Let’s Talk About the Quiet Revival
So, a while ago, we shared the news that Revival is happening although it is Quiet. This came from reports out of the UK and the US that data was showing that young people were expressing interest in Christianity, the Bible, and the Church. Now, the data points were relatively small… but the report from The Bible Society of the UK was meant to be encouraging.
A year on… and they have a confession to make. The data that they used was flawed. Oops. They share this information in a fulsome way on their website - they’ve removed the report (that I shared above) and have updated it… and if you read the update it essentially says don’t look at the data, best believe that revival is still happening!
Since his retirement from Knox College, The Rev. Dr. Stuart Macdonald (now Professor Emeritus!) has been sharing his thoughts on his Substack, After Christendom. If you are nota subscriber, I’d encourage you to become one. It’s fantastic. A few weeks back, Stuart weighed in on the “Re-Revival” rhetoric- a subject near and dear to his heart and something that he is definitely a subject matter expert in! He acknowledges that there are stories where young people are turning up in churches. I’ve heard and seen the same. Maybe you have too - one or two twenty somethings attending on their own and expressing curiosity about faith and the Church. This is good news for sure!
But it certainly isn’t revival mania. Stuart identifies a deeper motive behind the revival narrative: for fifty years, church decline has been blamed on liberal theology, which means growth must be seen as the reward for theological conservatism. Tales of revival are needed to keep that story coherent. But the Canadian data complicates this since no Protestant tradition grew from 2011 - 2021 according to the Census, including evangelical churches once thought immune to decline. What I appreciate about Stuart’s take on this is that, instead of fixating on revival to arrive or boiling things down to where you find yourself on the theological spectrum, he urges churches to focus on what they can actually control: communicating their faith well and genuinely welcoming people who are interested.
For extra credit, I’d encourage you to read the Winnipeg Free Press Faith reporter, John Longhurst’s observations on this. In our commitment to contextualize our efforts in Canadian soil, we are delighted to see and highlight people who are writing about these things. People like Joel Thiessen, Director of the Flourishing Congregations Institute, who shares in the article that he would have been a bit stronger in stating that the data did not support revival narratives. He goes on to say that he doesn’t doubt some churches are seeing more youth at services but qualifies that by pointing out that we don’t know if they are new attendees or simply people moving from one church to another.
Longhurst points to the Canadian Bible Society’s attempt to do its own work on this in collaboration with Cardus in sharing the report: “Faith Restored? The Evolving Relationship Between Religion and Young Canadians.” He notes that an important take away from the Canadian study for today’sministry leaders is this: that places of worship should be ready to ‘welcome young people who may be seeking answers to questions concerning the challenges of life or the reality of the transcendent.’ For Presbyterians, I’ve heard my whole PCC life that talking about our faith is one of the things we feel the most uncomfortable doing… and this is true from pulpit to pew. Some of us get anxious and confused when we see a young person in the crowd. I’ve heard colleagues wonder aloud - “What on earth are they doing in this place?” and“What could we possibly offer them?” All of us will need to do some thinking and engage others in the conversation around these big questions.
I’d offer that in a culture where loneliness is an epidemic and the daily scroll is nothing but doom and gloom… it is just possible that people will continue to seek out community and a space that may welcome them and their curiosity. As Living Faithputs so eloquently, our call as we encounter the brave seeker is in the spirit of humility, as beggars telling others where food is to be found, we point to life in Christ.”
BREAKING NEWS - of course, Brady Shearer at Pro Church Tools had some thoughts on this too. If you’d like to hear his talk with his colleague Alexander as they break down the Gen Z and Church media fervor, check it out here: