College Revivals and Leadership
As the attention of Christians around the world turns to the college revivals beginning to break out across America, we remember that young people have always led every major renewal in the history of the Church. From the beginning of the advance of the Kingdom of God, young people have taken the lead, starting with Jesus and his disciples—a young Man and even younger ones who decided to leave all and follow Him. Ever since then, the mission of the Church has depended primarily on the energies and sacrifices of young people with their idealism and élan and openness to change.
Today, the Church faces a grave crisis. The average age of ministers in the past 30 years has risen from 44 to 54, with only one minister out of seven below the age of 40. (https://www.barna.com/research/aging-americas-pastors/). Along with that aging ministerium we see a catastrophic increase in faith loss among young people in their 20s (https://research.lifeway.com/2019/01/15/most-teenagers-drop-out-of-church-as-young-adults/). It is reasonable to think that the disappearance of young ministers has had an effect on the increasing loss of faith among the young. We desperately need a revival among young leaders that will raise up and empower young Chrisitans, who will in turn reach their generation and the next one.
Fortunately, it becomes increasingly apparent that many young Christians long for revival and feel great excitement about the college revivals that seem to be springing up. While older Christians can do a great deal to encourage such revivals, make no mistake about it: Revivals must begin in our colleges and universities. Praying for college students, encouraging their pursuit of revival, and contributing financially to Christian universities and to campus ministries at state universities offers us our highest possible return on Kingdom investment in these times. Humanitarian giving offers immediate good feelings, and contributing to foreign missions offers real satisfaction, but investing in the future of the Church will result in the survival of the greatest humanitarian and missionary force the world has ever seen. The best thing we can do for the future of the world and its suffering people is to ensure the continuation of the Church—not just around the world, but here at home as well.
So why are colleges so important? As revival historian J. Edwin Orr chronicled so powerfully in Campus Aflame: A History of Evangelical Awakenings in Collegiate Communities, (https://a.co/d/iDYqYEV) colleges have proven throughout American history to offer the primary source of spiritual revival that spreads to older people and renews the Church. With the events occurring at Asbury and elsewhere, we see the hope that collegiate revivals will, once again, stir the churches to greater faith and work for God’s Kingdom.
Colleges have taken considerable abuse in recent years as supposed contributors to faith loss among the young, but the abandonment of religion in fact springs from a more widespread cultural trend that affects universities as well as other institutions. Research by Regnerus and Uecker at the University of Texas shows that young people who do not go to college at all are much more likely to abandon the Church than those who attend universities and colleges. “The assumption that the religious involvement of young people diminishes when they attend college is of course true: 64 percent of those currently enrolled in a traditional four-year institution have curbed their attendance habits. Yet, 76 percent of those who never enrolled in college report a decline in religious service attendance.” (http://religion.ssrc.org/reforum/Regnerus_Uecker.pdf). Other research shows that many college students report that their faith increased during their studies, especially at Christian colleges. Faith loss during the college years has more to do with age and culture than it does with college attendance, but we should also note that students at Christian colleges and universities retain their faith much more than students at secular institutions.
With due respect for the many fine young people who do not go to college these days, the reality remains that, on average, the most optimistic, hopeful, intelligent, talented, visionary, and healthy young people go to university after completing high school. If the Church wants leaders who fit that profile—whether clergy or lay leaders—it will need to find them among those youths who take up the challenge of preparing themselves for leadership through study at colleges and universities, whether on campus or online.
Please join us in praying intensely for university students—for their salvation, revival, empowerment, discipleship, and holiness. No Kingdom effort could possibly be more important.