Beyond the quiet revival: 10 ways you can rise to this missional moment

As a pastor, I’ve grown used to headlines about church decline. But the Bible Society’s recent ‘Quiet Revival’ report is breaking the trend. Based on comparative YouGov data from 2018 and 2024, it suggests a shift: not just in attendance, but in openness to faith, scripture and spiritual conversation.

Yet as someone on the ground, leading a beautifully average church in a fairly normal place, I find myself asking a deeper question: What now? If I’m honest, the language of revival produces a strange cocktail of reactions in a church leader’s heart - yes, excitement and longing, but also traces of scepticism, comparison and even a fear of missing out.

So what should we actually do with this moment? Here are my ten suggestions

1. Pray first

Behind every revival — quiet or otherwise — is prayer. Not as an afterthought, but the starting gun. As Steve Seamands put it when reflecting on the Asbury outpouring: “Most revivals begin not with noise, but with a burden - a holy ache in the hearts of God’s people that something more is possible.”

Maybe it’s the post-Covid ache of a disorientated church, or the holy lament stirred by moral failures and spiritual drift. Sure, we can’t trace every cause and effect in prayer, but revival always begins with those willing to ask, seek, and knock. So let’s pray for soft hearts, bold preaching, deep repentance, spiritual hunger. 

2. Open the doors

Spiritual openness is rising, but many still find walking into church deeply intimidating. I spoke with a young woman who had explored faith privately for months - reading, watching, even praying - but it still took enormous courage to attend a service, even with a family member.

That should challenge us. Are our churches welcoming in name only? What does our signage, social media or pre-service vibe say? Do we convey: “This is for you too”, or: “You’re interrupting our thing”? Perhaps our welcome areas lean more towards an overbearing runway of clipboard-wielding greeters.

Revival isn’t about services and stats, it’s about transformation

The church needs to feel less like a fortress and more like a front porch - visible, warm, real - a window into life with God. This means sensitively and hospitably embodying the welcome of Jesus. If God is drawing people to himself, let’s make sure we’re not making it harder than it needs to be to “taste and see” that the Lord is good.

3. Lay out the feast

The Bible Society report revealed something striking: young people are more open to the Bible than we might think, but also less confident in understanding it. The hunger is there, but the clarity isn’t. Perhaps the Church has become nervous of what people might make of the Bible. Perhaps even committed Christians lack Bible confidence.

Glen Scrivener makes a fascinating point when he points to the popularity of Jordan Peterson’s teaching on Old Testament narratives. Does our preaching treat the Bible as a text for super-spiritual Christians, rather than showing how scripture speaks into the human condition? The Bible carries deep resonance, but maybe we settle for snacks that skim the surface, rather than offering a feast.

When young believers encounter scripture not as a rulebook or a set of pick and mix soundbites, but as revelation, they grow. And as they grow, they start to speak. To share. To offer a better story to their friends - one filled with grace, depth and hope.

4. Raise the flag

The trouble with decades of marginalisation is that the Church can become comfortable with operating on the backfoot. But as historian Tom Holland has noted, from dignity and justice to compassion and mercy, the Christian worldview has shaped the foundations of our world. So let’s show up in the public square — or our school gates, offices and social media feeds — with a little more spring in our step.

After all, our culture is creaking under the exhausting pressure of self-definition, the weight of constant performance, and the loneliness of life without transcendence. People are burning out on a story that tells them they must be enough, know enough and fix themselves.

Let’s kindly, humbly, and courageously point to another way. Let’s show the world that Jesus still makes sense - and that following him isn’t fringe. It’s foundation.

5. Don’t miss the kids

We’ve heard a lot about Gen Z in the quiet revival — but what about the next generation coming up behind them?

In Hans Christian Anderson’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, it wasn’t the experts or elites who named reality. It was the child. Anecdotally, I sense a similar pattern now. The illusion of atheism is starting to crack. But it’s children asking the biggest questions, dragging parents to church and showing a quiet boldness that’s catching the grown-ups off guard.

So let’s invest deeply in children’s and youth ministry, not as babysitting or a warm-up act, but as frontline disciple-making with Generation Alpha. Let’s teach kids to pray, read scripture, and expect God to speak. Because if God is stirring something in this moment, the youngest might just be leading the way.

6. Tend the embers

A spiritual spark might get someone through the door, but only discipleship will keep them walking with Jesus. Revival isn’t about services and stats, it’s about transformation; people formed into the likeness of Christ.

That means churches must commit to rhythms over reactions. We don’t just need events, we need ongoing practices of prayer, teaching, friendship, hospitality and service. People are arriving with questions, wounds and little church background. Let’s not assume they’ll find their way. Let’s walk with them.

It’s not platforms or influencers that make the difference. It’s showing up, asking good questions, offering prayer

And let’s not mistake low-key for low-impact. A small group consistently praying and reading the Bible together may not look like a revival, but it might be the embers of one.

7. Don’t flatten the faith

It seems people are connecting with the gospel’s power in its strangeness, not its polish. A crucified king. Bread and wine as signs of grace. A Spirit who convicts, comforts and saves. These aren’t awkward add-ons to be explained away. In a world craving wonder, are we guilty of flattening our faith?

Liberalism classically makes the ‘weird stuff’ more palatable, but maybe evangelical Christians have also fallen into this trap. Are we practical rationalists, explaining everything away with no space for sensing the mystery of it all? Or perhaps we’re so professional - keeping everything slick, tidy and done in 75 minutes - because that’s what we think visitors expect?

Surely it’s no surprise that some of the traditions seeing the most growth - Roman Catholicism and Pentecostalism — offer mystery, rootedness and encounter. Have we so championed café church, forest church, and mountain church, that we’ve not clocked the enduring draw of something older and deeper: prayer, worship, preaching, confession, repentance. Journalist Dan Hitchens, writing in The Spectator, has called it “full-fat Christianity.”

8. Be their chaplain

The Bible Society suggest that “interpersonal relationships” are a key to invest in: “The Church can be bolder in equipping their congregations to identify and respond to opportunities to extend invitations to and start conversations with non-Christians friends, confident not in knowing the ‘correct’ answer to every possible question but in the strength of the relationship.”

Author Sam Chan suggests Christians think of themselves as “unofficial chaplains” to their friends - the one person they might turn to when life unravels. This is an everyday witness of presence.

In an age of spiritual openness and relational mistrust, it’s not platforms or influencers that make the difference. It’s showing up, asking good questions, offering prayer. Be a friend: be ready, kind and unashamed.

9. Listen well

Every new Christian brings a story - a testimony of how the Spirit is at work in unexpected ways. It’s not just data that should shape us, but lived experience. Are we making space to listen?

It’s children asking the biggest questions, dragging parents to church and showing a quiet boldness

Because stories unlock the imagination. When someone shares how Jesus found them — through a crisis, a conversation, a podcast, or a child’s question — it sparks something in others. New possibilities are imagined for the person who had written Christianity off, or written themselves off.

Writers like Lamorna Ash are documenting this spiritual search among the young. Others are finding it in their own congregations. So let’s invite people to share what God has done.

10. Keep planting seeds

Lastly, if God is doing something fresh/different/new/distinct then of course let’s celebrate that. But let’s also remember that our calling as the people of God isn’t seasonal. It doesn’t depend on the cultural climate or the latest statistics.

After all, even the most optimistic data from the Bible Society report is still paired with resistance. While 31 per cent of non-churchgoers say they’d attend church if invited by a friend, that means 69 per cent still wouldn’t. Over half say the Bible feels irrelevant to them.

So our task remains: sow the gospel, water it in prayer and trust God to give the growth. Whether revival roars or barely whispers, we keep planting the seed.

Bible Society wisely avoid bold predictions about the coming years. They don’t know whether this moment will fade or flourish, and neither do we. But that’s not our concern. From Barrow-in-Furness to Baghdad, from Pyongyang to Peckham, our task is faithfully following Jesus.

Trends come and go, but Christ is risen. If anything is stirring, it’s not because we strategised well, it’s because Jesus is building his Church. So, let’s fix our eyes on him. The true fruit of any work of God isn’t headlines or packed pews, it’s a Church that looks more like Jesus.