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A) The way people are finding Jesus is changing. Discipleship needs to as well

B) Your friends want to go to church this Christmas--you just need to ask them !!

A) The way people are finding Jesus is changing. Discipleship needs to as well

Emma Fowle is deputy editor of Premier Christianity and editor of Voice of Hope, Premier's quarterly devotional magazine.

Gen Z are finding Jesus, but are they finding a Church ready to help them grow in faith? Emma Fowle explores the clash of culture no one is talking about

Ten or twenty years ago, most people became Christians through invitation. A friend asked a neighbour to a carol service. A church posted leaflets through doors, inviting locals to an event or Alpha course.

The hard part in the 90’s and noughties was getting non-Christians through the door – but once there, if they heard the gospel and responded, they were already part of a community.

Before podcasts, music streaming and YouTube, the worship songs you heard, the teaching you listened to and the opinions that formed you were likely to be those of the Christians you knew in actual real life. If you wanted to learn more about God and grow in your Christian faith, going to church was where it happened. In many ways, churches made disciples in their own image.

Fast forward to 2025, and things have changed drastically.

Up and down the country, stories are emerging of young Gen Zers buying Bibles online and encountering Jesus alone in their bedrooms.

In my own ordinary part of the UK, I’ve witnessed this first hand, which means it really is happening everywhere. The 28-year-old builder who “felt funny” when visiting a church on holiday and subsequently ordered a Bible, slowing becoming convinced of its truth. The young girl who confided in her brother that she’d found faith – only to hear he’d become a Christian two years earlier and not told anyone.

The teenage boy who started popping into his village church when he felt stressed during Covid, sitting quietly in the empty building and finding God on his own. The CrossFit crew who were drawn to faith as they read the Bible and debated it among themselves, despite never having met a Christian or attended church. The teen who walked past a Christian bookshop and, one day, felt compelled to go in and ask for a Bible as she struggled with her mental health.

These miraculous stories are undoubtedly good news – but they also bring challenges that many churches have never faced before.

An un-discipled generation

Gen Z are a spiritually curious generation, free from the baggage that turned many of their Gen X parents away from church. But they also lack even a basic knowledge of Christian teaching. They might encounter Jesus in their bedrooms, but what happens next?

When today’s young convert is looking for Christian content, the last place many turn is a local church. Dubbed the “anxious generation”, many find crowds an uncomfortable – and alien - environment. Plus, they can listen to world class preachers, Christian artists and podcasters in the comfort of their own home. In a prescient article back in 2019, author Skye Jethani warned that online content would become a serious threat to the flourishing of Sunday morning gatherings geared around the 40-minute sermon. Six years later, his words still deserve serious consideration.

If Gen Z are finding Jesus but not church, this presents a profound discipleship challenge. Bible Society’s Quiet Revival report showed that younger Christians read their Bible far more than older Christians. Yet, as Jean Kabasomi reflected for this magazine: “far less reported is the difficulty younger Christians face in understanding and interpreting the Bible.”

The research showed that the more young people study and explore the Bible, the more they lose confidence in it – often due to “culture and the media”.

Gen Z are a blank slate spiritually, but they have been fully formed by the culture that surrounds them. They meet Jesus in the Gospels, but when it comes to wrestling with the harder parts of scripture – many of which conflict with the values they hold dear, particularly around sexual ethics, gender or the sanctity of life – things get trickier.

If they are not involved in a local church, who is there to walk with them through these issues? To help nurture their faith when things get difficult and separate the salvation issues from those we all wrestle with? To help them understand scripture in context, and to not run for the hills when what they read first clashes with what they’ve been brought up to believe?

Walking the hard path

If they do seek out a church, confronting these issues head-on can be difficult. Once upon a time, a preacher could assume that the majority of their congregation would be aligned on most issues. Today, this is far from true. The gap between the pews and the public is greater than ever.

In its recent Global Voices survey, the Lausanne Movement spoke to 1,030 mission leaders from 119 countries. Their aim was to understand “what leaders are seeing, sensing, and hoping for…at a moment when the Church faces a complex and rapidly changing world.”

Part of that change is the way in which people are now coming to faith – and how that affects their onward discipleship journey. When asked who has the most trust and impact in sharing the gospel, pastors and church leaders took third place in Europe, behind the “everyday Christians” that people knew and Christian creatives – the artists, storytellers and filmmakers that many seek out online.

In this context, leaders need to read the times more closely than perhaps ever before. More discernment is needed to decide which issues are preached from the pulpit - and how new believers hear the things that many of us take for granted as the established, Christian point of view. Gen Z are far less likely than older generations to simply ‘accept’ what they are told by those in positions of authority, however hard that may be for some church leaders to swallow.

This doesn’t mean compromising on the truth of God’s word, but it may mean changing how we communicate in order to reach – and keep - a generation who are both hungry for Jesus and yet have little knowledge of his ways. If we don’t, the seed of their faith may get choked or snatched away before it can take root (see Luke 8).

In world where we can get teaching anywhere, what the Church needs to offer Gen Z is genuine community. A place where we can come together as family and experience God. Where we can be real, bringing our difficult questions and deepest fears. Where we can disagree, debate and slowly grow, becoming like Christ in every aspect (see Ephesians 4: 13-16).

Then we will see this quiet revival put down strong roots that yield a crop “100 times more than was sown”.

Grateful thanks to Premier and Emma Fowle for giving permission for the article to be used on this site.

Premier consists of Premier Christian Media Trust registered as a charity (no. 287610) and as a company limited by guarantee (no. 01743091) with two fully-owned trading subsidiaries: Premier Christian Communications Ltd (no. 02816074) and Christian Communication Partnership Ltd (no. 03422292). All three companies are registered in England & Wales with a registered office address of Unit 6 April Court, Sybron Way, Crowborough, TN6 3DZ.

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B) Your friends want to go to church this Christmas--you just need to ask them !!

Andy Frost is co-CEO of Gather Movement, director of Share Jesus International and chair of London Mission Collective. Part of the Kitchen Table Project, he is an evangelist and an author. His latest book, Long Story Short, is published by SPCK.

Christmas churchgoing is on the rise, according to Tearfund, with nearly half of UK adults planning to attend church over the festive season. Andy Frost says it’s time for Christians to let go of their hang-ups - people are just waiting for an invitation.

I’ve had my fair share of knock-backs over the years as I’ve tried to share my faith with my football team, colleagues, friends and neighbours.

In the 2000s, against the backdrop of New Atheism, mentioning the mere fact that I went to church was usually met with an incredulous: “You go to church? Really?!” So, the idea of inviting a friend to come with me often felt beyond absurd.

Christianity was frequently portrayed as outdated, judgmental or simply irrelevant. Why would anyone want to be invited to be a part of something like that? But lately, things have changed.

“Can I come to church with you at some point?” asked my buddy at football recently. “Am I allowed to come with you to church on Sunday?” a friend asked my daughter. “My mum might want to come too,” she added.

Gone are the days of blank faces or awkward refusals; research now suggests that people are not just more open to being invited to church –they’re waiting to be asked.

"Only God can change someone’s life. Our job is just to share what we have experienced."

For more than 25 years, I’ve had the privilege of working closely with local churches across the UK as they look to share the Christian faith. We’ve always known that, more than billboards and promotional campaigns, the most effective way of helping people explore the claims of Jesus is a personal invitation from a friend.

But many of us have grown up with those around us being disinterested in church – even openly mocking our faith. We subconsciously carry that baggage with us, saying people’s ‘no’ for them because, every other time, ‘no’ was the response we got.

New hope

But recent research from Tearfund gives us some very helpful - and hopeful statistics. This Christmas, 45 per cent of Brits plan to attend church. That’s almost half the population – or practically every other person.

Building on Bible Society’s Quiet Revival report, it’s clear that our context has changed. So rather than keeping our heads down and always being on the back foot, we need to raise our heads and step into what God is doing.

We need to unlearn what we have learned from previous decades and join with God in this new missional moment. We need to rediscover the power of the invitation - and trust that the same invitation we may have made ten or 20 years ago lands differently today.

But unlearning isn’t easy. Here are five things I have discovered along the way…

1. Be prayerful

I recently helped one church congregation to think through who they would like to invite to their carol service. Each person made a shortlist and prayed for those individuals, that their hearts may be open and that there would be an opportunity to make the invitation.

Who might you stop and pray for right now? As we pray, we believe God will work in the lives of those we pray for - but he also does something in our hearts, too. One lady made a list of five people, prayed and then invited them. All of them attended!

That doesn’t always happen - and we need to remember that we faithfully pray and invite, the rest is up to God.

2. Be relational

We can sometimes think we need to have a fully scripted marketing pitch to persuade someone to come to church, but I find it helpful to remember that’s not how I would invite someone to a birthday party or to see a movie; an invitation is not a sales pitch.

You can say something as simple as: “I’m going to a Christmas church service that I really enjoy on Sunday, would you like to come with me?” Think of it as an offer of a shared experience.

3. Be honest

Whenever I make an invitation, there can be questions like: “Can my missus come?” or: “How long is the service?”

People are more open to joining us when they know what to expect. So, make sure you’ve done your homework and have all the details. If it’s a traditional carol service or a family-friendly nativity complete with children dressed as angels, let them know. Whenever I invite a friend to church, I always meet them beforehand so we can walk in together and I also make sure to introduce them to people and involve them in conversation.

4. Be attentive

Whenever I bring someone new to church, I offer to explain anything that doesn’t make sense, being attentive to the questions they have. For example, why we only sing certain carol verses on Christmas Day, what we mean by ‘advent’ or why the church does so many community projects.

"We need to unlearn what we have learnt from previous decades and join with God in this new missional moment"

Interestingly, one of the key research findings reveals that two in five UK adults (42 per cent) say they, or someone they know, have accessed food support from a church at Christmas, which is pretty staggering! Perhaps one reason for the growing interest in church is recognition of the good they do.  

I recently spoke at an event celebrating a church’s social action projects and had the opportunity to share why Christians do what we do –that, ultimately, we have discovered the generosity and welcome of God and want to share that with others. A couple of people began to grasp the ‘why’ that evening and began a Christian journey.

5. Be ready

Attending a church carol service might not change someone’s life in a moment, but it may be the start of their journey. I always find it good to ask someone how they found the church service or event. And we mustn’t get too defensive if there are aspects they didn’t like!

People may not automatically agree with every Christian belief. They are likely to have questions - and sometimes that stops us from making the invite in the first place. What if they ask me about how the virgin birth works, or where was God in the killing of the innocents?

But it’s vital to remember that only God can change someone’s life. Our job is just to share what we have experienced and know of God. We haven’t got to answer all their questions, just be willing to journey with them.

Our context has changed. The mocking of Christianity has softened. Curiosity has grown. And the Church’s role in addressing real social need is being noticed. So, this Christmas, don’t underestimate the power of a simple, warm invitation. It may be more welcome than you think.

Grateful thanks to Premier and Andy Frost for giving permission for the article to be used on this site.

publications this month