Truth Unites - Is a "Quiet Revival" Among Us?

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Gavin Ortlund reflects on new survey data discussing a "quiet revival" in the U.K.Watch Glen Scrivener's video: https://youtu.be/gYBD7vnRDXA?si=918Q6qScyxOElI4PRead the survey: https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

Is there a quiet revival happening among us? I've been reading through this new survey, some of you will have heard about, that is documenting an increase in church attendance in the UK, especially among the younger generations, especially among Gen Z. Very exciting, very worth noticing. My main goal in this video is just to encourage you to look into this more, especially to this video from Speak Life, where Glenn Scrivener gives a really good breakdown. I'm going to be much briefer here. I just wanted to make three observations, and then I'll send you right over to Glenn's video, which you should watch. three observations that struck me as I read through the data, and then three

encouragements about what we should do. Observation number one, I love the term. This is so simple, but just, you know, I'll put up a picture of the title of this. The Quiet Revival. And I thought, when I first heard that phrase, something about that resonated and made me happy, and I thought, wouldn't that be just like the Lord in an age of virality and noise and one-uping and attention-grabbing and so on and so forth to have a revival that sort of sneaks in through the back door, so to speak. Sometimes I get discouraged when I try to think about

what would revival look like today because the dynamics of the modern world are such that sometimes it just feels impossible because you're like, what would revival even look like right now? And it's encouraging for me to study church history. You'll see videos on my channel about the Korean revival of 1907, the first great awakening. I'm going to do one Lord willing on the revival in Wales in 1904, 1905, maybe something on the second great awakening as well. And it's encouraging, to see how every revival looks differently. There's commonalities, but there's so many differences in the outward expression. Some revivals are more noisy, and they're in the newspapers, and everybody knows about it, and that's fine. That's not wrong. Jonathan Edwards' great insight is

that we measure a revival by the spiritual fruit. The noise doesn't tell you it is authentic, but it also isn't a strike against it. But some revivals are very quiet. And I was reading about what God did at Yale during the second great awakening, and the word calmness came up for just the sense that was conveyed through this activity as students are coming to know Christ over the course of several years and so forth. And I thought, in an age of anxiety like we live in, perhaps a revival that would come today would be more quiet. Maybe there would be, not to say that it's small scale, that's different from quiet, but maybe it would have an atmosphere of calmness. I don't know. It's just interesting to think about. The second thing I noticed

is the emphasis upon young men of all the different demographics looked at in this survey and all the different statistics referenced, the one that struck me the most is this. In 2018, just 4% of 18 to 24-year-olds said that they attended church at least monthly. Today, says the quiet revival, this has risen to 16% with young men increasing from 4% to 21% and young women from 3 to 12%. Now, that is just an astonishing increase among young men, from less than 1 in 20 to more than 1 in 5. Imagine you're walking around a college campus. Well, this is in the UK, so let's call it a university. And you're there seven years ago.

One out of 20 people that you might see is attending church at least once a month, today, it's one out of five. That's an incredible change. That's a significant change. And that's, so, you know, let me ask you, if you're a man ages 18 to 24 watching this video, tell me in the comments right now, do you see an increase of church attendance and spiritual interest among your peers? And if so, tell us about that. What does that look like? And it'll be encouraging for the rest of us to think about that. Third observation is to note what kinds of churches are growing. According to this survey, it is mainly Pentecostalism and Roman Catholicism.

And this struck me and was interesting to me because it shows that as God draws people to himself and as Lord willing, Christianity expands in the 21st century, that's what we pray for, these questions of tradition and church history and the divisions between different groups within the church are not going away. And this has helped me because I've for a long time with my YouTube channel felt this tension of, to be honest with you, just to be completely candid, I started it more with an interest to general apologetics, and then I got pulled into Protestant apologetics, and I'm happy to do that. I don't regret doing that. I'm very happy to stand up for Protestantism. I really believe in it. But I've kind of had this tension of,

well, which one should I focus on more? You know, if you're one of my patrons or supporters on the website, you know we get together every, oh, two months or so, and brainstorm. And this has been a running thread every time where I'm like, you know, trying to figure out what does God want me to do? here. And as I, the more I think about that, the more I think these two points of focus are not intention, because as soon as someone comes to Christ, the next question is, well, which church do I go to? You know? And so these questions of church history and tradition are so important. We want to help resource people as they're working through those questions. So with Truth Unites, I hope to give myself to both of these things. These are probably my two main interests,

is general apologetics and the promotion of Christianity, and then also helping people work through questions of church history and tradition and which denomination or tradition to be a part of, which part of the church to be connected to in light of the gospel and having gospel assurance as you work through that question. So that was encouraging for me to realize these two questions are not disconnected. What should we do about all of this? I have three thoughts. Again, this is extremely brief and just kind of introductory. Just want to ring the bell and encourage people to think about this more. Number one, pray for spiritual interest to be focused upon Jesus and the true gospel. It's not just Christianity that is getting increased attention right now. There are other forms of spirituality

that are not good, that are also on the rise. And so we want to sort of capture the interest of the moment and direct it straight to Jesus and the gospel. I want to harness what is happening and direct it to the truth about Jesus. You know, this is something that you learn. about revivals, too, is that we always say we can't plan a revival. We can't force a revival. That is totally true. But our actions do have some kind of effect. And we have the opportunity to steward what God is doing. I always think about Elijah in First Kings 18. When the fire falls, he cannot make the fire fall. He can pray for it. But when the fire falls, he then prays for and stewards that moment for God's glory. And that's something we want to think about right now is how do we harness what's happening right now and direct it

straight to Jesus. Second thing is related to that. For churches, I think it's time to prioritize evangelism toward the younger generation and other forms of outreach beyond the church. If there is ever a time to focus on evangelism and be bold and speak the name of Jesus, now is the time. It's really easy for young people to get overlooked. Sometimes institution, the temptation for institutions is self-preservation, rather than living on the edge and being missional and leaning forward into the moment. And so institutions can easily focus on the people who give the most money, the people who hold the most prominent positions in society, and so forth.

And we can neglect the margins out there where God's at work, and we want to bring the gospel to those places. And so it's really a wonderful thing for churches. I would just encourage pastors and so forth watching this to say, what does this look like for us? Maybe it means increasing our budget for outreach. Maybe it means hiring a college director as an act of faith, even though we don't have a huge college ministry right now. I will tell you, college ministries are growing right now.

So maybe as an act of faith, we're just going to lean into that and pour resources into that and ask the Lord to work there and just focus, even just prayer. You know, even if you're not sure what to do, just think about this and give this some attention. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to be strategic in our energies and we're not. where we focus for evangelism and outreach. We're not saying that anyone is unimportant. We want to share Jesus with everybody, but it's not wrong to be sort of focused on where God is at work. That's how I feel at Truth Unites. I kind of have a laser focus on Gen Z, partly because I just love Gen Z, and I just find it refreshing, the openness that's there, but partly because I think God's doing

something there, and that gives us an opportunity. If you're a part of Gen Z, that means if you're born between roughly 1997 and 2012, leave a comment, I'm part of Gen Z and tell us your sense. Do you think God is at work in your generation? I'm kind of asking that selfishly because I'm just curious to know what do you see, what's happening? It's fun to have a YouTube channel where people comment from all over different parts of the world, and you can kind of hear what is happening out there. Third and final encouragement is let's resource those who are coming to faith.

You know, one of the weaknesses of some revivals is the focus on evangelism doesn't have then a follow-up focus on disciples. peoplehip. And as I look at things right now, I think a lot of those coming to faith are aching for substance. Whatever is happening right now, it's not through gimmicks and flashy lights and so forth. People really want the substance of the faith. I'm amazed at how much people want depth in church history, especially. I mean, I'll put out videos on these obscure academic topics, and I think no one's going to watch them, and people do. And people want to go deep. People want the substance of the faith. And so in a way, this is kind of an optimal time to be alive. I mean, it's so exciting. I guess I could just finish by saying, who's with me? And let's sort of, okay, I think of the verse in Philippians 3 where Paul says, forgetting what is behind and striving toward what is ahead. Here's what I feel like God is saying to me. And I put this out there and say, will you join me in this? You know, let's forget about, you know, forgetting what is behind, striving toward what is ahead. As the church, let's forget about the pain of 2004 and the broken relationships of 2023 and the missed opportunities of 2022 and so on and so forth.

We've been through a series of years here where there's been a lot of loss, there's been a lot of struggle in the church, a lot of discouragement, now feels like the time to move forward. And there is this dynamic. If you're a discouraged pastor, if you're a Christian who feels a little bit beleaguered by the struggles of the last decade or so, now feels like a great time to say, let's be a good time to say, Let's seek a new work. Let's move forward. Let's focus on the future, striving toward what is ahead.

Remember the scene in the Lord of the Rings where Sam and Frodo are almost to Mount Doom and they drop off all of their like pots and pans and supplies and they just make a bee line for it. If it's not too strong, that's kind of how I feel in the moment to say, let's make a beeline to just be a part of what Christ is doing right now. It's an urgent moment. God is doing something. What does it look like? To move into it and to embrace it and to say.

like Elijah, you know, let's steward this and seek the work of Christ in our time. I don't think it's wrong to kind of be excited and focus on this. I don't like the sensationalism that can accompany some talk about revival, but I also don't think it's wrong to say, hey, young people are spiritually open. Let's lean into that and let's speak the name of Jesus and let's speak the truth of the gospel. The good news that every single human being can know the creator God through Jesus, have their sins totally forgiven, be reconciled the God, be a part of the new creation, live forever, have peace. Jesus says, whoever believes in me will have streams of living water flowing within. I want to say that message that anybody who believes in Jesus Christ can have streams of living

water flowing within to every single person in the world, but especially I want to speak to the young men who are 20 years old and 22 years old and 24 years old and say, do you know about that? These are people who, these precious people made in God's image who have not been set up for success by the world. Maybe that they are struggling with addictions and anxieties and all kinds of problems. It's easy to fall into stuff right now. And I want to say to them, streams of living water flowing within. This is what Jesus can offer you. I think now is the time to be bold about that message.

Check out this video by Glenn. It's really good. He lives in the UK. He's doing evangelism and apologetics and things there. So he's got a bird's eye view of everything that's going on in the U.S. UK, but we want to pray for this elsewhere, of course, but his video will give you a fuller breakdown, really good analysis. And let's keep praying that God would be indeed at work in these ways, and that it would expand. And who knows what the Lord might do.