens. We also need to avoid the envy that can flow from comparison. “Why is it happening there and not here? What have they got that we haven’t?” As Jesus replied to Peter when he asked about John’s prospects, “If I want him to return alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” The Bible sets much more store on faithfulness than it does on statistical measures of success. The Gospel would remain true even if no-one believed it.
However, two things about this do have the signs of God at work. One is that the revival seems stronger in young men. For the entirety of my ministry young men have been the hardest nut to crack: the most resistant to the gospel and the least likely to be involved in Church. The second is that during the prayer ministry I was privileged to offer at New Wine, the most common request was not for healing or blessing but a request for help from the Spirit to get right with God. They were prayers of repentance and a seeking after holiness. It would be just like God to begin something amongst groups of people we think are the least likely to come to faith. Also, every significant revival in the fortunes of the church in the last few hundred years has been preceded by fervent prayer and a determination to pursue holiness. The churches that have reported people turning up in substantial numbers seem to be ones where they can receive Christian nurture and teaching in discipleship. So, the question we need to ask of ourselves is this. Were people to start coming to our churches in numbers seeking the Lord, how would we be able to care for and nurture these fragile shoots. Might we be prepared to let the clergy give more of their time to that endeavour and take more responsibility for the life of the Church ourselves? Might we be prepared to set aside our preferences to make room for others? That might be an openness the Lord honoured with growth.
+Richard