A “Quiet Revival”

[LeaningOnTheEverlastingArms]

And now for some good news- someone sent me this today. Absolutely fascinating.

“According to a new study a “Quiet Revival” is afoot in British Christianity, with young people leading the way: reportedly, the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds who attend church at least monthly has risen from 4% in 2018 to 16% in 2024: a startling increase.”

unherd.com/2025/04/the-age-of-nihilism-is-over/

I was brought up as a Catholic, but stopped going to church when I was about 11. Now my family and I have been going every Sunday for a couple of months. My husband isn't Catholic, but he is doing all the study and work to be confirmed, and we are going to baptise our three children in the coming months.

Our church is absolutely heaving, and full of young people. My children were sick on Sunday so I stayed home with them, and everyone asked my husband where we were. It was so lovely that they did, as we haven't been attending that long.

I love the Quiet Revival and I'm so pleased that my family are a part of it. It's so wonderful to see people turning to God in this day and age.

As you are part of the Catholic Church you're pretty safe from the theologically unsound NAR movement, I'm so glad more young people are attending Church and getting saved!

It's interesting that the Quiet Revival is mainly amongst the young but not only them, also the over 65s. The middle groups from around 34-65 have seen a fall in Church attendance.

I wonder how Pope Leo will affect this new revival. Its been getting a lot of media attention, which Christianity doesn't usually get.

I read this a while ago. This is very good news. Starting your faith your faith and to walk with you is a great tool in life.

I read to that there is a revival in France of baptisms and that is wonderful as well in what is considered to be a secular country.

www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263349/france-sees-record-10384-adult-baptisms-in-2025-45-percent-increase-as-young-catholics-lead-revival

I saw this yesterday I got delivered to my home, it is of the same report basically. It can be saved and downloaded to be enlarged to read.

Was that in a magazine or something @Justmerach ?

Here's a video I watched recently on the current revival

It was a magazine that sent to me for free.

I was disappointed today when somebody pointed out to me when I mentioned this research to them that there was an error with the research.
This is an article on it-
https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/the-quiet-revival/statement-from-paul-williams

Yes it is disappointing, but as you read that article it's clear that there are still revivals going on and more people are becoming active in their faith, even though there is a general decline in people who call themselves 'Christian'. God will always preserve a remnant, and of course it's up to God whether there will be another big revival, and if so, where and when. So it's not all negative, in fact there's quite a big positive there.

Thank you GentleSheep.
I think the next real research to come will be the Census. It was last done in 2021 so we have some time to go.

The Statista website may be a useful resource as well for data.

https://www.statista.com/markets/411/topic/1066/religion/?srsltid=AfmBOooVrRI_fGzLlQfazSKX0116PDFXAUUKglvpxpuqJpSx1mSloKIM#insights

Pew research may be useful for the US to.

Aw, the resurrection of this thread from last year has made me realise that I miss @LeaningOnTheEverlastingArms

Statistics and damn lies they both can be used to 'prove' a point. All I know is, there is definitely a quiet revival going on locally. I guess unless a church is part of the Anglican or Catholic, or may be Methodist too, numbers are not officially 'logged'. Many folk attend Anglican churches and Methodists without becoming official members so they also will not be counted. God knows His sheep.

UK Bible sales are up 134% according to a podcast I listened to recently – I think it was this one, Speak Life with Glen Scrivener.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-speak-life-podcast/id626198781?i=1000777744034

So that’s a good sign.

Pete Hughes, Tim Hughes’ brother and the pastor of KXC Church in London, says he sees signs of a quiet revival.
The Profile podcast - ‘KXC’s Pete Hughes on why the ‘heavy rain’ of revival is on the way’:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-speak-life-podcast/id626198781?i=1000777744034

He’s not alone – there are many anecdotal reports. My own church has had some people just come in, having been reading the Bible on their own.

It’s a shame that YouGov messed up with their data, but I think something is going on.

It also doesn't say that the survey is necessarily wrong - which is what mainstream media has leapt upon.

It says that the survey "could" have been filled in by people not from the UK, therefore the result "could" be wrong for the UK and I think it also allowed people to answer more than once.

So they're assuming that the upturn is down to people who shouldn't have filled it out, which seems possible, but unlikely to me. If nothing else, that is assuming that the people who answered the survey are more likely to answer that they are Christian than people in the UK would.

If, for example it was 1000 people (probably far more) and 20% (200 people) said they were Christian, which was a rise from 15% (150 people) last time.
I think we can expect that the majority were from the UK, so let's say 75% of people were UK.
For the UK numbers to have stayed static, that would mean 113/750 said they were Christian.
So of the other 250 (from other countries) 87, which is 35% would have had to reply they were Christian.
Now I'm sure some people would say that there are other countries where the majority would say they are Christian - but why should people from those countries have been more likely to fill out a YouGov survey than people from countries where Christianity is a vast minority?

Equally well, is a Christian more likely to fill out the survey twice than a non-Christian? I doubt it.

And there are other signs in Bible sales, testimony and church figures that backs the revival. I'll accept it may not have been as large an increase as the YouGov survey might have initially suggested, but I suspect strongly it is there and the negative headlines put out there are from people not wanting to think there could be a turning back to God.

Edited to add that most denominations do some version of numbers checking - church I work for is associated with several denominations and all require an end of year set of figures for working out parish share as well as their own statistics. I have proposed that the church goes Baptist as the easiest parochial figure document, however they're still after average numbers etc.

Some good points there @MargaretThursday

This is what I observe in my part of the world, probably one of the most non-religious parts of it.

Mainline Protestant churches (once the majority) have been in rapid decline for decades and continue declining. In a generation they'll no longer have a presence outside the big cities. There are some green shoots, however.

Catholics are slowly declining in terms of adherents but numbers attending are at least holding steady. Immigration is helping them. They seem to be doing pretty well through monastic vocations seem a thing of the past.

Orthodoxy has picked up some numbers but from a very low base and maybe from Protestant churches.

Pentecostal / charismatic churches are at best holding steady.

Other religions are increasing, due to immigration.

Ideas of indigenous spirituality have gained ground in an unorganised sort of New Agey way.

What's not clear is what's happening on the Internet. My impression is that more and more people seek some sort of Christian input there but it's a very odd showbizzy American idea of Christianity with some very odd adherents. Probably bankrolled in part by people like Peter Thiel who identity as Christian in some sense but are really anything but.

My concern isn't Christianity dying out (I think there's no prospect of that at all) but that the church gets eaten from the inside by false doctrine promoted by celebs, MAGAs and techlords, ie people have more in common with the late Roman Empire than early Christianity.

Wrong dates so removed.

I read that there is data called the Annual Population Survey (APS) that they do every year that includes religion. I am trying to see if I can download it. May be some of you may know about it more than me.

If you perhaps you are interested in Generation Z you may be interested in this recent report by the Church of England on their findings on this subject.

www.churchofengland.org/media/news-and-press-releases/new-report-explores-young-adult-journeys-faith-church-england