This post is based on an article by Kevin Brown, the 18th President of Asbury University, in Christian Post on 23/03/2025.

Christianity’s long-documented decline has levelled off. I’ve seen this first-hand with the young adults at Asbury University, where I serve as president. In February 2023, a routine chapel service on the campus led to a 16-day, nonstop worship gathering that brought over 50,000 people to the two-stoplight town of Wilmore, Kentucky. Everything I witnessed during that time ran counter to the prevailing scripts of modern life.

The space was peaceful, unified, apolitical, radically humble, hopeful, and age/class/ethnically diverse. It was nameless and faceless. “No celebrities but Jesus,” we said. I have never seen such deep and penetrating spiritual hunger in my life — a demonstrative ache for a right relationship with God and others. Importantly, though, I saw the “loosened chains” of a younger generation unevenly burdened by the pathologies of modern life (isolationism, digitization, social discord, mental health challenges, and waning institutions). Students from nearly 300 colleges and universities made the trip to Asbury for a transformative spiritual encounter. Their testimonies were raw; unedited.  They embraced strangers like family. They occupied the altar, sometimes for hours. They led, fearlessly. They prayed, zealously. Describing Gen Z, a friend remarked, “They are ready to follow the Jesus whose following is changing the world.”

My Christian higher education colleagues and I are witnessing a trend reversal emerging among Gen Z teens and young adults. In the last few years, we have seen unplanned, over 50,000 college students sing Agnus Dei a Capella at the 2024 Passion Gathering. We have seen a host of revival movements among young adults in 2024, including campuses “pregnant for revival.” Campus ministries are experiencing a spike in spiritual interest.

I (Ron Edwards) have recently written two posts on revival on university campuses: GOD AT WORK ON UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES on 02/03/2025 and 8000 STUDENTS SEEK JESUS IN HUGE KENTUCKY AWAKENING on 04/03/2025, so this article by Kevin Brown was further confirmation that God is doing something new and exciting.

There is encouraging data on Gen Z teens navigating “Digital Babylon,” and younger generations are showing renewed interest in Jesus. Student baptisms — led by students. An international focus on Gen Z and their promise for future ministry. A greater likelihood of church attendance among Gen Z compared to the Boomer generation throughout pockets of Europe, and in the United Kingdom, Gen Z teens are now the least likely generation to call themselves atheists. Describing some of the radical expressions of faith witnessed in our own community by younger generations, my wife made the provocative comment: “Perhaps Gen Z is willing to die because they are already dead.”

Culture is deadening. The scripts handed to younger generations are deadening. The nihilism and malaise of a world optimized around dopamine surges — a “dopamine nation,” as psychiatrist and bestselling author Dr. Anna Lembke puts it — has left Gen Z teens and young adults disoriented and unsettled, no longer “at ease in Zion.” Consistent with data from the Pew’s Religious Landscape Study released in February, younger generations demonstrate religiously oriented sensibilities that attract them to the Christian faith and challenge the status quo.  Christianity’s long-documented decline has levelled off, and we are seeing a resurgence of spiritual commitment among forthcoming generations.