The Days of Awakening
CONSECRATED No. 73 - 1 Thought. 2 Quotes. 3 Verses.
1 THOUGHT
Stunning new research from Barna is indicating that Christianity in the United States is at a 10-year high.
Compared to 2021, the research is indicating that there has been an increase of 30 million people who say they are personally committed to following Jesus.
30 million people in four years! That’s astounding.
If you would have told someone four, five, or six years ago that we would be on the verge of a national awakening, few would have believed you. It was the height of the deconstruction frenzy. Fears about the Church hemorrhaging young people. But you know which demographic is primarily fueling the resurgence in Christianity? Gen Z and Millennials.
According to Relevant Magazine’s report on the research, “The growth has been especially concentrated among Gen Z and millennials. Gen Z men reported a 15-point increase in personal commitment to Jesus between 2019 and 2025. Millennial men reported a 19-point increase over the same period.”
Not just Gen Z and Millennials… but Gen Z and Millennial men. For what seems like my entire life the American Church has bemoaned the lack of male engagement in the church—and rightly so! But now, men are not simply participating in the surge, they’re fueling the surge.
And that’s not just here in the United States. The same trend is occurring in the UK as well, where such a resurgence is even more unlikely.
New research from The Bible Society indicates that, “Church decline in England and Wales has not only stopped, but the Church is growing, as Gen Z leads an exciting turnaround in church attendance. Church attendance has risen by 50 per cent over the last six years. There are now over 2 million more people attending church than there were six years ago.”
One of the things that strikes me from this research is that throughout Awakening History, the U.S. and the UK have often experienced revival simultaneously.
John Wesley and George Whitfield preached both in America and in England during the First Great Awakening. D.L. Moody made frequent trips from the U.S. to the UK to preach.
And it seems to me that this is happening again. No matter how unlikely it may have seemed five years ago, we are undoubtedly on the verge of perhaps the greatest awakening the West has ever experienced.
My friends in the UK are reporting record church attendance and salvations across the nation from this past Easter Sunday. The same from my friends here in America.
College students continue to gather en masse on secular university campuses to lift up the name of Jesus.
But, beyond the research, what does that mean for you and me?
It means that it’s time to get in the game. Whatever that might look like for you, don’t sit on the sidelines during the most pivotal season of revival in perhaps the last one hundred years.
Start volunteering at your church’s youth group.
Start a Bible Study on your university campus or get involved with an on campus ministry like Cru or InterVarsity.
Get better at sharing the gospel by getting equipped through an organization like Radical.
Grow personally more in love with Jesus by increasing your time in the Word and in prayer.
Whatever you do, don’t miss this season. We’re living in the days of Awakening.
2 QUOTES
“The story of Christian reformation, revival, and renaissance underscores that the darkest hour is often just before the dawn, so we should always be people of hope and prayer, not gloom and defeatism. God the Holy Spirit can turn the situation around in five minutes.”
- Os Guinness
“Nothing is more profitable than the reading of the history of revivals. You will find that sometimes revival has come after a group of people, perhaps a mere handful, who were almost breaking their hearts because of the state of religion in their church, and because of the deadness and lifelessness of their church, met together to pray God to intervene.”
- Martyn Lloyd-Jones
3 VERSES
“Lord, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.
Repeat them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.”Habakkuk 3:2
“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!”
Isaiah 64:1
(The prayer of the Welsh Revival)
“Will you not revive us again,
that your people may rejoice in you?Show us your unfailing love, Lord,
and grant us your salvation.Psalm 85:6-7
A RESOURCE
Here is a link to the full Barna Report that I reference above.
