Across the UK, more and more young people are investigating Christianity - not through the invitation of a friend or a church outreach programme, but a contactless curiosity seemingly stirred by God alone. Dave Kemp shares his story and asks: is this the beginning of something?
In the middle of October last year, a teenage girl went home and told her mum she wanted to find out more about Jesus. This girl’s family had no church background, so they asked for advice from someone they knew to be a Christian. This person pointed them in the direction of our church; they went on the website and got in touch.
This girl, who had no experience of church, ended up coming to our Tuesday night small group and brought a friend. The next week, the friend brought her sister. All three girls are now regularly attendees.
Contactless curiosity
I recently shared this story at a youth leaders meeting, and discovered I’m not the only person to have observed what could be an intriguing new trend.
In the past ten years, young people would only end up in our church because of some kind of relational link or invitation. Perhaps a Christian friend or family member had invited them, or they’d connected with a church outreach programme. We’d never known one, let alone three, young people connect with our church without an invitation. To my surprise, of the six groups represented on our table at this youth leaders meeting, three reported seeing the same thing in recent months - also not having seen it before.
The love of God is unconditional, but a move of God is not
We were from different denominations across Wales and England, yet were seeing the same sort of encounter which, for the sake of brevity on our sheet of paper, we dubbed ‘contactless curiosity’.
God and Gen Z
I’ve done enough statistical analysis to know that three anecdotal stories does not equal a definitive trend. But I also don’t think our experiences should be ignored. God is stirring the hearts of the young people of this nation. Covid-19 revealed a lot of institutions to be less solid than they seemed, and I have seen one key question growing in the younger generations over the last few years: “Is anything permanent?”
This question is, inevitably, leading a good number to explore faith. To wonder about the bigger questions. Young people have never been ignorant of, or uninterested in, these things. In fact, they have the most curious minds of any group I’ve pastored. But there is now a hunger and an urgency in our teenagers that I have not seen before.
The question is: How do we respond to it?
Praying for more
The best thing about these moments of ‘contactless curiosity’ is that, by their very nature, there is absolutely nothing we can do to create them! Strategies, plans or programs are useless here. We can only pray.
I am not the first to say this, but I believe the lack of prayer in the UK Church is the single biggest reason for the struggles we are facing. If we can get prayer back in its proper place, there is a move of God just waiting to be unleashed. To quote Josh Green: “the love of God is unconditional, but a move of God is not”.
As 2 Chronicles 7:14 says: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Planning for growth
As we pray and see this ‘contactless curiosity’ grow, we can prepare ourselves to receive these new believers. Websites need to be clear and concise, welcome teams need to be prepped and we need to structure our current groups to be ready for growth. We need to have a mindset of multiplication.
There is a hunger and an urgency in our teenagers that I have not seen before
For us, that has looked like the way we structure and use our small groups. These are the lifeblood of our ministry, and the place where we focus most of our time and resources. We are aiming to have three leaders for each group so that, when the groups need to multiply, we can recruit one new team member and, alongside the most experienced current leader, send them off. The two remaining leaders are already used to leading with one another and can continue seamlessly. We then recruit a third leader for each group, ready to start the process all over again.
Having been aiming at this for two years now, we still haven’t got there in every group. But that’s not the point. The point is the mindset. Are we pushing towards something that allows us to grow? Because if we pray, I believe we are set to receive a truly astonishing influx of young people curious about a God whom they have barely heard about.
No comments yet