A hopeful look at revival talk and reaching the next generation
Tyler McKenzie reflects on reports of spiritual movement among young adults and college campuses, alongside research pointing to rising curiosity and hunger for Jesus. He urges churches and families to respond with hopeful optimism and renewed focus on passing faith to children.
- Recent stories and research suggest growing spiritual openness among young adults.
- Churches can respond by investing intentionally in the emerging generation.
- Evangelism includes adults passing down faith to kids and teens.
By Tyler McKenzie
Editor’s Note: Tyler McKenzie writes a monthly online column for Christian Standard. We reprint one of Tyler’s online columns in each print issue of this magazine.
My Instagram algorithms are telling me that college campuses are in a state of revival. You probably heard about Asbury, but apparently the Spirit isn’t contained to only Christian campuses. There are mass conversions going on at Big Five party schools! There’s a Christian group called UniteUS. They had 5,000 students show up at Auburn and 200 baptisms. At Florida State, the second biggest party school in the nation, they had 4,500 students show and 350 baptisms. They saw similar results in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina. They just did one in Kentucky. There were 8,000 in attendance and 2,000 responses. I’ve heard similar stories from Ohio State, Texas A&M, Purdue, South Florida, and Cincinnati. Is it possible that a historic generational move of God is happening in our midst?
Some Encouraging Data
If you are like me, you have been pleasantly surprised (maybe even a bit skeptical) by all the recent revival talk among young adults. Before the pandemic, we were talking about “the nones” and the prospect of losing an entire generation. Millennials were deconstructing. Gen Z was pronounced the first post-Christian generation in our nation’s history. The future was bleak. Fast forward to 2025; we aren’t out of the woods yet, but many indicators suggest that there is an encouraging surge of curiosity in the supernatural, spiritual hunger, commitment to Jesus, and church attendance. Here’s a bit of Barna’s recent work.
- Mark Matlock and Barna report that 90 percent of Americans have some degree of curiosity in the supernatural realm. Approximately 54 percent are moderately to very curious.
- People aren’t just spiritually curious; they are also spiritually hungry.
- People aren’t just spiritually hungry; they are hungry for Jesus specifically. Four years ago, we hit a low point in Christian commitments, but there has been a 12 percent climb since. This is an estimated change of 30,000,000 adults!
- When they say 30,000,000 adults, what they mean is largely young adults! No one is attending church more than Gen Z! Millennials are second!
- Gen Z and Millennial church attendance has doubled since COVID. Barna is calling this a historic generational shift!
Revisiting Our Response
I have asked our staff and congregation to respond to this with hopeful optimism. We are choosing to believe the best and pray for even bigger and better! Our church is unique in that about half our congregation is 18 or under. Faced with this stewardship alongside the murmurs of a generational outpouring, we are committed to investing disproportionately in the emerging generation. I think you should too.
Argentinian scholar Luis Bush pioneered a theory called the “4 to 14 Window.” It has become a standard concept in missiology textbooks. The “4–14 Window” refers to the age range from 4 to 14 years old when most people first become Christians. Fun fact, Bush also coined the “10/40 Window” in the 1990s—which was the geographic region of least-reached people at the time. Bush noticed that while mission efforts focused heavily on geography (the “10/40 Window”), we weren’t thinking strategically about age. He proposed focusing on children between ages 4 and 14, arguing they were both most receptive and most neglected in global Christian outreach.
Just about all the data I could find affirms that 70-80 percent of professing Christians report making a faith commitment by the age of 18. This isn’t just an American phenomenon; it’s a global one. Barna has argued that kids begin forming their worldview young, around 15 to 18 months old. By the time someone reaches the age of 13, their worldview is mostly in place and it tends to remain fairly fixed unless there is a major life event.
Rethinking Evangelism
It is time to actively reframe how our congregations think about “evangelism.” If someone were to say something like, “I evangelized someone,” or, “I led someone to Jesus,” what sort of situation comes to your mind? For most of us, we think of adult-on-adult evangelism. Maybe someone shared the gospel with a friend at work or with neighbor who is struggling. Statistically speaking, adult-on-adult evangelism, while important, is rare.
I want to suggest that we need to expand our basic associations of evangelism if we are going to steward this potentially historic moment well. We need a broader imagination of what evangelism is. We need to start teaching that evangelism is also adults passing down faith to our kids. I tell parents of young children all the time, “If the only people you lead to Christ over the next decade are your littles, you have done well!”
I was listening to Zach Meerkreebs talk about the Asbury revival on a podcast recently. He is the preacher who delivered the chapel sermon before the revival snapped in February 2023. After the sermon, the worship service kept going for 16 days. There were around 70,000 people who converged on the campus in Wilmore, Kentucky. It was mostly young people. Over 200 schools had students there. Young people were leading it. They were confessing sins, staying through the night to pray and worship, sharing testimonies, and longing for the presence of God.
Meerkreebs said that after he finished preaching the initial chapel sermon, he texted his wife and said, “Hey, I laid a stinker. I’ll be home soon for a nap.” If you’re a preacher, you know this feeling. Only 19 students stayed after . . . but then God started to move. He said four hours later, he sent his wife a voice memo weeping, “Get our daughters out of daycare and get them to Asbury! God is here in a way I have never experienced!” When he said that, I started to weep too. It lit my heart on fire. I want that for my kids. Don’t you? Imagine the excitement of saying to your spouse, “Get the kids out of school and bring them to the church! God is doing something like I’ve never seen.” That’s the vision! And hey, look at it this way: if there is no revival, then at least we gave our kids the very best we got.
Tyler McKenzie serves as lead pastor at Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He also produces a fun Bible podcast for parents and their kids called “the Preacher and the Piano man.”
Author: Tyler McKenzie
Tyler McKenzie serves as lead pastor at Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He also produces a fun Bible podcast for parents and their kids called “the Preacher and the Piano man.”
