Is there a quiet revival among Gen Z youngsters in Europe? Listen to Andreas Nordli in the CNE podcast

Something has been changing. Young people are coming to faith in numbers that Andreas Nordli, leader of Youth with a Mission in Norway, has not seen before in his thirty years in youth work.

This surprising movement first caught Nordli’s attention during the Covid-19 pandemic. “I have seen more young people coming to the Lord Jesus over the last two or three years than in the 27 years previous years combined”, Nordli says in the CNE podcast.

Many churches see newcomers from a young age (between 15 and 30, known as Generation Z). They visit Bible study groups but are not used to regular Sunday services.

Remarkable is that those young adults are not coming to church as a result of evangelistic work. “They are coming to the Lord on their own,” Nordli tells podcast host Evert van Vlastuin.

Many of those young Christians had lost the memory of the Christian worldview and were brought up with the idea that there is no objective truth. “For people under 25, secularisation is dead.”

Andreas finds it remarkable that this young generation is much more eager to read the Bible. “Gen Z really wants to know what is truth and why they should believe,” says Nordli. He thinks this is why he sees the number of Bible school students in Norway “booming.”

Julia Boehme

CNE’s Evert van Vlastuin spoke to two new believers. First, Julia Boehme from Sweden came to faith during the Covid pandemic. Earlier, she had decided that “God is evil” and started practising the occult for a few years and became a witch. But the pagan reality always left her empty.

During a trip to Stonehenge in England, she visited some churches, attended services, and experienced God’s presence there.

In the interview, she explains how she ended up in the Orthodox church.

Volodymyr Fomin

Another new convert is Volodymyr Fomin from Ukraine. He also came to know Christ during the pandemic, when he was active in New Age ideology and struggled with depression. He did not have a religious background. At the moment, he is in a Christian student mission in Kyiv.

How should churches deal with all those newcomers? Nordli advises listening to those young people first. “They need mature Christians to live their life with them. Gen Z likes to hang out with their parents’s generation.”

This Quiet Revival does not occur all over Europe to the same extent. Andreas Nordli shares what parts of Europe are most blessed in the podcast. And also America, where we saw remarkable things at the university in Asbury in 2023.