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KEN CHITWOOD

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“The person who knows only one religion, knows none”
— Max Müller

Image via Christianity Today.

Young Evangelicals Are on "Fire" for Europe

June 12, 2025

Doing her best Billy Graham impersonation—hand raised, mouth open as if in mid-proclamation of the gospel—a 20-something woman posed at an Instagram-ready podium tucked away in a side vestibule at the European Congress on Evangelism. Her friend snapped photos that made it look as if she were addressing the massive crowd at one of Graham’s historic meetings.

But Ophélie Prisca-Diane, who is currently serving with Youth With A Mission in Paris, told Christianity Today she doesn’t think evangelism is just a thing of the past. In fact, she sees it as a thing of the future. She expects Christians her age to do big, big things.

“There is a fire among us,” Prisca-Diane said. “Our generation is very open to the gospel, more than generations before.”

She wasn’t the only one at the gathering of evangelical leaders with great expectations for Gen Z, the group of people currently between the ages of 13 and 28. Amid talk of secularization and potential persecution, Christian leaders repeatedly expressed confidence that young people would usher in the re-Christianization of the continent.

There is some data that suggests a generational renewal of Christian faith has already begun.  A recent report from the Bible Society indicates that young people, particularly men, are attending church in increasing numbers in England and Wales. And a 2023 survey from Ipsos showed growing interest in prayer and church attendance among people born after 1997 in Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Hungary.

But while there may be a relative uptick of religious interest, that doesn’t really change the overall picture of demographic decline. About one in ten young people in Europe attend church on a weekly basis—a stark contrast to older generations. There has been asteady, if not strictly linear, decline in religious practice for decades.

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In Church Ministry, Missiology, Religion, Religion and Culture Tags Evangelicals, Evangelicals in Europe, European evangelicals, Revival in Europe?, young evangelicals, Evangelical missions, European missions, European missionaries, Evangelism, Christianity Today, Billy Graham, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Berlin, Berlin religion
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PHOTO by Nathan Mullet/Unsplash/Creative Commons, courtesy RNS.

Young evangelicals listen to their pastors. Do pastors listen to them?

January 16, 2023

“When students come back at semester breaks, that’s when the conversations really pick up,” said Jon-Michael Phillips, 35, a youth pastor at a nondenominational church in Jackson, Michigan, a city of about 31,000 between Ann Arbor and Lansing, the state’s two big college towns.

As students from the University of Michigan and Michigan State return home for the holidays, Phillips is less concerned about college football rivalries than about the political discussions he is bound to have. “Every year, students want to talk to me about things they are struggling with,” he said, “and one of the topics a few are sure to bring up is politics.” 

Phillips said students often share that when it comes to LGBT issues, the environment or the Republican Party, they increasingly feel at odds with the politics they often heard from the pulpit as they grew up or what was shared at home. 

As they become more politically aware and active, Phillips said, they start to question how their evangelical Christian parents and pastors have presented these issues and others. 

“The nice thing is they still want to talk and want to know what I think,” Phillips said. “The question is what I can do with these conversations.” 

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In Religion and Culture, Religion, Religion News Tags evangelicals, young evangelicals, politics, voting, Springtide Research, Kevin Singer, Ken Chitwood, Religion News Service, RNS, Daniel Bennett, Terry Shoemaker, Chelsea Doering
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