If you’ve been anywhere online in the past few weeks, you’ll have seen news headlines shouting about Gen Z and spirituality. “Gen Z half as likely as their parents to identify as atheists” claims The Times a few weeks ago. “Gen Z embraces spirituality” and “Gen Zers on why they’ve turned to God” proclaim others. These signs are hardly new. We’ve been talking about this for years. What is new, though, is that mainstream media is starting to talk about this too. These are big voices. But they are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. This slow awakening runs so much deeper. We have yet to see how far down it goes. 

We’re about to launch a full suite of research all about students’ attitudes to faith and spirituality. This will be out next month, but here’s a sneak preview of the findings. All the signs point towards it, and now the data confirms it: students are waking up. We partnered with Savanta to survey more than 2000 students across the country. We found that:

• 50% of all students think that the Bible is relevant to today’s world; and
• 33% of non-Christian students would like to read the Bible with a friend.

These findings show the huge opportunity that exists in the current student generation. There is a significant increase in openness. You may have seen the results of our worldview survey with 76% of students saying they’d go to church if a friend invited them. And transformation is already underway. Just last week, one of the students in York told me that he’d been having dinner with a group of his friends the day before. There were six of them, all Christians. But he was the only one who grew up going to church. All five of the others had given their lives to Jesus in the past 12 months. Some through dreams, some through reading the Bible. One had a spiritual encounter he couldn’t explain and went to church to find answers. 

These sorts of stories are the new normal. We are in an awakening and the current is picking up. More and more students are coming through the doorways of churches. And as they wake up, they are changing the culture around them. “Gen Z are having less casual sex” claims The Times’ article. This is true. They are also drinking less alcohol as they look for purpose beyond the end of a bottle. Studies show that they also read more books and get more sleep than students pre-covid. The questions they are asking are also changing; they are looking for purpose rather than proof, destiny rather than despair. 

There may be troubled waters as students realise they were sleeping and that they have been kept submerged. They may ask why no one has told them about this before. They may be angry and frustrated. If we do not feed them on truth, they may be swept away into the currents of the occult instead of coming up to the surface. Our job is simply to point them to Jesus. He is the truth they require. He is the one they are swimming towards.  

For a long time, we have been trying to catch fish that don’t want to be caught. Fish that swim away as soon as they see the boat coming. But now they are swimming in a current that is drawing them in. Some of them are even jumping into the boats of their own accord. We aren’t doing anything new. We have no new fishing technique, no magic bait to bring the fish to us. We don’t need marketing, or hype, or attractive ways to generate interest. The spirit of God is enough. The word of God is enough. What do we need? We need strong nets. We need more fishermen to haul them in. We need boats to take them in the right direction. 

So yes, the headlines are great. But we need hearts and hands prepared because the catch of the century is coming.