Where Gen Z Is Finding Jesus

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Two weeks after the school year started, last September, I got an email from the Vice President for Academic Affairs at dort University. Her name is Leah zeidema, and she told me that faculty and staff had been reporting that their students were highly engaged, more so than normal. They were more responsive in class, better about doing their homework, and more interested in learning. Leah and I wondered if maybe that was because more of them had been in high schools that were implementing stricter cell phone policies, or maybe it was because they’d had more time to bounce back after covid. I called up one of her professors, Mark Christians, who teaches psychology class attendance, especially from two years ago, three years ago to now, has improved. So I keep basically a picture chart of my seating chart and do a quick little notation of who’s here and who’s not. I had one semester where I had at least seven students that missed nine or more classes. I think even the consistency of completing assignments that is at a much better level than it was 234, years ago, and then simple things like asking questions, engaging in conversation before class after class, I think is maybe a little bit better. I asked him what he thought was going on. To be brutally honest, I don’t know. Like I said, I’m only going on comparing some of the classroom types of things, where coming to class, consistently completing assignments, the number of academic alerts that may happen in a semester. And I think this semester, I’ve only sent out one other semesters I may have already had six or seven. I asked if it was something about the freshman class, but his upperclassmen are doing well too. I asked if it was a change in technology, but we couldn’t think of anything that would make such a difference between the spring and fall semesters. And then Mark said this, sorry for my random thoughts on speculation, chapel attendance, for example, just like up until the last five years. I mean, it was good strong before that, but standing room only in terms of voluntary, optional faith development activity, and that’s wonderful. And there it was, only I didn’t fully see it even then, because I knew dort had a new dean of chapel, and it was the beginning of the school year, so maybe the kids were simply piling in to check out what was different over there. So to double check, I started emailing campus pastors I knew from around the country. Hey, I said, I’m hearing from dort university that students are more spiritually and academically engaged this fall. Are you seeing anything like that? And here’s what they wrote back

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from Chicago, 100%

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it’s crazy. From Oregon, yep, we had almost 600 students at our college kickoff last week. We packed out the largest Auditorium on campus, people sitting in the aisles. From Iowa. Literally every salt company across the country would say it’s uniquely fervent and open. Anecdotally, the salt attendance at Iowa State in September 2023 was around 1400

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last year was nearly 1700

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and this fall is just over 2000 we’ve done salt for nearly 40 years and never seen increases like that in percent or numbers, all of this while the university enrollment is flat. Whoa. What’s going on here? Is it possible that Gen Z is having something of a revival? I’m Sarah Zylstra, and you’re listening to recorded you

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I’ll be honest, Gen Z is not the generation I expected to see in anything like a revival. Surveys show us. They’re the most secular generation on record, they’re the least likely to believe in God, go to church or have a religious affiliation. One major reason for that is the shrinking faith of their parents. Gen Z is also the generation least likely to have grown up in church, attended Sunday school or prayed over a meal with their family. On top of that, they spend, on average, more than seven hours a day on screens, and are famously anxious, depressed and isolated as a group, they are much more likely to be playing games or streaming videos on their phones than showing up at youth group. No Gen Z is not the place you would look for a renewed increase in spiritual engagement.

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I actually did not grow up in faith at all. Like nobody in my family was religious. 19 year old Kaya Hardy was raised on the south side of Chicago. I caught her on the phone as she was driving to work. Honestly, high school, I was a hot tamale. I was popular. I was captain on the volleyball.

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Team. I was on the cheer team. I was a pretty good student, but it also consisted of partying, drugs, drinking, like I was, like, really worldly, gossiping, dating. I was going all nine yards. Covid. Was like, Okay, I’m in school, but I’m also bored. I don’t have nothing to do. I’m not I’m not getting those social interactions with people. That’s when Tiktok became big. So I got spiritual. So I started believing in rocks the universe. Do I started doing Terri carving over in Iowa, College Junior Ryan Goodman didn’t feel like anything was missing from his non religious home life. It was the opposite. Christianity felt like something his family didn’t have the time or desire to add to their already busy schedule. High School, I mean, was a very busy time. I mean, for anybody, I thought like I already got so much stuff going on. I was stuck in high school football. I was joining all these clubs. Like, again, I had a lot of friends who went to church regularly and who had asked me to join, like, various like, Bible studies and stuff. But I think back then kind of was like, Well, I don’t really see the need for it. I guess he still didn’t see the need for it. When he got to college, joined a fraternity and started going to class. Neither did Mike Chavez, who grew up Catholic in Chicago, he went to mass with his family, but that was about it. I really didn’t know a lot at all. I was very just broad to it good morals and like the 10 Commandments, but I couldn’t even name one commandment. He knew Jesus died on the cross, but had no idea why. So he wasn’t looking for a faith community when he arrived at the University of Illinois, Chicago. I mean, I kind of walked in and I was like, You know what? Like, I’m gonna get all my work done. I’m gonna be like, like, dude, that just is on top of all his stuff. And so that’s how it went for me. For the first, like, six weeks of freshman year, I was, like, getting my work done on time and even early, and it was beautiful. But then I got drained out so fast. I was tired. I didn’t want to do the school work anymore. And I was like, man, like, this college life, it’s gonna be hard for the next four years. So I was struggling through that. That’s when one of my advisors is like, hey, you need to join a group, like, like, a club or something, so that way you can, like, get back into it, have more fun, and have a balance in your life. Because right now, your whole life is full and it’s getting, like, unhealthy. Mike’s attempt to work himself into an identity, the dude that is on top of all of his stuff was failing. His predicament is typical for Gen Z. A lot of times. A lot of people pick a lane and they don’t deviate from it. You have guys that are like, so bought into schoolwork, but they’re so bought into the point where, like, they don’t really have that much friends because they’re so, like, focused on trying to stick to their grades. Or, like, you have guys that go to parties, probably like, you know, three, four times a week, a lot of guys feel like they have to pick their identity like, super fast to try to like, need to find their lane. And then once they find their lane, they kind of just get comfortable in it, and then they don’t feel like they need to deviate. That sounds familiar to me, because I’ve done research on girls using social media, and they tell me the same thing, social media, which Gen Z starts younger and uses more often than any other generation, is framed around creating your own identity or brand and then filling your life with content that matches it. Kaya’s identity was a popular party girl. Ryan’s was a busy overachiever, and Mike’s for a while, was a single minded academic.

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After Mike’s advisor told him to join a club, he started looking around my friend, I joined this group called Code. Maybe you should be a part of it. And I was like, Okay, let’s go. I’m down. Like, and yeah, that’s how I ended up getting plugged into code and campus outreach, like ministry, and I didn’t think anything of it, they would tell me it’s a leadership program, and they said faith based. But I remember that just going over my head, perhaps Mike missed the faith angle because so few university programs in Chicago are faith based. Though the city has half a million college students, even its largest institutions have only a handful of Christian campus ministries. Some of the city colleges don’t have any code. Is the leadership program of campus outreach, a student ministry that’s largely based in the south the only reason there’s a chapter in Chicago is that eight years ago, the wife of campus outreach staffer Tony Dettman, got a job in Chicago. He started a chapter at the University of Illinois Chicago, and then started code to better serve and connect with students. Mike’s code mentor was Andrew Martinez, who was on staff with both campus outreach and Holy Trinity Church. Andrew kicked off the relationship by asking Mike about his life, his experiences.

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And his personality. And then he started slowly mentioning Jesus and, like, the Gospel. And I’m like, What is this? Like, what are you talking about? I was like, you know, I’m gonna just, like, shrug it off. Like, maybe it’s just, like, some little things that he just brought up by accident. And one day he ends up having a Bible study at his house. And I really liked Andrew. So like, I was like, man, like, I messed with him. Like, he’s really, really cool. I was like, I want to go check out. Like, what this Bible study thing is like? Because I don’t know. I just really like hanging out with him. Mike went to the Bible study, and there, it dawned on him, these code guys are serious about their faith. I asked if that turned him off. It actually kind of fascinated me, because I’ve always been a very curious person. It really, I think it just kind of opened my mind to knowing, like I want to know who this Jesus guy is. I hear him about him in church here and there, not even that much, but I never really know who he is or what this gospel thing is, and I’ve been going to church my whole life, and the fact that I don’t know this, I was like, I want to know. Like, I don’t know. I was just very curious. One thing that really fascinated me was the way Andrew was able to, like, pick out verses and stuff. And I’m like, Whoa, what are you doing around here? Like, verses, there’s, I don’t even know what a verse was. I was like, what? And so, like, when he started, like, connecting dots and showing me diagram. That’s when I feel like my eyes were beginning to get more open. The first verse, I remember he showed me in the first diagram was Romans 623, the bridge diagram. And that’s what really caught my eye. Like I was like, dang, like, I’m really separated from God and the Jesus dude is my way to him, and that’s when I think my eyes were just getting open, and I was like, Man, I just been learning about Bible stories, but I didn’t know, like, they were actually crazy, like real. I thought they were just like stories, like fairy tale. Mike had, by his own estimation, about a million questions. One was like, how do you know, like, the Bible’s reliable. Another one was like, if God was so good, like, why is there so much like, sin in the world? Do kids go to heaven? Do all the people get to hear the gospel? Or do only people in like, where the church of be at get to hear the gospel? Like, does everybody get a fair chance? These are hard questions, but Mike wasn’t looking for perfect answers. I think what I loved about like Andrew and like, how he would tell me, is, like, look, I don’t know the answer. He’s like, but if you do want to know the answers, the Bible has the answers. And maybe like he might, He will speak to you and like let you know, like, I like, comfort you, are, like, is, I’m not the main source the Bible is. And so that gave me a lot more comfort into realizing, like, I have all these questions, and I have God to talk to me and answer them. So I kept asking them more and more, and he just kept drawing me to like, verses and stuff. And I’m like, This guy really knows his stuff. Like, wow. And it started to make all sense to me. And I was like, This is crazy. All of this was happening Mike’s freshman year, but it wasn’t until his sophomore year, about a year ago, when he gave his life to Christ. So my first year, he’s been telling me all about the gospel, and it was cool and all, but I was still on like a worldly relationship. I was still doing my thing, like I was still living my life, what I wanted to do. And it wasn’t until sophomore year when, like, everything just started spiraling down. I was just confused. And I think that was like the first time I started speaking to God and being like, Lord, like, what’s going on? Like, I thought we were cool. Nothing major had happened, but Mike was increasingly uncomfortable about a lot of things. His identity in high school had been athletics, but in college, he wasn’t playing a sport. He thought he wanted to be a teacher, but now he wasn’t sure. He was arguing more and more with his girlfriend. Andrew kept teaching me about this God, and I felt like I was lying to him, like living a double life. When we would meet, I’d be like, Oh yeah, I love God, and like, now you’ve been teaching me all these things, and I’m learning, and then I’m behind the scenes, I’m doing whatever I want, not letting God intervene, staying in control. And so that’s when I felt like I came into the realization, like I cannot continue to live this double life, because it’s not harming God, it’s just harming myself, and it just didn’t feel healthy at all. Mike prayed for real this time, Lord, take this relationship away from me. Let me start living for you. Let me start truly abiding in you. He just started transforming my life and actually letting me live for Him, and answering me. And I was like, This is crazy, like, I need to start really living for God.

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Mike loved getting his identity and purpose from the Lord. His story of salvation is beautiful, but at first glance, it does not seem to fit our timeline. He came to faith last year already, and the revival we’re talking about seems to have primarily started.

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This fall. Now hang with me for a minute, because here’s what Mike’s campus outreach director Tony dentman said about the timing of increased spiritual engagement. People have been saying this for like, the last three years. I just feel like, revive what’s happening, what’s happening. And even this summer, I was at like, a church Planning Network, and they gave the numbers from Barna. They like man. Just look at this. The men are starting to turn to Jesus. And I’m like, Man, I have no clue what y’all talking about like, I guess that’s they made it to the north. But man, starting in August, I think it made it to Chicago. The spiritual hunger, the spiritual desire, is higher than we have ever seen it before, when I asked Tony and other campus ministers if it was this year’s freshmen who were driving the change, they said, No, while there is a high level of freshman engagement, the interest is no lower in the older grades. In fact, they said it is the juniors and seniors who are leading the Bible studies that are bringing so many of the underclassmen to faith. Listen to this. I’ve been leading Bible studies this year with a ton of freshmen, even sophomores as well. It’s just been, like, really fulfilling and really like fun to do, talking about like God and telling them, like, leading them into scriptures and seeing those like, wow, like moments of like realization of, I need to start surrendering this to God. And while God is so good and God is so merciful, and I was like, Yes, he is like, but being able to see those moments, it really does bring me joy.

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If Mike is a first fruit of this increase in spiritual engagement, Kaya is another, just like Mike. She’s studying at UIC. I did do a lot of stupid stuff before Christ, but one thing I did know was I did not want to follow down the path of my mother or stay in the path of poverty. So I was like, Okay, I’m gonna get a higher education. I’m gonna do something. I’m gonna do something. So I decided to go into college. I asked if her lifestyle shifted at all. Oh, it got worse when I was in college.

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Like, now I have all this freedom, like I have nobody, you know, watching me, it’s just me, like, I make my own life decisions. So it got worse I definitely did, like, more parties in college, and the drinking, the smoking, it definitely hit an all time high. And the boys, it wasn’t like boys. I was this me indulging myself in one boy, but like over indulging unhealthily. So that did continue in college, but it just, you know, it got worse, because, you know, I can be at their door. Nobody’s looking out for me, Nobody’s expecting me home. You know, one of my friends was in code, and she invites me. And I was like, okay, mind you, my crush is in code, so of course, I said, Okay. Kaya’s code mentor was Lisa, who is married to Andrew, and like him, on staff with both campus outreach and holy trinity, she was asking around the question, you know, what’s your spiritual life? Like, religious life like, like, what do you have you ever heard of Jesus? You know, how do you feel about the Bible? And I’m just like, No girl, no, keep that Bible away from me. Yeah, I started running away from her. I did not know the gospel. I did not know the importance of it. I also had very much misleading information. You know, the Israelites were brought out of a bad situation in my community. That was that is always still thrown around now to this day, is why God didn’t bring black people out of slavery, that Christianity kept people enslaved, when really it was not Christianity, it was how people portray Christianity. So that’s another thing that really pushed me away from it, and that’s why I told you, you know, I thought it was a white people religion. Kaya quit going to code, but later, when her friend invited her to a campus outreach new year’s conference, Kaia said, Yes, like, I’m just thinking, it’s a conference. I’m gonna meet friends, I’m gonna, you know, experience college on a different level, until I get there, and then it like, it clicks, because everybody starts talking about God, just in their relationship with him and how good he is. And I’m like, wait a minute.

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Kaya was surprised and confused. How was it that all these people, hundreds of them, were talking about the goodness of a god? She didn’t know we meet this preacher. He was saying, you only call on God when you need something. And I was like, Oh, I never felt something in my heart just hurt so that, like I literally felt something grab at my heart, like my heart skipped a, b first, and I was like, oh, like, You’re not lying, actually, like I genuinely do call him when I need something. It was always God. Like, Hey, God, you know, God, can you fix this? Or, like, when my.

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My mother passed away. I was like, God, like, why? Like, you know, but, but that was, that was just the norm in society. Kaya kept listening. She listened to the speakers, her leaders and Lisa. When she heard the Gospel story that Jesus, the Son of God, came to die for her sins and make her right with her Creator, Kaya thought it sounded like a Disney story. I was honestly shocked. You’re telling me this, this man who did not know me just died on the cross for my future scenes. He paid the price before I was even alive. It was just, like, very shocking. Like, I was really amazed. I was like, You know what you all sound like, you’re living a beautiful life, and actually, I want to try it. So in that moment, I prayed the friend who got me into cold, who I went on the conference with, like she knew something about religion, like she wasn’t full blown religious, but she knew something about Christ. She kind of led me in a prayer to giving my life to Christ. Because I was like, like, we came to agreement. We were like, Yeah, let’s give our life to Christ. Yeah, we like that night we prayed together and gave our life to Christ. Maybe you’re wondering, like I was, if two basically non Christian girls can lead each other to the Savior, is that even legit? Well, here’s what happened when Kaya got back from the conference and one of her other friends called her up and she’s like, okay, you know, you still gotta liquor. I was like, yeah. She’s like, you still got weird. I was like, yeah. She’s like, okay, come over. So in the middle of doing it, I’m like, Yes, something don’t feel right. Ooh. Like I feel uncomfortable. I feel icky. I feel like I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to be doing this. This is wrong. And it was conviction that was the first time I felt conviction. And I was like, I never want to feel that ever again in my life. And from that day forward, I stopped doing drugs. That conviction felt so terrible that it just knocked some sense into me right then and there. That wasn’t the only thing to change for Kaya over the next few months, I asked her to compare her life today with her life a year ago, drastically different. I stopped smoking, you know, I’m periodically reading my Bible, you know. I go to Bible study, you know, I think I’m living the way of Christ, but you would always catch me at Chili’s in Happy Hour, like, kid you not, like, I’m just justifying people. Like, okay, it’s just one drink. It’s okay, you know, like, like, like, the Bible says, you know, don’t, don’t get drunk. I’m not getting drunk, so it’s okay. It’s starting to become, like a bad reoccurrence, like I’m doing it again and again and again, you know? And I have my talks with God, and, you know, I feel his presence, but during that time, I’m like, Yeah, God, I’m not really feeling, you know, what’s, what’s the issue, like, Am I doing something? What am I doing? And it was just like something was on my spirit was like, that’s that drinking? Like, what do you mean? What are you doing? Like, right in front of your face, you know, that’s leading you away from Christ. Why are you doing it? Like, yeah, it took me some time to realize, but to be honest, I did not have the desire to stop drinking at all. If I could do it today, I would still be doing it. And that’s, that’s the honest thing about it. So I had to sit down, and I had to pray for the Lord to give me the desire to stop, because, by myself, I’m not going to stop. I’m not I would love to continue to do it, but I knew it was bad for me. I knew it was leading me away from Christ. I knew it was building a gap between me and God’s relationship. So I sat down. I was like, honestly, God, I don’t have the desire to stop, but I know it’s bad, and I know it’s leading me away from you. So Lord, I pray that you give me the desire to stop. Lord, I invite you into the situation, and I pray that you just put your hands over me and allow me and just like, just stop me. Legitimately, stop me yourself, because I can’t do this. And it just stopped. The desire died down. Kaya was baptized in August at Holy Trinity Church in Chicago. She’s been doing a Bible study with two other girls, both new Christians. Along the way, she’s had some of the same questions Mike had couple months ago, one of my brothers in Christ had to give me reassurance on it, but I was just questioning, like, how do I know that Christ is the WAY, like? Because many other people say Buddhism, because I actually have a friend and she’s Buddhist, I was just completely confused. I’m like, like, is Christ the way? Like, is it? Because you got all these other religions, and who’s to say that their religion isn’t the way her brother in Christ reassured her, which was enough for her to begin sharing her faith with her friend. I was talking to my own friend who is into Buddhism, and I told her something, and she was like, Oh my God. I looked I was like, Hey, don’t say that. She was like, What do you mean? I.

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Like, don’t say that. You don’t put that in the same sentence. And she was like, the guy has different meanings. I looked at her like, no, he does not. I’ve never heard somebody say that. And I’ve had another incident where I was talking to someone, and she was like, Well, no, this one person, this one man on tick tock, and he said he’s Christian, and he also does voodoo, and I hate to be the one to tell you, but that those two don’t it don’t work like that. How I deal with it is, of course, I try to, you know, get my point across, and it’s starting to be more apparent to me. It’s so many false prophecies out here and false leadings out here. There are also false ideas of what Christianity is like, probably also gleaned from social media. When Kaya stopped drinking, she tried to share her reasons with her friend like she seemed like she was going for it, but then months later, like she was like, Well, I hope you don’t become one of those white politicians who’s just against abortion and homosexuality. And I looked at her, and I was like, oh, that’s what you think we are. Kya’s reaction here is interesting, first, because Kaya has shifted her views on both abortion and homosexuality since meeting Jesus, but second, because a year ago, that was more or less kaya’s view of Christians. She thought they were a little weird and judgmental and harsh and honestly, a little foolish, because why were they following someone they couldn’t see? And that’s what makes her a perfect witness to the transforming power of the Spirit. I asked her what it was like to be involved in the campus ministry this fall can’t even be explained, but it’s something it’s only a work that God can do. Being surrounded by so many students with the same questions I have and the same struggles I have is it’s such a beautiful thing being able to build relationships and talk to them like, I would never replace it for anything else. Like, it’s, it’s something so beautiful. And, you know, it’s a difference when you’re being led in Christ, but when you’re just sitting with people your age and just conversating about Christ, like, I know, like, it’s different times where different brothers and sisters in Christ of mine will be like, sitting in the cafeteria of our campus, and I’ll just walk by and like, I’ll be like, Hey guys, and then we’ll sit down and we’ll start talking, and somehow that conversation always leads its way to Christ, how good he is, what we’ve experienced, what we just read in the Bible, it’s not even forced, like, that’s the best thing about it, like we don’t even have to be having Bible study that day, but he led us to just talking about him and glorifying his name and learning more about him. It’s something unexplainable.

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Let me pause here for just a minute so that I can thank dort University twice. Not only are they sponsoring this episode, but if you remember, their overflowing chapel is what sparked this story in the first place. The students who are sitting in those pews, including my son, are not only hearing the gospel, but they’re learning to joyfully integrate their faith into their chosen fields, and as they do that with professors and friends, they are also gaining a community of people they can talk to, laugh with and learn alongside for their entire lives. If you are looking for a Christ centered college and that sounds good to you, let me recommend that you head over to dort.edu.

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That’s D O, R, D, t.edu dot, Edu,

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I would say October. There was a day we had like seven people profess faith in one day. Sean Zirkle is 23 years old. He is also a first fruit drawn to the Lord a few years ago by a young campus staffer in his fraternity at the University of Alabama. When he graduated in 2025 he started his first job as a campus outreach staffer with Tony Denman in Chicago. I was just expecting, like, a lack of spiritual interest. So I feel like in the south, everybody kind of grows up with it. So if you ask them if they’re Christian, they’re most likely going to say yes. Whether they are aren’t in Chicago, my expectation going into it is they’re just not going to want any part of it. And that’s where I was wrong. That’s where I was completely wrong, because they’re spiritually interested. They just don’t even know what to be interested in. Sean’s been having spiritual conversations all over the place. He told me about that day in October. I remember I went to sat down with a student, and right before I sit down on Lisa, who’s on our staff team, she’s like, these two girls just profess faith. I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, this is crazy. And then the student I’m meeting with, he professes faith. And then Josiah, he met with, like, three.

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People, and they were all like, we want to give our life to Jesus. I asked Sean about his conversation. I was blown away, honestly. I mean, just being the life. And his name is Linus. He’s from Ecuador, it was just different, like I had shared it at this point, probably, like, 25 times with other students. I’m like, I could just tell, like something was different about this conversation. He’s there smiling. His eyes are big, just like, I want this, like I want. He’s experienced a lot of brokenness, like he like, felt the weight of it. He was like, I just want to kind of be free from it.

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Campus outreach staff in Chicago saw 16 students come to Christ this fall. 10 have been baptized. Dozens more have asked questions, shown up at Bible studies and large worship gatherings and asked if they could catch a ride to church. A few years ago, all the Christian campus ministries at UIC, from athletes in action to campus outreach, Chi Alpha, InterVarsity and the navigators came together for a joint event. They were excited to get 100 students total. This past November, campus outreach had its own conference and Drew 120 people by itself. They are seeing double and sometimes triple the number of attendees at each event or Bible study. They host the weekly gathering, which Tony hadn’t been able to get off the ground until a few months ago. Now, regularly attracts 80 students a week. This level of engagement isn’t just happening in Chicago. I am hearing the same stories from campus pastors from California to Oregon to North Carolina. They are seeing higher levels of attendance, questions, hunger and conversions.

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Hey, cross con, let’s stand together. Welcome. We’re excited to sing with you and worship the name of Jesus. A few weeks ago, I stood with 1000s of Gen Zers in a conference center in Louisville, Kentucky. Cross con was launched in 2013 and that first year, about 3500

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students were there. The next year, attendance dropped to about 2000

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organizers wondered how much longer they should keep pouring money into it, whether anybody even wanted to go to Christian conferences anymore, and if this was a colossal waste of time and energy, then slowly, things began to turn around. In 2024 for the first time, cross sold out speakers such as John Piper, Kevin de Young and David Platt told more than 10,018

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to 25 year olds that, though sin and enemies oppose them, they serve an undefeated God. This year, organizers ran the conference twice back to back, 18,000 Gen Zers packed into the convention center in Louisville to hear Piper Platt shy Lynn tripley and Carl Truman challenge them to make their lives count. But conference organizer Matt Schmucker told me that what surprised him the most was not the record attendance, it was the breakout sessions they chose to attend. I think in the past, you would have expected to see maybe something on dating or courtship, which we did offer, or something on God’s take on exercise, which we did offer. But to our delight, we saw two that filled up. First one was friendship with God. That was Mike McKinley speaking. Mike wrote the book friendship with God. It’s based on John Owen talking about communion with God. So Mike takes this pastor from 1650s and the Puritans and distills it and makes him understandable. And that’s what these kids wanted to hear. And then the second one, much to our surprise, was Andy Davis on Scripture memory. Andy Davis has been memorizing verses for 40 years. He does three every day, and he reviews 300 every day, and he has 42 books of the Bible memorized. And as Spurgeon said of Bunyan, you know, his blood is bibbling, Andy’s blood is bibling. And I heard people just rave about that. So I just love if I just thought, if we can get 100 kids memorizing scripture, that would be brilliant. Instead, there were 1000 or more kids there kingdom.

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I love this, but know what makes it even sweeter? At the same time those kids were learning at cross more than 4000 college students and staff were gathering in Chattanooga, listening to JD Greer and Derwin Gray at the campus outreach new year’s conference. A few weeks later, in North Carolina, Greer spoke to another 1800

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students at Summit Church’s win con. They couldn’t fit another person in that space. Over in Iowa, 7500

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college students were at the salt company conference and.

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Hearing from speakers like Sam alberry, Laura wiffler and Mark Vance. In fact, salt had so many in attendance that they outgrew their facilities in Des Moines and are looking for a bigger space for next year. Cross two has outgrown its conference center and will be in a stadium in St Louis next time around. Now, please hear me. I am not saying that this level of spiritual activity is everywhere. Not every campus minister I talked to noticed an uptick in interest. I’m not even saying that this should be called a revival. There’s a Barna study often cited as showing that Gen Z has more church goers than any other generation. It doesn’t, but the Gen Zers who do go to church do show up more often than the church goers and other generations. Sociologist Ryan Burge notes that large scale surveys do show a pause in the decline of Christianity in America, but not an upswing. He tells me a better way to describe it is, quote, growing pockets of spiritual hunger. Wes Smith, who leads the college ministry for summit church in North Carolina, is in one of those pockets for us here, maybe start a little bit last year, like so last school year, a little bit, and then this year just kind of accelerated. We’ve just seen definitely more students coming, which I feel like a lot of college ministries that I’m aware of are experiencing the same, same thing, a lot more students just showing up. A lot more spiritually interested. We just need a lot of decisions already, like this first two months, I guess, definitely more than we would normally in the fall. Over the course of three evenings, summit gave gospel presentations to large groups at North Carolina State, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina Central, the amount of people that are checking the proxy, hey, I made a decision for Christ. You know, it’s, it’s pretty large. I think maybe, like, I said, maybe the first week it was like 80 people did, yeah, it was amazing. So we and we follow up with all of them. And so, you know, I don’t know if I would say all 80 of them made authentic for sure, and we do a lot of follow up to figure out exactly what’s going on there and stuff. But still, a lot more, even at the end of the day, a lot more making decisions, a lot more making decisions and staying committed to the ministry. That’s what’s also interesting here. Is like, you know, we’re at like, a couple major public universities, at HBCU, Dukes private school, Meredith’s all girls school, and we’re kind of seeing it all of them. And so, yeah, I think we were all pretty surprised just by the response, because it happened, you know, we did it three services, three nights in a row, at different schools, all different preachers, all different things, you know, and every one of them is having this kind of like overwhelming response.

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In its annual report last year, InterVarsity, Christian Fellowship reported an increase in the number of people meeting regularly to study the Bible together, and four straight years of increased first time decisions for Christ, 7000 people attended its Urbana conference in December, up from 6000 in 2022 crew saw more than 7000 students at its 12 regional winter conferences, up from around 5002 years ago. It’s National Ann Arbor, Michigan. 2024, kickoff, 320 students. 2025, kickoff, 575

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students. Mark Vance is the lead pastor at Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa, which oversees the salt company ministries on 33 campuses across the country. Bloomington, Indiana, 400 to 880 220%

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increase. Okay, let’s go to Colorado. Denver, Colorado, 586, to 915

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57% increase. Let’s go Florida. 1100 students out at Gainesville, Florida, Tallahassee, 700 to 1000 in 340, 3% increase. Midwest, West, Lafayette, Purdue, 800 students to just shy of 1500 students. 88% increase. So across the board, the average increase is 41% up year over year. West Coast University of Oregon. That would be one of the most liberal 325, to just shy of 550, which is, to our knowledge, the largest Christian student guy in the history of university Oregon, Syracuse, New York, yeah, and very oppositional. 80 students to 130

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the point here would be, there’s no exceptions.

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Every single place. What we’re seeing is increased numbers, increased openness. I mean, anecdotally, okay, sir, this a little weird this year. So I’m gonna do a lecture at Iowa State in February, invited by the university’s lecture panels to talk about civility public discourse in the need for conservative voices that disagree in the public square. And they’re paying me to do it now. They’re going to get protests over that they might pull me off, but that’s a public lecture series where I’m saying we need to have voices in the public square that disagree without having a spirit of tribalism. I’m going to come make that kind of like common sense Christianity in the public sphere. Case, invited to do so at a major public university as the evangelical pastor in town you go to post covid.

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That is utterly unthinkable. It’s much, much more plausible, five to 10 years ago, that the university would have worked to revoke our student work. At their first gatherings this fall, the salt companies collectively saw about 23,500

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students. One of them was Maya Gunaratne, a a student leader at the University of Oregon. I asked her how their kickoff event went. It was emotional, because it was like we had been in the Bushnell chapel originally, like, that’s where I went to salt my freshman year was at the small chapel of the college next to Oregon, and that filled up really quickly. And so when we moved to Straub, the biggest lecture hall on campus. You know, we only took up the bottom level. There’s, like, a balcony too. And so the kind of the whole thing last year was like, we were just gonna fill that balcony, like, that’s the goal, like, fill the balcony. And then we walked in and balcony and more was full. And so it was just like, so cool. Like that we’re sometimes it feels like we’re too big for straw. Maya and her friends wondered if the attendants would dip after that first day, but it didn’t. The balcony is still consistently full. Jack Bertelsen is the college director of salt there. There’s something about like, the messages that Jack has been giving each week that are like, so convicting in the best way, like something about them are, like, really bold, and maybe it’s just because my heart’s more open to it, so I’m feeling that way more. But like something about it like we’ve been talking about like, wow, this year for some reason there’s like, something feels different. And I think it’s just because of the like audience that seems ready for it. Every time we get to connection group, everyone’s like, wow, that messages are so good. I asked Jack if he’d been practicing his speaking over the summer, and he said he has spent more time preparing messages this fall, but not in researching the latest memes or Tiktok references in order to relate to a younger crowd. Here’s what he said, I hear more and more from students saying they want me to tell it how it is, to not disguise the truth or make it a little easier to digest. They want me to preach in a way that gives them the most clarity on what the Bible says about how they live their lives. So Jack has been working on changing his voice and tone so it’s less distracting. He’s trying to be easier to understand, and he’s trying to be more unapologetically clear and truthful. It just seems the simple, timeless truths are falling fresh on people who have never heard them before. He said,

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By this point in my reporting, it seemed clear that God’s Spirit was doing something unexpected in Gen Z, and I was asking the obvious and almost impossible next question, why? Why now? Why these young people? The first and best answer is that the Lord’s timing is perfect and His ways are inscrutable. The fullness of time for this movement, however large or long lasting it turns out to be, has come. But there are also some interesting storylines we can see playing out. Broadly speaking, Gen Z are the children of Gen X who were coming of age and graduating from college in the late 1980s and 1990s This is the exact time when American church attendance and affiliation began to slip, led primarily by the young adults. This generation did not go quietly with access to the internet and then social media. They deconstructed their faith on videos, into microphones and on Instagram. While exvangelicals are statistically a small group, they were moving in the same direction as Americans nationally, away from submission to God’s authority and toward a celebration of individual rights and a variety of sexual expressions. This was so widespread that by the 2010s some universities were kicking out student ministries or disinviting speakers who stuck to a biblical view of sexuality, but throwing off the restrictions of religion did not usher in widespread peace and joy, even with screens that offered almost infinite ways to distract, entertain, identify and express yourself, all generations, but especially, Gen Z, sank further and further into depression, anxiety and loneliness at the same time, though, Gen Z was growing up less familiar with the stereotypes of church and Christianity that their parents had they didn’t carry the same hostility toward it over the last couple of years, especially after the election of Donald Trump and the waning of the woke era, campus pastors told me that students were no longer protesting Christian speakers campaigning To remove campus ministries or telling stories of how Christianity had heard them. The latest surveys tell us that only 18% of Gen Z attends church weekly. Fewer still read their Bibles or go to Bible studies. A whopping 43% say they are non religious, but they aren’t deconstructing something they feel is restrictive. Instead, they’re shrugging at something they think is irrelevant, and that makes a difference.

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I just think everyone’s looking for fulfillment like that’s always been true, but I for some reason, feel that a lot more like talking to people I know who haven’t been open to faith, but have been stuck in this cycle.

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Like, just looking for different things to quote, unquote complete them. And I think, like, everyone’s just like, this is not working. Like, I promise, like, I’ve tried everything. I mean, some people that I talk to, I think are definitely like, overwhelmed is kind of the right term. A lot of people feel like they’re dealing with too much, and it kind of takes away from, yeah, a lot of that joy, I guess I would say that’s Ryan. Remember, when he got to college, he thought he was too busy to add church or Christianity to his life, but when a senior in his fraternity invited him to church, he said, Sure, surprised by how many people were there, and curious about why he kept going, learning about the weight of his sin, the beauty of salvation and the joy of Jesus. He’s been saved for almost two years, and now he’s the senior inviting freshmen to church. I asked him how they respond, yeah, oh, 100% Yeah. They’re just like, oh, sure, I’ll go Yeah. Why not? Gen X rebelled against the idea of being given an identity, purpose and truth. They wanted to write their own story, and they wanted to give that freedom to their children. But what sounds like freedom in an Instagram post can be a mess in real life. Like, are you asking me? Does it feel unstable to be in control yourself? Yeah, yeah. Very much, very much. It’s the fact that knowing that someone knows your story, knows what you did in private, knows what you’re going to do. Why would I not follow him like he’s all knowing God, like stability and acceptance that I know that’s a big part of acceptance, the love, the grace, it’s just the knowing that if you fall, someone will catch you. Acceptance is not really shown in this generation, like someone is always going to find something about you that they don’t like or that they deem unfit, but just knowing that you have a identity, like a higher identity, you have someone who accepts you, who knows it all. I think with Gen Z, we’ve been confusing love a lot with many different things. Sometimes we think love is lust. There’s sometimes we think love is whatever like to fill in the blank, because we’ve been confused with thinking social media is like the way to find fulfillment, or like relationships is the way to find fulfillment, or like, whatever, drugs, alcohol, and so when we hear the gospel and we hear that somebody loved us even when we were wretched and like sinful, I think that’s what really draws our attention. I know that drew my attention when seeing that even when I did all these horrific things, I was still loved, like I can finally be fully fulfilled with God’s love and mercy, that’s what really drew me in. And I feel like that’s what’s going on with Gen Z as well. The generational shift was perhaps most clear in a story Maya told me while cleaning up after a salt event a few months ago, she also grabbed a few beer cans that had been abandoned by another party nearby a classmate walked by, hey, I know you’re in salt. He said, How come you’re holding a beer can now I can imagine the reaction of my Gen X to that maybe embarrassment at being thought a prude, or frustration that Christianity was equated with rules about drinking, or a desire to distance ourselves from the legalistic restrictions of the Bible. But that wasn’t Maya’s reaction. And I was thinking like, people are starting to realize what salt is. And like, even without being religious, people almost hold you if you say you’re from salt like to a certain standard, which is honestly such a compliment, because it means that, like, there’s an example out there of salt company people that, like, try to stray from culture like that and just focus on each other and company and faith. I

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had a friend say to me last year when I brought her to salt, she was like, Yeah, I just feel like, I’ve never seen a group people just so, like, happy to be with each other and like, so just enjoying of like each other’s company. And I was like, that’s how it feels. So it’s so cool. Other people notice it. Maya knows it’s the joy of knowing Jesus, but there’s also a secondary joy. The students are telling me about, a delight in being with other Christians. A lot of our students love to fellowship, especially since they’re new to a lot of the faith, and so the more that they see us gather, like the leaders gather and like, have fun and have Bible studies, the more I kind of encourages them to now, like man, I want to hang out as well with them, and I want to fellowship. And so I see our relationships building a ton a lot more, like really, really fast. What a generous God who is giving to Gen Z, not only salvation for their souls, but also restored purpose, identity and relationships. This joy is spilling out all over the place. For example, at UIC campus outreach, students are playing a long running game of tag between classes. They make and eat food together they head over to their.

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Leaders home to play games. I think that’s why I love being in this group so much, is that we can help people that are of this world, that are still like, not knowing who God is, but are hungry for something that the Lord can provide for them, which is full satisfaction. And so the when they see us having fun and stuff, they’re like, man, like, I want to know what that group’s like. Like, I just want to, like, be friends with them and like, you know, like, have fun with them. Maybe that will fulfill me. And Little do they know that we provide them with the Lord’s love and we show them that we may not fully satisfy them, but God will, and being able to share that with them is the biggest just joy aspect for us. I feel like that’s why we continue to grow, as we just see that the Lord is continuing to move with these people and continuing to grow them. And it’s just so beautiful to see at the University of Oregon, Maya’s friend was noticing the same thing. She was just like, there’s just a glow about people there. Like, it’s just the joy that like, it’s really hard to find in other areas. I think then people put together of like, oh, they all talk about this person called Jesus, like that. Must have something to do with it. It’s like it does totally this delight in Jesus, in the Word of God and in each other is such a contrast to Gen Z’s sad isolation that even a little bit is obvious. You don’t even have to, like, verbally share about it. Honestly, you can be just a little bit of a role model. You model and kind of leading by example and kind of showing how fruitful it can be in like how like positive it can make your life to shine, kind of just like how joyful you can be in Jesus. That invites questions and opens up conversations. I feel like most people are very like open I don’t think people are very like, closed off. I guess I would say I always like, really, like to try to, like, make a connection with the person first. You know what I mean? Like, try to really get to know them from their standpoint. A lot of people, once you really understand them, and once you can maybe even connect to them with a little bit from your story, I think it’s really powerful to like, share like, Hey, this is how I was similar. Like, this is how Jesus affected me. Like, what are your thoughts about it? Everybody, I would say, is pretty open. That’s good, because otherwise, Iowa State students might be starting to get a little annoyed at the evangelistic zeal of the salt students feel like, honestly, it’s hard to find a student sometimes in Iowa State that, like, hasn’t been approached by another student. You know what I mean? It is kind of cool. Like, so many of us feel like our lives are so, like, we’re so lucky to know God and like, have that joy that we just want that for everyone else that we see on campus. So that’s just the biggest incentive. Like, I know how good it can be, and I want that for you, because I know that like no one’s told you that before,

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Tim Keller defined revival as the intensification of the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit, which are conviction, conversion, assurance and sanctification, when those operations are intensified across a church, denomination, city or country, you’ve got revival, he said, and when you’ve got revival, three things usually happen, sleepy Christians wake up. Nominal Christians are converted, and non Christians come to faith. I don’t know if what we’re seeing is intense enough to be officially labeled as a revival yet, or at all. The number of lives changed this fall is still in the range of hundreds, not hundreds of 1000s. But I do feel confident saying that Gen Z has been given more wealth, education, technology and freedom than any other in the history of the world, and they are not thriving. And I do know that some of them, more than before, more than expected, have been drawn to the Lord in the last six months. They are telling stories of sleepy Christians waking up, nominal Christians being converted, and non Christians coming to faith on college campuses, they are telling stories of conviction, of sin, changed lives and an almost glowing joy, whatever we want to call this. It is certainly an occasion to rejoice and give glory to the only one who causes, sustains or closes a generational or geographic revival. But that’s not all. This is

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after I wrote a story about what was happening in college Ministries for the gospel coalition this past fall, I saw an email from Tim Savage, TGC international director. Here’s what he said yesterday, we finished a three day conference in Stockholm, Sweden, two decades ago, young Swedish adults were skeptical of Christianity and scoffed at Christ. Calvary, Stockholm church had six or seven attending on Sunday morning and was close to shutting down this Sunday. Every seat at Calvary, Stockholm, on the floor and in the balcony was filled with many young Swedish men attending some traveling over an hour by train because, quote, this church preaches the word of God. It is remarkable what the Lord is doing in the secular.

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European north,

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Hmm. Well, you know what I did when I saw that, I sent out another round of questions, this time to pastors overseas. Is there increased spiritual engagement among the youth? By you, no said the pastors in the Middle East, China and India, but I got yeses from Norway and Sweden, from Canada and Australia and Brazil. Here’s Hyrule Nim noon, a pastor in the Dominican Republic. We had a man come in, and he was selling us toys for our nursery. So he came two Sundays ago, when he came in, he saw so many people that are under 20, he started

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crying. What’s happening. I need to meet the pastor, because we’re doing the services. I’m usually between the services. I’m set apart in like a small green room. I went and talked to him, and he was literally crying and saying, I am an agnostic, which is not common in our culture. I’m an agnostic, but I need to come in and see what’s happening here, because I see all these youths and I can’t believe these people are coming to church. And he said, I’m not selling you the toys. I’m giving it, giving them to you now. I just take them and I’m gonna keep coming. Like, well, he’s probably just emotion. He’s kept coming. He was sitting next to us this Sunday. So it’s not a usual thing. It’s something very unique and fresh that the Lord has done. I love this story, because not only is the Lord pulling Gen Z to himself, and not only is he doing that around the world, but he is also using them to draw others to himself. The students I talked to are sharing the gospel with their brothers and sisters, their friends, their parents, their aunts and uncles and grandparents, multiple pastors told me that they are also seeing higher levels of engagement from those in their 30s and 40s. If it pleases the Lord, maybe this longing for him could spread, not only passed down from one generation to another, but also passed back up from the children to their parents, and wouldn’t it be just like the Lord who used the stuttering Moses, the youngest son of Jesse and the little town of Bethlehem, to use the youngest, saddest, most lonely generation to light up the world.

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Thank you for listening to this episode of recorded, which is part of the gospel coalition’s Podcast Network. This episode was written by me Sarah zeilstra and edited by Colin Hanson, Megan Hill and Cassie Watson. Our audio editor was Scott Caro and our producer was new bridge studios. Recorded is made possible by generous donations. If you would like to join in supporting this work, we would love for you to do so at tgc.org/donate