← The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 778 | Tapping the Brakes on The Talk of Revival: David Kinnaman Nuances What's Happening with Christianity in America + Digital Discipleship
01:31:06
Loading summary
Transcript213 lines
- [00:01]
A
The Art of Leadership Network. We're not quite ready to declare America in revival. Is that true?
- [00:07]
B
That is absolutely correct.
- [00:08]
A
How come? Why not?
- [00:10]
B
Well, listen, it's a big, It's a big country for one. One of the central themes is that most people are Christian, they have a Christian background. But that level of Christian identity has declined over 25 years from 83% to 71%.
- [00:30]
A
Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership PodC podcast. It's Carrie here. I'm so glad you joined us. Whether you're watching, wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening, and to all of you who are brand new, really glad that you joined us. We know we got a lot of next gen leaders. Actually that's the majority of our audience. So really glad that you're with us. We're going to be talking about. You going to be talking about the church. And I'm excited because we're doing a deep dive into our 2026 church trends. I release every year Church Trends for the year, things I'm watching with a lot of research behind them. And today I am sitting down with the one and only David Kinnaman. He is the CEO of Barna, the research group that so many of you know. He is an author, he is a speaker, he's a friend, he's a top leader and one of the minds and the hearts that I cherish most in the church these days. And I got questions, I call David and we get a long friendship and we're bringing that to you today on the podcast. So we're going to dive right into my conversation with David Kinnaman, the CEO of the Barna Group. Well, it's so good to be in studio with David Kinnaman. David, welcome back to the podcast.
- [01:37]
B
Thanks, Gary. Great to be here.
- [01:38]
A
It's our annual Church Trends Month. We are diving into the data, trying to make sense of what we're seeing. You and I were just before we started recording, going over some data that was just in from Barna even before I wrote the Church Trends Report. And it's sort of what we were talking about even a year ago, that Gen Z is in revival and retreat at the same time.
- [02:00]
B
Right.
- [02:01]
A
We're not quite ready to declare America in revival. Is that true?
- [02:05]
B
That is absolutely correct.
- [02:06]
A
How come? Why not?
- [02:08]
B
Well, listen, it's a big, it's a big country for one and people have a lot of different perspectives. I think there are so many different ways to have a narrative about the data about American religion. And one of the central themes is that Most people are Christian. They have a Christian background. But that level of Christian identity has declined over 25 years from 83% to 71%. So we are seeing a slow and steady erosion over many decades of Christian identity. Christian commitment. Overall, churchgoing has been sort of on decline over 20, 25 years, and we've been tracking for a lot longer than that. But yeah, so I think what we're seeing is that it's still very much a Christianized society, but not very Christ following. And yet what has been popping up over those last 12, 24 months is a renewed spiritual openness, especially to Jesus and especially among young people, and also notably among men. So it's interesting how we can have. And research is a great tool for this. We can have a lot of different narratives that can all be true at the same time.
- [03:20]
A
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the key. It's like, it's really easy to create a headline that's kind of mono dimensional, just like revival's here. Right. Which is great. I mean, maybe you're adding another service or maybe you are baptizing hundreds of students or young adults. That's incredible. And there's about 340 million people to reach in America, so the work isn't quite done yet. However, you know, we're gonna walk through some of the church trends and I'd love your editorial comment. You know, Gen Z really is. I didn't expect you and I have been doing this a long time and been partnering together on projects for a long time. I didn't ever imagine that young adult attendance would outpace their parents and grandparents attendance at church. And that's what, like, legit we're seeing. Right. Do you want to talk a little bit about what you're noticing in Gen Z?
- [04:11]
B
Yeah. So I mean, the first question you asked was really about this notion of caution. And it's important to sort of start on a note of caution. But it's also like, headline really good news, what's happening across our society and especially among young people. And so Gen Z are attending at one point time, 1.9 times per month. And this is among Gen Z churchgoers, not among all Gen Zers, but just among churchgoers.
- [04:39]
A
Your Gen Z, who goes to church, you're showing up almost twice a month.
- [04:41]
B
Almost twice a month. And among millennials, it's 1.8, which is a real reversal because 25 years ago, of course, Gen Zers weren't even on the scene, but 25 years ago, boomers and elders were attending more than two times a month. 2.1, 2.3. And they've been on a steady decline over 25 years. It's a surprising decline.
- [05:03]
A
Boomers, like, boomers are kind of exiting. We tracked that in previous church trends, but boomers never really came back after Covid. And they're not all 80 in wheelchairs. Like, some of these are very capable retired people in their 60s and 70s, and they're just kind of, like, done my time.
- [05:21]
B
They're retiring from their jobs, and they're retiring from the church.
- [05:25]
A
Yeah. That's, like, puzzling, because you would expect parents and grandparents trying to drag their kids to church. If anything, we're seeing a reversal.
- [05:33]
B
That's right. Yeah.
- [05:34]
A
Young adults saying, hey, Granddad.
- [05:36]
B
Yeah. So I think Gen Z and Millennials are taking the church more seriously than any of us would have predicted even five years ago, and certainly 25 years ago, or, you know, like, I wrote a book called you'd Lost Me and was focusing on a lot of this disinclination towards faith. And so I think there's been just like, wow, what has happened? Why are we seeing some of this renewal? And it's very important for us just to celebrate. These are the days we have been praying for. Yeah.
- [06:03]
A
And it's like you hinted at earlier, it's not like there is still diffused spirituality where it's like, I'm spiritual, but I'm not Christian. But I think that's what's so surprising in the last couple years is that, no, it's Jesus. And, yes, it involves church attendance that we're seeing that surge in church attendance among young adults. So 1.9 times a month. As a former pastor myself, I'm like, oh, why aren't they there four Sundays a month? Well, nobody's there four Sundays a month anymore. I mean, maybe Gladys is. Thank God for Gladys. She's amazing. Right. But most people, like, twice a month is regular church attendance. That's a trend that we've been tracking, and it's the most of any age group. Another thing that we've seen in the Barna data, which is interesting and disturbing, is young men are surging back to church. That's great. Like, we're seeing an outpouring of young men. And I mean, I've seen that in our church at home north of Toronto. I've been here in Nashville for a month. I've seen it at the churches in Nashville. There are young adults who are really engaging in it, but we also see women who are disengaging, like, Their church attendance is dropping, their Bible reading is down. And I really want to drill into.
- [07:21]
B
That a little bit.
- [07:22]
A
I know there's a lot more data needed on that. But let's talk about the gender difference that we're seeing in younger millennials and Gen Z.
- [07:30]
B
Sure. Well, let's try to break down the data first and then get into some of the why. And some of that will be more.
- [07:35]
A
Yeah, so what does the data say?
- [07:36]
B
Yeah, so the speculation on why will be more of that. But, but let's talk about what we do know. We do know that overall, men are more likely now than women to attend church. And this has been about a five year pattern. But especially in 2025, men far outpaced women's reported church attendance in America generally. Not just among young people, but among, among all Americans.
- [07:58]
A
All Americans. So this goes across the spectrum.
- [08:00]
B
Correct. So men generally are more likely to report churches and instead of women, which even if they are. Ed Stetzer has this a great little line that there's a technical social research term we have for people who over report some of their religious attendants. We call it lying.
- [08:20]
A
Yeah, I was in church.
- [08:21]
B
I was. But it's actually called the halo effect. The actual technical term is called the halo effect. People want to look more religious than they do.
- [08:27]
A
I eat clean.
- [08:28]
B
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
- [08:29]
A
What'd you have for lunch? A burger. Clean burger. Clean burger. But yeah, people tend to over optimize their self reporting.
- [08:37]
B
They do, they do.
- [08:38]
A
I go to church regularly, I eat clean, I eat healthy, I get eight hours of sleep. Let's audit that.
- [08:43]
B
Right, right. Yeah. So there is certainly in social research a halo effect. That always happens and it certainly affects religious reported behavior and intention. But even that, first of all, they are likely to report or over report or under report in the same manner. So as you're a classically trained social researcher, you would say if we're asking the same question, using the same methodology, and even if there is some degree of variance in a person's perception of reality, and again, I think, I think there's a reason to believe that people are being as honest as they can be. But so, so the fact that men are actually telling us that they're more likely to attend church, and that's been happening the last five years, tells us something about the mentality of men. Even if you know and you're saying you're seeing men in your local church, we're seeing this across a lot of different places. So men are more likely to attend church. They're more likely to report to any church. And that tells us something about the, the perceived importance of faith. There is a sense in which it's okay and popular again to talk about faith, Christianity, Jesus, the Bible, the church. And we're especially seeing that among young people, which leads me to my second point, that it's young people and young men who are much more likely than young women to attend church. Young women are also more likely to tell us, and this among young teenagers who are women. This is among young adults who are women. They're more likely than young men to tell us that they're religiously uninclined, that they're, they have no faith. Which is another. Like 20 years ago, it was men who were leading the charge of the nuns, the N O N E Ss. So something has really shifted in American spirituality and it seems to be consistent with other places across the west that there is something about the plausibility of Christianity that has been appealing to men. There is some real question, and that's about church, that's about Jesus, that's about the Bible, it's about the importance of religious faith. So across the board, all of these indicators are starting to blink from red to yellow, from yellow to green among men, and they're going from green to yellow and sometimes to red among women.
- [10:47]
A
Yeah, because I seem to remember it was also not just, yeah, we're checking out on the church for women, but it was like Bible reading is down and their profession of faith is down.
- [10:59]
B
Correct.
- [10:59]
A
Like identification across the board.
- [11:01]
B
Volunteerism. Volunteerism dropped in half over 25 years among women. They don't want to be your church's free labor. Wow. So, you know, the backbone of church volunteers has been women for decades. But the last 10 years we've seen a steady and now precipitous decline in women who want to volunteer for church.
- [11:23]
A
So I'm going to jump at the why, why, why, why, why? Because that's what's going off in my brain right now. But what other, before we go there, statistics, what other stats, if any, are you noticing on the gender divide between men and women in the church?
- [11:37]
B
Well, one thing that was super interesting, we just released this just a bit ago towards the Last half of 2025 on the Bible, of course, a big celebration of the Bible. A billion downloads of the you version.
- [11:47]
A
That was cool. We were at that event. It was unbelievable, amazing.
- [11:50]
B
And lots to celebrate. And we're seeing that in social interest reading importance of the Bible. And what's fascinating is some of these same trends are consistent Again, it's so interesting as we're looking at data and you actually want to see these variety of data points both over time and over different sampling and in different kinds of ways of measuring it. So we're actually seeing that Bible reading, like boomer women read the Bible more than boomer men. And that's been.
- [12:22]
A
That's still true.
- [12:23]
B
That's been true for as long as we've measured it. But all of that is starting to shift where now boomer men and women are just barely different. And it's among Gen Z men are much more likely to report reading the Bible than Gen Z women. And. And so. And same was true of millennials. And so this. And it's. We can literally see. It's like in the last decade, this, like, shift where men are open to the plausibility of the Bible, at least as they're reporting it to us. You know, and like, everything I just told you about this, like, perception of reality is partly the reality. And so I just think it's such a fascinating time to be. To be doing ministry because some of these, you know, sacrosanct ideas of, you know, how gender plays itself out in church attendance or importance of the Bible, like, there's some really interesting things that are happening, and I think we have to pay attention to that.
- [13:18]
A
Yeah, the dials are all moving because historically, and I mean, I'm grossly generalizing here, but it's been nuns arising, people who identify as Christians going down, church attendance is going down, average size of churches going down. And for the first time that I can remember since I stuck my head out and started paying attention to data 15 years ago or so, we're seeing a lot of surprises, like the gender's moving in other directions, younger people leading the charge, et cetera. And we've seen the same with you mentioned Bible reading. But I was talking to Bobby Gruenwald, and in November YouVersion, November 2025, YouVersion had its, I think, top three downloaded days. And it's like, why? And he's like, no particular reason. There was no push. There was no campaign. There was no holiday. It was just like a big spike in people going, today I'm gonna pick up my Bible. So this is showing up on not just your research, but so many dashboards, right?
- [14:20]
B
Bible, Bible study downloads, people showing up.
- [14:23]
A
At church, the number of pastors who in 2025 I heard from that said we're doing record baptisms, never baptized this many people and this many young people. So now it's time to speculate And I think you guys in 2026 at Barna are going to do some research on this, so I can't wait for that conversation. But like, why are men. I think the first draft of Church Trends was like rushing back to church and I send it to you and you're like, ooh, rushing might be an exaggeration. It's like coming back to church. Right. So Gen Z male attendance is surging. Why do you think men, I mean, from what you can tell, both with your finger up in the wind, but also looking at the data, why do you think this is a particular moment for young men?
- [15:10]
B
I think there's such a lack of understanding who we are, where we're heading, what it means to be human, much less what it means to be a man or to be a woman or to be young or to be old. And I think, you know, I've been talking about this, writing about this for a while, the digital experience of what I call a digital Babylon. All of these five or six companies dictate so much of what we think it means to be human.
- [15:37]
A
So true.
- [15:38]
B
They dictate the, you know, the majority of American economic growth and value. You know, we're talking about Apple, Facebook, you know. Yeah, right. And so.
- [15:50]
A
OpenAI anthropic.
- [15:52]
B
Exactly. And so that's a. We're living in a, in a, in a tech utopia and dystopia both, you know, like, like revival and retreat. We're living in a utopian world where we can communicate magically across great distances. And, you know, the digital world transforms reality in some fashion, kind of augmented and virtual reality. And then it also is a dystopian world. So, so that's a. I don't want to go too far down a rabbit hole, say that. I think there has been a kind of generational reckoning about what it means to be human. One of the best sellers of late 2025 was notes on Being a Man from Scott Galloway, Notes on Being a Man. New York Times number one bestseller. I believe it was number one. I know it was the best seller right when it launched. And that idea like Notes on being a man. So I think people are coming to church. Men, young men. Again, this is in the research, social research doesn't tell us why, but it does, does give us some indications. And we are going to do quite a bit more research on this. But I think people are coming because they're, they're looking for what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to have a kind of foundation upon which you would build a life. Now, it's also true that it seems to be a conflation of a lot of political forces as well. So women are becoming a little more progressive politically across our society, and especially young women. Men are becoming more conservative politically, especially young men. And so the church works a little bit better. The churches we swim in work a little bit better for young men than.
- [17:28]
A
They do for young women. Yeah, I think I was reading some Ryan Burge recently, and he was showing just how big that spread is between the conservatism of young men and the moderatism or liberalism of young women. Like, it's quite a. Quite a gap.
- [17:42]
B
It is a huge story and there are some real open and important questions. And here we are, two men talk about it. So we have to be cautious about leaning too far into trying to provide a narrative or mansplain women's experience to them about the church. But so there's this widening gap, and I think there's an important set of questions. It's an open question, but let's just weigh in on it. Like, are people coming back to church in part because the political environment or there's a. A political undertone to what's happening? And I think the answer is yes. What's the extent? We don't know. One interesting thing that a friend of mine, Mark Matlock, said recently was people came to Jesus, including his disciples, for political reasons. And it took them three years. And even still, they were like, waiting for Jesus to be a political messiah, not just a spiritual savior. And so I think there's a good question. We actually have this in one of our future surveys. Stay tuned. If a person comes to Jesus for the wrong reasons, can God still use that? And, you know, we'll see what Americans have to say about that.
- [18:47]
A
Today's episode is brought to you by Aspen Group. So if you've been thinking about renovating, adding onto or opening a new church building, you're going to want to listen in. Aspen Group believes your church building is an essential tool for spiritual formation. And they are passionate about crafting spaces that engage community, drive discipleship, and build faith. What makes Aspen Group different is their experience with the unique challenges of church building projects. They bring together an integrated team of designers and builders who understand your church's culture, your vision, and your strategic needs. So your project actually advances your mission instead of slowing you down. If this sounds like the team you want to partner with for your church space, visit aspengroup.com carrie that's a s p e n G-R-O-U-P.com c a r e Y this episode is brought to you by Visitor Reach. Did you know that Bible reading in America is actually exploding again? 42% of adults now read scripture weekly. And young adults are showing the strongest surge in spiritual interest in over a decade. So let me ask you, is your church ready for the next American revival? People are searching, but they're also searching online. And that's where Visitor Reach comes in. Visitor Reach helps your church show up where people are looking online, on social media and on their phones. And with texting now the norm for communication, churches need new tools to connect. Built for pastors by pastors, Visitor Reach is an all in one platform designed to help churches connect with seekers even before they visit. Using personalized text replies, optional AI assistance, and tap technology, all to guide people to their next spiritual step. Churches using Visitor Reach connect with up to 20 to 120 new people every month. And they see new visitors walking through their doors every single week. So if you're curious, you can learn more and book your demo today@visitoreach.com. carrie, that's visitoreach.com C A R E Y. That's a great question right now. When you think about all the influencers online who are new Christians, right? It's really interesting. By the way, I want to put a pin in this. We have at least one episode, maybe two, coming up with women about women's exit from the church. So if you're like, great, two white dudes talking about women exiting the church. Stay tuned.
- [21:19]
B
Yeah, good.
- [21:20]
A
And I'm really looking forward to the survey that you're doing on that and the information you're gonna resolve part of it. Like, as we pulled our audience, we asked an email, what do you think? Yeah, it's like, bro, culture has kind of infiltrated the church. And that's a for better, for worse, right? I mean, there's a line, I don't know where it is with toxic masculinity, where I'm like, yeah, that's over the line. But like, I talked to one pastor I don't want to name, but he leads a very large church and he was saying they're reaching a lot of young men. He's like, you know, for decades we've told young men, Scott Galloway, for example, his message is, you don't count your, you know, incel. You're this, you're that, you're just, you don't matter.
- [22:03]
B
Right.
- [22:04]
A
And suddenly it's like, no, actually your life matters and you have a purpose in this life and God loves you. And you know, you're, you're, you, you know, this hesitant to use the phrase because it's so loaded Biblical manhood. But no, there is a definition of what it means to be a man in the Bible and you can over culturize that or you could have a theological understanding of no, God actually created you and he created you different and he created you for a reason and you want to step into that. So any thoughts on that, like bro culture or understanding of what it is to be a man? And that can again be positive and it can be over the top and drive other people away.
- [22:44]
B
Well, I think we're all looking for places to belong. And women find a lot more belonging, I think, in, in their natural networks, particularly moms, because they have, you know, again, just a lot of generalization. But there's a way in which they're dropping off kids. They're thinking about certain aspects of their, of their work or of their household dynamics. And it's, it's actually something we did a study for the MomCo about. It's called a motherhood today. And so like moms don't come to the church as, as much as they used to for content. They come for community. And even that there's down downward pressures because moms find ways to come together even in social environment, in digital environments and other social environments, men don't have as many of those places to go.
- [23:36]
A
It's true.
- [23:37]
B
And so I think the church offers a kind of community and belonging because they're not. Men are, are not quite as digitally oriented. They'll still use Facebook and things. But like you think about, you know, women are using Facebook, they're using Instagram, they're using these digital tools. They're staying connected, they're passing along, you know, best practices on how to mom or how to, you know, how to look your best, whatever. Men are just doing, using technology for different reasons. They're not huddling together in digital environments in the same way. So the church offers a place for real community and women and men need community. It is one of the essential parts of what it means to be the church today that we actually come together with people that are very different than us. We're not homogenized by the algorithms bringing us the kind of thing that we actually think we, we want, whereas the thing that we actually need. And I think the church has a place of bringing people together across these differences. And it's A, it's a critical spot. Like it is one of the, you know, the unique aspects of being the church is that we're, we're, we're no longer defined by all the ways that we are different or our identity politics or whatever, but we're defined as sons and daughters of God, as followers of Jesus.
- [24:47]
A
I wonder and I mean we can spend one minute on this or ten minutes on this. But you've seen or what I've seen. What I've seen is some churches really swing to the anti woke movement. Like there was sort of the Biden era and then almost overnight culture shifted hard right. Not everybody shifted hard right. Depends on the state, depends on the city, depends where you live. But there was like, I don't remember seeing a cultural shift this quick in my lifetime. Usually an era takes five to 10 years. It's like, oh yeah, a decade ago we were talking about this, but now we're not talking about that anymore. And almost in a matter of months, America went from, this is what we value. Look at the dismantling of DEI over the last two years, for example. You know, it was like, everyone's building this now we're all tearing it down. And as you see that with the conservatism of young men. And I have concerns when a church becomes more political and ideological than theological. I'll just go on the record of saying that. But I wonder if that accounts for at least a small percentage of the growth and attractiveness we're seeing in.
- [25:59]
B
Yeah, I think that's the question on the table, which I think politics has been probably a major or minor driver for many men to come back and to think about faith in a new and fresh way. And that's part of what I'm saying. We should do a good honest assessment of where our church fits. What's our point of view towards how we disciple people, A political theology.
- [26:22]
A
What are you being converted to?
- [26:24]
B
Correct. And again, I'm trying to say that I think there is a better and a good, better best way to do that. Not that each church should follow David's point of view on that, but like there is, there is a probably a bad way to do that. There's probably a good way to do it. There's probably a better way to do it. There's probably a best way to do that depending on the context and you know, how God is using your church in a particular space. But all the categories are being redefined and people need the church. This is one of the central themes I'd love For listeners to hear. It's been a major conclusion for me over the last three or four years. The church needs to be a learning community under the authority of scripture to be on mission with Jesus. And a learning community is different than just a preaching community or just a convening community or congregations are an essential part of being a learning community. But podcasts are important. Books are important lived experiences that orthopraxy. And a learning community is where we start to understand how do we live our faith out in politics, how do we live our faith out as moms or dads or as singles? How do we live our faith out in our work? And if we're being honest, 1.9 times a month is not sufficient to become a learning community. It's at least a good place to have a sampler or a charcuterie board of Christianity. But there's some real important ways that we need to lean in if people are. Think about this real interesting paradox, Carrie, that for years people say humans attention span is like a goldfish. You know, you're gonna, if you don't catch them, you're gonna lose them. And you know, like, even in some of the coaching you guys give to preaching, like how, how can you can be a great communicator on a stage. And you know, of course you want to, like, you want to engage people.
- [28:07]
A
Engage them in the first couple minutes.
- [28:08]
B
Exactly. And that's good and right to say. It's also true that and, and I'll, I will go on record and say that I think this notion. There's a, there was an old line that said it's, it's a sin to bore a child or a teenager with the gospel. And I get it, but that was like from a communicators workshop mindset where if you only, if you can just get the hook, if you can just get them engaged. But I actually think boredom is a good thing. Like, I'm not saying you should have a boring sermon just because that's like the strategy, but hang with me for just one second on this. Why is Joe Rogan doing podcasts that go on for 90 minutes or whatever, like long form conversations? Why in a society when everyone says shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter, is long form popping up because people have an appetite. When you suppress one part of a society, you see a blowback. I think that's actually part of what's happened politically. I think each, each successive political administration is like, kind of like they're counterbalancing not to like a plumb line of of, of, you know, of center. They're kind of like, well, we're not as left as that, we're not as right as that. So, you know, let's see where this very right moment takes the church. I think it's going to be important for us not to end on one side or the other of the political aisle because there will be a pendulum swing of some kind. So this notion then of the church as a learning community, to put that in our listeners head is preaching, is essential to doing that. Recommending good podcasts is essential to that. Recommending good books, helping people figure out how would you live this out? You don't go to piano lessons just to watch your piano instructor play the piano. You have to learn how to play the piano yourself. And so when I talk about the church as a learning community, I'm asking us to consider that people want to learn and need to learn to play their part in the great symphony of the faith of following Jesus. It's not a consumer sport. It is a participant activity. And so I think that is, you know, one of the ways for us to think about this moment. Men are looking for how would I live my faith out? Not just by hearing the expert talk about that, but by actually putting all this into practice. Women are coming to the church. You know, they tell us number six on the list of the reasons they come is preaching and teaching.
- [30:31]
A
Number six, what's number one?
- [30:32]
B
Experiencing God.
- [30:35]
A
Interesting. That plays into another trend. We'll talk about that.
- [30:38]
B
And number two is community. So they're not coming for content primarily. They're coming for community and experiencing God. And so we have a huge opportunity to become a learning community.
- [30:47]
A
Boy, there's a lot here. So on length of podcast, it's fascinating. We look at the analytics. We're almost 800 episodes in on this show. And what's fascinating to me, I do some solo episodes that are like anywhere from 25 to 35 minutes. And then we do some one hour interviews. We do some two hour interviews. I think the longest two and a half or three hours. You know what's fascinating? The engagement score is almost the same for all of the episodes. In other words, if it's an hour and a half, people listen just as long as they do when it's a half hour. So there's this paradox where people are listening to Rogan or Sean Ryan, who will sometimes heard guests on his show. It's like it's an all day. You just sit down for six hours and talk to him and three hours, four hours, get broadcast, that kind of thing. So it's this paradoxical thing where your reel had better be interesting because most people only watch the first five seconds of a reel and then they're onto something else. But they will listen to a four.
- [31:45]
B
Hour podcast and both can be true.
- [31:47]
A
And both are true at the same time. That's where we started. Right. So when you think about as a church. Yeah. Your sermon content, and this is what I wrote about in one of the other trends, that's not the main reason why people are there. Because even if you don't stream, they can find great messages from anybody, anywhere, for free. They can find all kinds of Christian content on the Internet, on social, free of charge. So I think you have to move to an in room experience the encounter and experience of God more than that. But so many churches are not being innovative right now. And that's why one of the trends is evangelism is going direct. People are going to, not just podcasters like me, but like people are going straight to YouTube. People are going straight to reels and preaching the gospel at their followers on the street, et cetera. And most pastors, they're not doing that. We all did it for 10 minutes during COVID during lockdown. All right, I'm going to pray for you. Went direct to camera. But mostly the clips are just of Sunday's message. And then, hey, Sunday, 9, 11. Don't miss it. We'll see you there. Right. I think we can be a lot more innovative. Adam Mesa. I don't know whether you know Adam from Patriot Church in LA in Rancho Cucamongo, if I got that right. Adam's a young next gen pastor. I think he's like 34. He does three podcasts. There's the church podcast of a sermon, but then he does one where he's just talking about issues of the day. He does one with his wife and those are great opportunities to introduce people to the gospel. Now, he's not specifically saying this is a church podcast, but the number of people who end up at Patriot Church because they listen to one of his podcasts, it's quite interesting. So I think we could get a lot more innovative in that field next year.
- [33:31]
B
100% agree. And that would be a great example of the church as a learning community where we're using these different tools. I mean, I think, listen, we live in the west, the culture of the west, where the long shadow of the cross of Christianity is undeniable. And so we don't even understand how much our sense of what it means to learn, to be active. Healthcare, education, social services, all have come really from a Christian, a Christian idea, even public education that everyone has a right to learn is a fundamentally Christian concept in its expression in the US and so what I think your story tells us is that people are looking for the church to be more than just a place on Sunday. They're looking for a kind of environment in which to be formed. And I think there's a lot of really fun experiments to be run in that manner. I saw a friend, Gar Jones, at Vintage Church. I happened to get an email from them. Some of my friends attend there and they had, they, they called Alpha the program, the evangelism program 101. And then they had rooted as 201 and they had a third program. I can't remember what it was called 301. And I actually love that notion of helping people. To almost imagine a kind of curricular approach to helping to teach the, teach the faith. So Alpha, Alpha's 101 rooted is 201. Here's your 301. It might have been like a mental health or whatever, I can't remember. But that notion of like, so, so think about it like one last metaphor on this is preaching is sort of like your daily bread. So everyone needs daily bread. And when you preach, Jesus walks among us and, and we are, we are proclaiming Christ and Christ crucified the resurrect. We are resurrection people and that is our daily bread. And so preaching has never been more important. It will always be important because it's our daily bread. At the same time, nobody is going to be especially fit if all you do is just eat. You have to also work out. You have to have a regimen, you have to have a schedule, you have to have reps. So no one would get a college degree or learn to play the piano by just simply absorbing a daily nutrient. You have to actually exercise. And so it's a both ends. So I'm asking church leaders, I'm begging you. Based on so much of our work over the last years, when you look at young people, teenagers, they are ready to learn, they are ready to grow. If your youth ministry is just simply like giving them daily bread, you're not giving them the regimen to practice their faith. Friend John Dixon, an Australian, talks about the early church would have been mistaken today if someone went back in a time capsule and he said the early church would have looked more like a philosophical school because people learned hundreds of hours of a kind of rigorous approach to understanding the prophets and the Old Testament and life and teachings of Jesus even before they were baptized. John Dixon is a church historian, talks a lot about this. So what would it look like if your church looked more like a philosophical school than the way we might understand a congregational model of today? Like, you know, just a McChurch. You're not a franchise of the gospel. You are an essential embodiment of this living community that is a learning community of daily bread and of exercise, of practices, of a philosophy of life, a way of seeing the world that changes who you are. And this is the challenge for our spiritually open moment is we have to actually become those kinds of churches. Otherwise in 10 years time, Gen zers who are now open to Jesus will say, I tried that church out. I tried the thing out and it just, it was like 1.9 times a month is not enough to be formed in the way of Jesus. Even as good news as that is.
- [37:33]
A
Today'S episode is brought to you by Subsplash. When doing ministry feels harder or more complicated than it should, there's likely one culprit. Scattered systems. One software for giving, another for your app, different dashboards for your website, streaming groups, messages. It can all add up fast. And every extra tool adds friction for your team, right? Your volunteers and the very people you're trying to reach. Subsplash brings everything together. Your website, your mobile app, giving media, live streaming, church management, messaging, all working together on one platform designed for churches. That means less confusion, fewer tech headaches, and far more time for doing what actually matters. Making disciples, building community and leading your church with clarity. 2026 is the year to trade scattered software for a seamless solution. Simplify your church's tech stack, save time and start multiplying your kingdom impact. Don't wait. You can get started today. Just head to subsplash.com carrie today and save $500 when you sign up. That's subsplash.com car C A R E Y. You know what you're saying about the philosophical society, it really resonates and I don't have data, but in the gen Z man, and I tend to know, you know, I tend to hang out with the people who have some kind of social media platform, that kind of thing. But in that generation, I am seeing a deep hunger. I want to know more about Jesus. I want to know about the historical background to the prophets. I want to know more about the first century church. There is that curiosity and hunger rather than how do I just get more people in on Sunday morning?
- [39:19]
B
Right, Right. I'll give You a tiny preview of something that's just blowing my mind. It's literally just about a week old. So this, we might talk about this in another episode down the track, but just here's a little preview. We asked a question to give you two parts. The first thing is we asked the question, I am open to Jesus, but do not consider myself a Christian today. 48% of all Gen Zers say yes to that. 44% of millennials say yes to that. I'm open to Jesus, but do not consider myself a Christian today. Now, we talked about this a few minutes ago. Like, what's the why? I mean, the why is that Jesus is compelling in every society at all time, but especially now. People want to understand the story of Jesus. That is a mind blowing statistic. It's only about one in every ten boomers and elders who say that is true of them. There's a much more clear demarcation. If you're a Jesus follower, you're a Christian. But this generation is saying, you know, you've heard of like spiritual but not religious. This generation is raising the question, are you a Jesus follower but not Christian? Now, I'm not saying we should divorce being a follower of Jesus from the term Christian, but this generation is, you know, our friend Dan Kimball wrote the book, they love Jesus, but not the church. You can almost say it's like they love Jesus but not the label Christian. And so we have to grapple with that. There's not necessarily good news, but it represents a huge opportunity for us to understand and take people on this incredible journey with Jesus.
- [40:55]
A
Well, and there was an era where I feel like a lot of people would have said, no, I'm not open to Jesus because it was synonymous with the church.
- [41:02]
B
Correct.
- [41:02]
A
And I think, you know, a lot of people would say, is America post Christian? Yes, but we're almost getting to the post post Christian, which is a little bit pre Christian. Maybe grandpa didn't go to church and mom and dad didn't go to church. And so there's not the baggage associated with it that a whole generation that grew up in church perhaps had, which makes it interesting. I want to pivot a little bit. You were saying women primarily go to church for an experience of God. One of the things that I've really been thinking about a lot, I'm trying to get language around it. It's in the Church Trends Report, but I don't know if that language is quite there yet. But we're six years now on the other side of COVID where it was 30% of churches were online to 99.9% of churches are online. And some have dialed back. But the vast majority of churches have a meaningful Internet presence at this point, which raises now the question that this isn't an emergency thing. It hasn't been for years. It raises the question, what is the difference between what happens online and what happens in person? What happens in the room? What happens if you're watching from home and we've seen a lot of church attendants return? That's amazing. I'm a big fan of online because everyone you want to reach is online. Those 48% of Gen Z and 44% of millennials, guess what? They're all on the Internet, so you have a chance to reach them. But is there something different? And I'm increasingly thinking, and it's a tonal shift. I've described this. I've had conversations with pastors, and they're like, well, I need more clarity on this. I'm like, I think it's a tonal shift. It's like a sensitivity to what is happening in the room rather than just me preaching the message and getting the content out. What is going on in David's life? David's sitting in the front row today. What do I see? What do I notice? And to create space, if you see what Jenny Allen and JP Paul clued have talked about this on the show before. Going to college campuses and just seeing weeping and confessing of sins, there's something happening in the room. They're not just taking notes and going home. I think there needs to be more of that in person. And you can't manipulate that, but you can't evoke that. You can prepare for that. You can open yourself to that. Any thoughts on the difference between what happens in the room when someone shows up and what you might pick up online?
- [43:29]
B
Well, there's so many thoughts. My brain is going a lot of different directions. One, you know, the distinction between online and in person for younger generations is more porous. So they're experiencing things online that are very meaningful to them. And they're sometimes in rooms where they're distracted and they're not paying attention. So that, you know, like, there can be equal, equal amounts of transformation that happen either way. At the same time, you know, you're seeing a lot of the trends where young people are actually deleting apps. They're taking, you know, like, like a delete day and they all go to a park and they're like, deleting, deleting social media apps.
- [44:08]
A
And so I had coffee with like a 32 year old before coming here and he's like, look, my iPhone's black and white. He's like, this is so good for me. And I've deleted Instagram.
- [44:16]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So I think there is a real kind of counter trend. First of now again, don't get me wrong, like we are living in the world defined by social media, defined by these technology companies. It is, it is as I've described, Digital Babylon. And we are living in that now, even if you see little outposts of resistance. But the main idea is, I do think that one of those forms of resistance will be that more of an analog reality people want. And especially with AI taking jobs. I think there's a real need for us to develop a kind of.
- [44:47]
A
A.
- [44:47]
B
Theory of play and of re. Enchantment and of, of working with our hands and, and you know, enjoying each other's company and just the slower pace of life. Americans are defined by this, you know, enormity of, of the pace of life. A friend of mine was making. He was talking about his, he ran a pretzel company in the uk. He was American, but he went for four years in the uk. He's like, we realized we couldn't build the pretzel company as, as successfully in the UK as we did in the US because people don't like to stand and eat in the UK whereas in the US people can just scarf down a hot pretzel standing up on the move. We love that. Right? So I think there's going to be a lot more like sitting down, a lot more like, like crafts are back and you know, like game playing and some of the things like this generation is going to want to, you know, connect with the land, do the things that, you know, the parents and grandparents would have only, you know, imagine. Right. That kind of. I don't know if they're going to be like, you know, covered wagon trains or not. I doubt it. But I think there's this real sense of what an analog reality of slower pace. I'm actually advocating people and churches should have like letter writing Sundays and we get out a pen and a paper and we write a note like Paul did to his followers and said, I love the work of God in you. I'm encouraging second Timothy one. Yeah, I know your mother and your grandmother, lowest in units and the same faith that beat in them is beating in you and like renew your, your spiritual gifts. And you're not. Don't be anxious because God's not giving you Spirit of fear, but of power, love, and stuff that's all handwritten. And we have the gift of these letters for generations. And what if in this time, this analog time, a part of every month where it's, hey, we're going to write a letter to grandparents or someone you want to mentor or someone who's. Who's like, we did that as part of our analogy experience. We used our worship experiences in a less like, stand up and eat your pretzel. And like, we got to get to the next thing. And instead we're like, hey, let's slow things down and just think about what we're doing. And rubber stamps are passed around and construction paper and different things. Like, if you didn't bring a pen and pencil, here's some stationary. I think that would be the coolest thing in the world, is to bring letter writing back.
- [47:03]
A
That is a cool thing.
- [47:04]
B
My kids. My kids, I write them letters, you know, since their mom passed, I write them letters pretty consistently, send it to them, and they save them because they're sweet, handwritten notes from their dad. And sometimes they're just silly and goofy or a funny card, but it's actually been one of my spiritual practice or a practice. I. I think it of it as spiritual, but letter writing and bring. Bring letter writing.
- [47:24]
A
Really cool.
- [47:25]
B
Yeah. So I think there's ways for us to imagine the church as a kind of hub of this kind of activity, of real human activity, that spiritual emphasis of like, writing a letter to someone you're mentoring or someone that you admire because of their faith and you're encouraging them, or you're telling your testimony. You're telling when God showed up to, you know, Paul, like 2 Timothy 1, Paul, it's his last letter. He's writing it from prison. You can feel the weight. In fact, the last few verses has come quickly before winter of the. Of second Timothy, because it's getting cold here in the prison. Like, bring my jacket. And so you can feel the weight of the humanity from the first letters. Like, I think of you daily, Timothy. I'm praying for you. I come to tears thinking about our times together to, like, come quickly and bring. Bring some warm blankets. And so, like, we. We are living in a time where it is very dehumanizing, very disenchanting. And the church can be a place of re. Enchantment, of belonging, of human expression, of caring for people in places like death and dying and living and birth and everywhere in between. And so I think there's some real ways. So this is going to Be my Little campaign in 2026 and into 2027. Write a letter, make the choice, turn back.
- [48:43]
A
Writer, letter writing. You've mentioned it a few times already. Digital Babylon. So one of the Trends that. And J.D. greer helped me think through this on a podcast recently. But. But one of the consistent pieces of feedback I heard all year from pastors was. And Charlie Kirk really exposed it. It's like, no matter what I say, I can't win. The conservatives weren't conservative enough. The moderates said too much, said too little. People who leaned a little bit left, they weren't right enough. They weren't left enough, they weren't whatever. The people who did very little should have done more. The people who did more didn't, did too much. I didn't talk to a single church leader who said, I really serve my people well in a moment like that. Regardless of your perspective on Charlie Kirk. And the more I was thinking about that and that conversation with JD Greer and you and Mark Matlock talked about that a few years ago and it's been. Discipleship by algorithm has been happening for years. Right. We're probably two decades in for all intents and purposes into it, but I think it's coming home to roost. We got a foretaste of it during COVID like how on earth did that become partisan? But it did. It wasn't for about three weeks. And all of a sudden it was partisan. Right. And now we've got people the partisan sides are lining up on AI Charlie Kirk became deeply, as tragic as that was, deeply political, deeply divisive overnight. And pastors are now saying on almost any issue, and there will be issues this year that pop up. We don't know what they are. And they're like, okay, I should respond or not respond. Whatever they do is gonna be wrong. And I think underneath that is, you know, if the average screen time for Americans is seven hours a week now a day. A day. A day. 49 hours a week. Thank you. 49 hours a week. Which could be.
- [50:37]
B
I'm always here for a good fact check on you.
- [50:38]
A
Thank you. That's why you're here.
- [50:40]
B
That's why I'm here.
- [50:40]
A
I just have opinions, you have facts. That's our old banter. Right. But 48, you got 50 hours a week and somebody showing up for two hours a month at church. Guess who's going to win? The algorithm. And this is the thing that if back in the day and we both have a pre digital memory. If you subscribe to the New York Times, And I subscribe to the New York Times. We got the same paper. My Instagram is totally different than yours. Every app on my phone is different than yours. Your YouTube is different than my YouTube. Apparently I like music and cars. So that's what YouTube told me for my 2025 recap.
- [51:20]
B
That's funny.
- [51:21]
A
It's like you'll find the perfect song while you're washing your car. I'm like, oh, you know me well, right? But your, your YouTube, I mean, it could be. You've got. So you gather 100 people, you got a group that's been on ultra right wing conspiracy theories. Others are mega, other people are more moderate, other people are a little more left leaning. And if you have a diverse church, you've got all these algorithms. So when you're setting up to say anything, they're processing it through the filter of, oh, you weren't mega enough. You were too mega. I can't believe you. They've got their own filter. And I don't know how we escape that. Do you want to talk about that? Because that is the pain that church leaders are living with. And then we're supposed to do discipleship that counteracts that. But the discipleship by algorithm is just, it's winning.
- [52:10]
B
Well, I mean, you've, I think, very aptly described some of the challenges that we've been predicting for a while, which is when you just look at the sheer weight of the hours and the immersive environment in which these tools take us, and we haven't even seen anything yet with AI. Oh, I know we're going to get to that.
- [52:27]
A
And you know what? The thing is, you and me, Mark, have been saying it, but I think now we're all feeling it. That's what prophets do, right? Like you went out and said, hey, this is happening, this is happening. And now everyone's like, oh, this is unavoidable.
- [52:38]
B
Yeah, Screen's disciple. Yeah, I remember sort of being in a, not just as a researcher, but as a youth coach in, in Southern California. And for me, the first, it was about 20 something years ago where this young woman, I, I tell this, this what is kind of a joke, but it's a, it's a real, it's a real story. This young woman wanted to sell her eggs and what would the Bible have to say about that? And she had found a fertility clinic online and was going, oh, those eggs. Okay, that was me. I was like, I was like, I thought you lived in an apartment. I didn't realize you had backyard chickens.
- [53:10]
A
My mind went to chickens.
- [53:12]
B
Okay, so that was when that happened. One of my great friends, Eddie Ramos, he's like, what do we do? That one. It's like, well, at least she had the courage to ask us, because now you just ask AI now what the Bible have to say, right?
- [53:24]
A
Maybe it's right. Maybe it's right.
- [53:26]
B
And so that was my first moment. Like, oh, wow. This digital collision with what it means to grow up is going to change how young people. It's, you know, certainly access to pornography, certainly, like, there's a whole romantic recession. People aren't dating, they're not in relationships. People are getting married later. They're not. They're not as marriage oriented, they're not as childbearing oriented. And all that has sort of been mediated in some ways by. By algorithms disassociating human relationships. They're changing how we think about relating to one another. So it is, I think, a deeper hole. And AI is going to make it more complicated and probably mostly worse. But I think the gospel, this is part of my point about the church as a learning community. Like the church can actually have. It has, if you remember the story of Narnia, Aslan talks about magic and then deeper magic. And I think the gospel is the deeper magic. It is actually the way to think about the truest nature of reality, the truest way of being human, that we are created in the image of God to do good and also fundamentally broken, in deep need of our souls being redeemed in and through Christ's saving work on the cross and then to become resurrection people. But the same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in us in some sort of metaphysically real way. I was going to make the second point a minute ago, and I'll make it now about new piece of data that's coming out. And again, just, it's, it's. It's so not quite ready. But I'm going to do it because it's worthwhile. We're asking about people who believe in the historicity of the resurrection, people who live in the import. Believe in the importance culturally of the resurrection, and the people who believe that was personally relevant to them. Today we're calling them hip Christians, H I P. Historic, important and personal.
- [55:17]
A
There you go.
- [55:18]
B
Okay, it's just, It's a joke. But it is, it's important because of what I.
- [55:23]
A
Social research.
- [55:25]
B
Exactly. That's a nerd joke for sure. Which is even a whole different level than like a dad joke, you know?
- [55:32]
A
It is. It's up there Man.
- [55:33]
B
And being a dad, most of us.
- [55:34]
A
Most of us can only aspire to that kind of humor.
- [55:37]
B
And being a dad who is a social researcher is a, It's a double whammy. So the reason I'm, I'm telling you all this at an early place is that I think that it, what we find is that just believing that the, that the resurrection was historic doesn't change a person. Believing that it's important doesn't change a person. But believing that it's historic and important and personal is a big differentiator in a lot of outcomes. Like their people flourish more when those things across other dimensions of life. Just in spirituality.
- [56:07]
A
Oh, so it's kind of a. You're tracing it out now, correct? And saying, oh, your life is better if. Yeah, your life is different if.
- [56:14]
B
Right. And if it's just personal but not historic and important, like there's something about going back in the time and understand what Jesus was like. We have to actually train people to think about the resurrection and then the worldview that flows from that. And then because of that, we live differently in the world because we're, we're not just everyday human beings, we're resurrection people. We're living in a different fundamental reality. And you can see this, you know, certainly in the lives of martyrs or modern day. The people who are living lives, you know, they're tapping into a deeper reality or they call about, like, talk about a thin space or you know, and in the New Testament, you know, Paul says he was taken up to the third Heaven is like he's living in a, he's living in a spiritual. Is it John or Paul who talks about that? I think it's Paul, right? Paul.
- [57:01]
A
Yeah, Paul in second Corinthians.
- [57:03]
B
Yeah. And so like you see this kind of vibration, the upper room, we can be upper room Christians, we can be living. We can be resurrection minded Christians. So the hope of being formed differently than the algorithmic era is to lean into the supernatural power of the resurrection. It's not just believing about Jesus death on the cross, which saves us from our sins, but it's about his resurrection that gives us the power to live in a different way.
- [57:32]
A
I think one tangible thing church leaders can do about the whole discipleship by algorithm. Because I always send out the church trends report to a handful of friends, you included, like feedback. Is this resonating? What do you notice? And I like you to vouch for the research, that kind of thing. Make sure I'm not grossly misstating what.
- [57:52]
B
Barna has You always do a great job.
- [57:54]
A
Well, I enjoy it, man. And I'm so grateful because otherwise, you know, everybody watching this is sitting at their desk trying to get their work done. They don't have time to do research. And then we passed her by anecdotes. It's like, I think it's all revival. We don't have that tap the breaks, data, that kind of thing. But one thing you can do. One of the pastors I shared it with, he was like, oh, that's a series. I'm going to do a series on discipleship by algorithm. This is why you can't get along with anybody. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's exactly. And I think if we elevate that, maybe my team should put something out, like a series outline or something.
- [58:27]
B
I think that's great. Yeah, I like that.
- [58:28]
A
Yeah, it's like just certain surface. It. It's like, this is why you got along with your neighbor better 10 years ago than you do right now. But they got radicalized or polarized or something post Covid. And here's why. And if you understand why, then. And then, well, what do you do about that theologically? Right. Because we're a peculiar people. And you said, if the early church really functioned like a philosophical society, well, that's great fodder to say, here's how we're being discipled by these, and this is how we're discipled by Jesus, and it's different. And here's the ethic that unites us, the paper, the news network that sort of provides a common playbook for all of us. And guess what, it's love. Guess what, it's resurrection. Guess what, it's caring for your neighbor. It's about loving one another. That's what we do as the church, and that's different than all of our algorithms. Algorithms including mine.
- [59:25]
B
I didn't mean by my long answer before to even avoid your other question, which was, I think, really at the heart of, like, how would you have a political theology? How would you disciple in an era of algorithmic formation? And it goes back to one of the other themes, themes we've been talking about, which is a church as a learning community. So you can preach through most of that, and preaching is an essential part of it. It's just not the only toolkit. So you have to give people like. Like tools for everyday conversations. Here's ways to love your neighbor. Here's ways. Practical examples of this. Interviewing people on stage who have had, like, you know, maybe you bring some People who have been working at this kind of like marriage therapy. Between a political conservative and a political liberal, you know, you're, you're actually maybe like writing letters to someone you vehemently disagree with, but you're gonna say, here's like a three step, here's what you love, here's what you admire, and here's how Jesus loves them or whatever it is. And so you're creating this kind of counterculture that helps to provide that kind of modeling that, that takes the preaching and puts flesh and bones on it. Yeah.
- [60:29]
A
And I think, you know, just to, to reiterate what I said earlier with that, you know, I think we do, we are seeing sort of an anti woke moment in the church. And you know, I don't want to judge people who are in it, but I think if your theology becomes indistinguishable from an ideology or political ideology, it's got a shelf life. And it's probably not the gospel. The gospel is gonna offend conservatives, it's gonna offend liberals. It's not gonna seem exactly like whatever platform your particular party or idea of ideal politics is advancing right now. And I think we can get swept up. You know, Keller makes the argument really powerfully in a paper he wrote before he died. Now that's what happened to the mainline church. The mainline church basically swallowed progressive theology and just lost its distinctive Christian background. And he said the evangelical church is in a similar thing. The other thing that Ryan Burgess has written about, which I was going to ask you about earlier, something like I'm going to pull a number out of the air because I can do that and you can't. 17%. There's a meaningful percentage. 17%, 27%. Seven is sticking in my head of people who call themselves evangelicals don't use that term religiously. They use it politically. Have you seen that trend?
- [61:44]
B
I don't know the number, but. But certainly.
- [61:46]
A
Yeah, there's, yeah, you've seen that any.
- [61:48]
B
Of these, these terms by which, you know, media or leaders or like, you know, there are something like 300 denominations in the US which has dramatically increased even the last 30 years.
- [62:02]
A
The churches are declining, but denominations are surging.
- [62:04]
B
That's right.
- [62:05]
A
Interesting.
- [62:05]
B
And that because we, we are all enjoying being defined by the things that, what we're unique about instead of how we're similar. So like, by the way, I think this idea of being a resurrection minded Christian that defines all of us as Catholic and Protestant and evangelical and mainline and orthodox. We believe that a human being went to the grave and was raised again. And because of that, all of our lives are different. And if we can unite around that, that is a John 17 kind of prayer. I don't want to skip past too much the emotions that pastors are feeling now about leading people through this political environment. So we're talking a lot of, kind of conceptual language. But if you're a leader and you are, you know, you feel like you said too much, said too little, you don't know when to like what. I think you described that so well. Like, if you're right, no matter what you do, you are.
- [62:51]
A
You didn't do it right.
- [62:52]
B
You didn't do it right. So I just want to say, like, it is courage. You're doing good work. I just even feel like right now just want to pause and just say, like, if you're feeling discouraged about that, you're not. You're not alone.
- [63:06]
A
My argument is you're doing it right.
- [63:07]
B
If you've upset people. Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, we're just here to, like, we've been doing this through the political, you know, we've been podcasting a bit together during the, you know, Church Pulse weekly and other things and all the ups and downs of that whole season. And so, you know, like, I appreciate you so much and just, you know, your steady leadership as, as a voice to church leaders and you're such a, just a gospel centered man and appreciate you and Tony so much. And so just, I want to say to leaders who are listening, having talked to a lot of leaders, a lot of, a lot of pastors, even, even in my home hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, you know, if you're, if you're not sort of upsetting people at some level, you know, you might not be doing it right. And, but just like, I understand how much it hurts. My dad, who's a lifelong pastor, often says, David, I don't know how I could do it in this, you know, like, in this political.
- [64:00]
A
He's seen a change.
- [64:01]
B
Yeah, yeah. The political environment's changed how we do ministry so much, which, and I'm saying the only. There are many different ways, but one is to be resurrection by Christians. One is to be a learning community. One is to have a lot of patience and love. And maybe my last thought on that is, I heard recently someone told me that, and it's attributed to someone. I don't remember the attribution, but human beings only change through great love or great suffering. Great love, sacrificial love or great suffering. And, and so I think one of the ways for us to help change people in an era of algorithms is to just extend and show the great love of Jesus, to extend and show the great love that we have for people who are different than us, and also to talk about the things that we've suffered, because by doing that, we, we tear down all of the pretenses of the, the conspiracies and the right and the wrong and the left and the right, and instead just like, begin to journey together through what we have experienced as a person who has suffered. And so I think that might be helpful as we try to develop a political theology.
- [65:06]
A
And I know in different parts of the world, you could end up in prison or get beaten or lose your possessions. It's probably not happening in the west right now for the most part. But if part of your job is suffering right now, you're in good biblical company.
- [65:20]
B
That's right.
- [65:21]
A
And as much as I try to not be divisive and try to speak to as many aspects of the church as possible, because I really do love the church and I really love pastors, all I have to do is scroll down far enough in the comments and I'll find somebody who disagrees with what you and I are talking about today. And I think we're being very reasonable, but that is the moment we're in. It's just like, it's just going to be hard.
- [65:47]
B
Well, one of the things that Charlie Kirk's death did for me, we're doing a study on that, and we found that the vast majority of Americans knew of Charlie before his death, but didn't follow him very closely. Only about 15% of Americans said they followed him closely, but his younger generations, about two and five millennials and Gen Zers, said they followed him very closely. So he wasn't, you know, a mainstream celebrity, but among younger generations, 20 and, and younger conservatives, he was a really a Pied piper. And about 3 in 10Americans say they've taken some kind of action, mostly spiritual, since his death, as a result of his death. So they've gone back to church, bought Bible, done something. And so, you know, his death had a huge, huge impact on many people in a way. And I think I saw a couple friends talk about this, that it's also an important thing for us. Whatever you think about left, right, center, Charlie Kirk's work and his legacy, this notion, you can't completely wash your hands of a political theology. You have to actually embrace and read deeply and understand if your church isn't working for someone who is a, a Christian in politics, whether they are right or moderate or center or right, right, moderate or whether they're right, center or left. I should say that, that, you know, it has to be able to work and even in public office it has to be able to. We have to be able to fight for ideas and, and, and contend for the kinds of things that we think are going to make a better, more, more flourishing, more gospel centered society. And so those are, you know, I've been realizing like, ah, maybe, maybe my, as a neutral researcher, an independent researcher, I'm not more or less right or left now as a result of Charlie Kirk's passing, but I'm realizing that what he was trying to do is a kind of learning community by talking about ideas that matter to young people. And your church is, doesn't have to be at the center of all that, but it has to be a facilitation place where those kinds of things can be talked about. What about socialism? What about gender? What about, what about, you know, society? What about economics? What about flourishing? And so the church has to be a place where those ideas gain a hearing. And this is partly back to my other point, that if it's just done in the context of preaching, you're not going to be able to find your way through all that just by preaching about it. People want to be able to talk, they want to be able to listen, they want to be able to learn, they want to be able to debate, they want to be able to like, understand. And so you have to be able to take that temperature down and help to disciple people in a real and livable political theology that makes a difference in the way they live. So you can't just say, well, that's someone else's job. You got to dip your toe into the deep end sometimes.
- [68:37]
A
Yeah. One of the pastors that springs to mind when you talk about that, who I think is doing that really well or attempting to do it very well, is Rich Philotis, a mutual friend. And I remember talking to him in the run up to the last presidential election. They've got, I don't know, 70 nations or something like that attending their church and people on both sides of the spectrum, so to speak, politically. And it's a lot of dialogue. The dialogue on Sunday is preceded by so much dialogue off Sunday and learning to love each other and to sit in the same room and to say, we don't always agree. We may not even like each other culturally, but the gospel unites us and that's really hard work. So I'm going to shift gears a little bit. You know, there is that stat about, I think it peaked at 42% in 2022 of pastors were giving real consideration to leaving full time ministry, vocational ministry. I know you're doing new data on that. I don't know whether that number's out, but the other problem is we've lost a bunch of pastors but the average age keeps creeping up. We're well into, I think the average age is around 58 now of senior pastors. And when Barna was asking the question back in the 90s, it was something like 42 and only 6% of pastors were above the age of 65. Now I don't know what the stat would be, but there's a lot of 65 plus pastors.
- [70:06]
B
There are, yeah.
- [70:08]
A
So, and then, you know, you had data that just really alarmed me that the majority of church leaders over 40 don't have a favorable view of the next generation. They're like, there's a lot of issues here. So it really, you know, I've talked about the succession crisis for years in the church, but it doesn't seem to be getting a lot better. What are you noticing?
- [70:31]
B
No, I mean this is one of the under the hood issues and I'm so glad you're bringing it up. Pastors continue to get a little older and I mean human beings get older. So it sounds like, it sounds like a dad joke.
- [70:43]
A
I tend to get older, but the.
- [70:46]
B
Industry is aging and we've been seeing that for, we've been seeing that for a while. The clerical sacerdotal functions of being a pastor, a clergy person is getting older. And so I think there's a couple things under the hood. First one is a lot of people are going into other kinds of entrepreneurial careers. So instead of going into pastoring, we haven't really elevated the role of pastoring. I don't think we've done enough to show people bi vocational pastoring that you can make money in other forms, not you know, like tent making like Paul talks about. And, and so we need to give more viable economic and even to younger, like teenagers. We need to re establish ministry roles as a really valued role in society. Maybe this moment, maybe God is giving a kind of society wide renewal just to awaken those 10,000, 30,000 young people to vocational ministry in a new way. Maybe he's refreshing the pipe.
- [71:48]
A
That would be awesome.
- [71:49]
B
Right? So, and then by the way, that's another key moment. So maybe part of the thing we should do as we're preaching and teaching is if, if God's stirring you to do ministry, here's some, here's some off ramps and on ramps to do that. So as you're preaching, as you're teaching, you do want to sort of like talk about why leadership, why church leadership, why being, being a clergy person would make sense, why seminary education matters, why being trained to be in ministry, and why also God works through every everybody, right? So, but I think this is one of the real, real crises of the pipeline of the church. So one of the things we've been concluding that this, this is a huge issue. And Barna has been increasingly committed to making sure that the church does not run out of leaders and that we're actually giving, giving people a sense of where leadership would work. How would even in college ministry and youth ministry people be awakened to that work? And so could we give, you know, the path, the just concrete examples? I mean, you might even want to do like a series on like the future of church ministry and why that's so important.
- [72:52]
A
That's a really good idea. I think we need to. Because one of the other things I noted in the Church Trends Report this year is, and this was around the issue of women, but it's also around the issue of young adults as well. If you expand the lens a little bit, a lot of women, because they're sometimes not accepted in leadership, are having to go outside. You think about Beth Moore, incredible ministry, Lisa Terker and Voskamp. There was a generation of church leaders who didn't really fit in the church. And so they launched these massive ministries. Jenny Allen too. But you look at the 20 and 30 year olds coming up, it's, it's the same thing. They're writing books, they've got podcasts, they're speakers. And the church isn't really a good vessel for that. But that's also true of young entrepreneurs. If you look at the next generation, they're going direct to camera, they're going on the streets, they're building their own platforms. And I mean, part of that's awesome and part of that is like, who's thinking about pastoring churches? But I also caution. Cause I stepped out of the lead pastor role over 10 years ago now, which is crazy. I turned 50. Like, time to tap it out now. Here I am. I thought a lot more people would go in this decade, but here I am in my 60s going, Nope, we still have the same problem we had 10 years ago. But David, when you were young, you were with George Barna. He Gave you stupid amounts of responsibility as young, David? I was given stupid amounts of responsibility when I was in my 20s and 30s in world leadership. No, that's not what I meant. Leadership in the marketplace, but also leadership in the church. I was given a lot of responsibility. I don't know that our generation is as good at flipping those keys over as previous generations.
- [74:40]
B
I think that's true. And I think pastors are actually somewhat self aware about this. We did a study where we asked people, pastors about their concerns about leadership development and they have a lot of concerns about the next generation. Generation of leaders. There is data to prove that they have a lack of confidence in, in the next generation.
- [74:58]
A
So do you know why? What, what are they worried about? What are we worried about?
- [75:01]
B
You know, I, I don't know.
- [75:03]
A
Yeah, I don't have confidence.
- [75:05]
B
Yeah. And, and so we ask people like, for my church to be healthy, we need to have a lot of lay leaders. We need a lot of leadership development programs. Well, how is your church doing it? And it's like 1 in 20 churches say, I'm doing a good job at leadership development. So it's not even just succession planning, but leadership development, a pipeline of leaders.
- [75:22]
A
One in 20 are saying they're good at leadership development.
- [75:24]
B
Yes.
- [75:27]
A
Yeah, that's something. Okay, thanks for giving me another job this year. I'm going to have to drill down on that because I thought there was always volunteer recruitment, but it really goes into next gen leadership as well.
- [75:41]
B
And I do think that there is a set of questions around Millennial and Gen Z. You know, they are approaching work differently. They are, they're approaching the workplace differently, the work life balance. But, but there's some deeper questions around. What does leadership mean? How would we prepare someone? The kind of mentoring that's required, the kind of giving away stupid amounts of leadership responsibility that might make you as the senior leader, look badly. So I do think this is a, this is. It's kind of like heart disease. That silent killer. This is going to be the silent killer of the church.
- [76:17]
A
Did you ever get. When you were at Barna, how old were you when you started with George?
- [76:21]
B
21.
- [76:22]
A
21. Okay, so this is a great question. Can you think of a time just to get real practical? Because I mean, when I was 25, the year I worked for a law firm, it was a small firm, downtown Toronto, they gave me the job of a three or four year associate. It's like you're going to court. And I was in court almost every day. Nobody prepped me for Court. I had to figure out the game, like, on day one, it's like, how does this work? I mean, you take civil procedure, you learn it. You learn how to argue in a mock court, but, like, then you're in real court. You have an actual client, a real judge. You can be in big trouble if you lose the case. So guess what? I learned how to argue in court like you learned. What did George do for you? The partners threw me into that, and I'm like, what were you thinking?
- [77:08]
B
Well, I have way too many stories for that because I got thrown into the deep end, I feel, like, so regularly. But one of them was just the day one, actually running the phone interview center and all of the 30 high school and college students and just literally trying to keep up. And I realized I was overly detailed. I needed to let the room do the things and just, like, quarterback the room rather than try to micromanage the room. So that was like, day one.
- [77:34]
A
So day one, he threw you into.
- [77:36]
B
Like, just the data collection. I was running the phone center that was collecting pull all the phone interviews across.
- [77:41]
A
So if you got that wrong, the data was wrong. No, it was.
- [77:44]
B
It was. It was just I might have lost the job because you had to be able to, like, actually run a phone room. And, like, you know, I was just. It was basically just babysitting these.
- [77:53]
A
These. Right. So he wasn't putting you saying, go make me five phones photocopies of this.
- [77:56]
B
No, but it was like I was. There was. And there was no training. No, no training. No training. Classic. Classic early job. And then the. The other thing that reminds. That reminds of the first couple months of. Of working there full time. Because when I started in the phone room was just part time, but when I started full time, the first was that I. He was like, hey, you know, focus on the family radio is going to call and do a telephone interview. You know, here's your. Here's your press release. And it was just like. And I just remember thinking, wow, I'm going to be on the radio. And, you know, he. It was like I was 22 and seven days kind of deal, you know, and talking about the trends.
- [78:31]
A
So you're on the radio with Focus on the Family.
- [78:33]
B
He put me on the radio. Yeah. Which is a big deal. Yeah. Yeah.
- [78:35]
A
That's crazy. You know, and I love that. And I think you hinted at something, and I want to get to AI and maybe any other thoughts you have. But, like, I think we look at that and we have a particular way of doing church, and it's like, well, you know, this is a YouTuber with, with like 100,000 subscribers. I don't have a category for that.
- [78:54]
B
Correct, Right.
- [78:55]
A
But they started like you and I did me and court you with focus on family. Here you go. Just figure it out. Right? And guess what? They figured it out. They grew it to 100,000 subscribers or 10,000 or a million followers or whatever. And we only have categories of, well, you can park cars or run the soundboard or, you know, and even seminary. I mean, I'm not throwing seminaries under the bus, but the model is broken.
- [79:18]
B
Yeah.
- [79:18]
A
We got to figure out how do we educate people well when you can't just disappear for four or five years.
- [79:24]
B
Well, and part of the study, part of what I think could be hopeful vision for seminaries and seminary theological education is what I mentioned earlier, that it's like every Christian needs a kind of seminary education to live effectively in the world, to understand to have the house in which you live has to have four walls and a roof. And we're kind of like we're getting people converted, but we're kind of putting them in like in just like a paper bag. To go live their life, we need to help them construct a way of seeing and understanding the world that helps them against the battering winds of the world, of the algorithmic discipleship. And so the only way you can do that is to give them daily bread and then also to construct a home around them, a theological worldview, a theological framework. So I think, you know, it's sort of like it's an opportunity to bring a type of seminary theological education to every person, to really know what it is that the Christian claims to believe.
- [80:23]
A
Yeah, boy, we could go in a lot of directions with that. I think. I think that's good. I do want to touch on AI so I'm going to be, you know, I'm working on a new book on AI in the future Church. Been reading, doing a deep dive and I'm an optimist. But like the scenarios that I'm increasingly thinking are likely or inevitable are not all coming up roses. Could be some massive employment loss. I think if social media has been bad for our mental health, AI is going to be worse and it's going to make social media look like the kiddie pool. We already know about chatbots. You can create that you can have a sexual relationship with people. Talk about a three way marriage now where it's me, my wife and my AI. Is that cheating? I don't know. Porn has been an issue for Decades AI chatbots with whom you have a sexual relationship. Wow. Who know everything about you. And you know there's no regulation around it and unlikely to be. And you can criticize the government for that. But if the US doesn't win the race, China will. Then what does the world look like? Like the problems just stack. Right. And I think I'm thinking of it as a series of potential cascading crises.
- [81:39]
B
Yeah.
- [81:39]
A
I'm just wondering what you're tracking on AI, what you're seeing. I'm getting ahead of myself here in the questioning because I've been in a deep dive, man. A real deep dive. Maybe a rabbit hole of the Internet.
- [81:49]
B
All right, so listeners, we need, we need Kerry to come back out. He's got his, he's got his, his foil, his foil helmet on.
- [81:56]
A
That's right. You should see the basement in this place. Ready? Okay. Ready. No, I mean, I hope I'm wrong. I'm an optimist, but hey, God, God knows what's coming down the pipe, but I want to help get the church ready for what we might see in the next few years.
- [82:12]
B
Yeah. No, I tend to agree. I haven't done maybe the deep dive. You have. But from. How has the last 30 years of digital Babylon unfolded? The pace is quickening, the tools are magic. It is the kinds of things that are almost like you couldn't write this up as science fiction and people have written a lot of science fiction. Right. So a couple thoughts. One, thanks for writing the book and for leading the church in this way. It's an important one. We've been working with our friends and partners at Glue on some of the church and the AI social research and.
- [82:52]
A
We'Re trying to do know with our partners at glue AI for good. It's like OpenAI and anthropic. Don't have to have monopoly on AI that's created. And if you know, I agree with Mustafa Suleiman that the, the best critics are the creators.
- [83:06]
B
Yeah.
- [83:07]
A
And to that we need the next generation of coders and software developers and entrepreneurs to try to do tech for good. Right. We need that. We need the 19 year old coding in his basement to, to show up.
- [83:19]
B
Yeah.
- [83:19]
A
Even as coding is changing. So yeah, I'm, I'm with you on that.
- [83:22]
B
That. Yeah. So I think there'll be. I think we're probably pretty similarly in disposition. We're both optimistic, don't give into cynicism, but trying to be realistic about the threats and challenges. And so I would say there's a real opportunity and challenge to the church as an essential community. Because first of all, AI kinds of. It gives a much more blurry line between truth and distortion.
- [83:48]
A
Yeah.
- [83:50]
B
And it gives a. An even like if it was the gospel according to YouTube and discipleship screens disciple, then that will only be more the case. Discipleship according to the. The chat GPT, Jesus and you know, the. Both the things that are, you know, like, it's a powerful tool. It can give you great summaries of a lot of things that are true. It can also be a little off and like where your source, your source material, like what do you. What do you trust and all that. But I also think this notion of. I kind of alluded to earlier of the chat GPT and these tools being a kind of therapy, a kind of best friend. You talked about sort of even like romantic and. And you know, kind of a best friend partnership. People are just so alone. And these tools offer a kind of a narcissistic mirror of looking at ourselves of kind of creating a kind of relationship with exactly what we want out of it. And so I think we have a lot of challenges that come with that. I've been saying for a while that I think that we should have a theology of dystopian fiction. And even this would be an example of like youth ministry and other kinds of. More like a learning opportunity would be like, oh, let's look and watch at these different films and novels and what have they told us about the end times and how people think the world might end? I actually think this conversation around, you know, Jesus returning and the end times and dystopian like, why is this so compelling to younger generations? Oh, because we are living in a kind of world where it turns out that corruption and technology and global forces beyond our understanding or, you know, the Shakespearean tragedy of the very things you do to try to protect yourself, become the things that become your undoing, you know, And I think we just need a deeper theology of understanding, you know, God's ultimately in control.
- [85:37]
A
Control.
- [85:38]
B
The gospel gives us a better way to be human. We are resurrection people. We can be a learning community under the authority of scripture in light of Jesus resurrection and, and actually to go into this with like, like with real strength and energy to become what God is calling us in this era of AI. It's a. It's going to be a fun challenge, but. But I'm up for it.
- [85:58]
A
Yeah, I'm up for it too. And I think, you know, at the end, you know, if it's not good news, you have to, haven't got the gospel right. It all works out well, but that doesn't mean that there isn't some dislocation in the process. I remember, David, the first time I think you and I talked about a survey that Barna did. This might be in 2023. So six months into ChatGPT, what are you feeling about AI? Right. And it was like 68% had a negative view. Also, 68% had never used it. Right. So it was kind of an interesting data point. Have you seen church leader attitude shift at all toward artificial intelligence over the last few years? I know it's not a major tracking that you're doing, but you probably have better pulse on it than most people.
- [86:44]
B
Yeah. I think church leaders are open to using it for more and more than they were 12 months ago because the tools are becoming just even more accessible.
- [86:52]
A
And baked in everywhere.
- [86:53]
B
Yeah. And so I think there's been a, you know, 12 to 18 month kind of like, oh, okay, this isn't just all good or all bad, but it's, but it's, it's a real tool to do these specific tasks. So church leaders are becoming a little more aware of it. One of the interesting survey questions that we had asked about a year ago was whether people think that AI, God can use AI for good. And most older adults say they don't think so, but younger adults say they think it could. Wow. And, and you know, like I have a good friend whose son went to AI and ended up finding this really cool overseas missions trip to go on and become like, you know, like, so AI can, like really, it can do some vocational guidance and you know, it's going to give you the full range of options if you give it the right kind of prompt. So like this young man's, you know, journey is being, being affected by using AI. He and his dad talked about, you know, together what they were looking for. They were trying to search for a certain kind of thing. And I gave like, oh, why don't you try these three different options? And you end up going on kind of like a long term missions, educational adventure. And so AI can be used for good, technology can be a force for good in our lives. The church just has to be a place where we actually think about stewarding it.
- [88:12]
A
Any other trend that you're watching that we haven't talked about today, I always appreciate your perspective, David.
- [88:19]
B
Oh, thanks. Well, it's been so fun this year to have something like good news with these larger trends. You know, we kind of began our conversation here but you know, 66% of Americans say they've made a commitment to Jesus that's still important in their life. That's up from 54% just four years ago. So that's 30 million more Americans who say they're open to Jesus. They're committed to Jesus. As I said a minute ago, 48% of, of Gen Zers, that's 18 to 26, say that they are very open to Jesus but do not consider themselves to be a Christian. That is something we will be tracking because that means that Jesus is bubbling out of the usual like recycled Christians category.
- [89:02]
A
Hey, burned out on church, but I'm open again. Yeah, yeah, it's different than that.
- [89:05]
B
Yeah. So there's a, there's some real opportunities among young, among Catholics, self identified Catholics, there's been a huge increase in commitment to Jesus, even stronger than among, among Protestants. So it shows that it's not just an evangelical or kind of traditional Protestant experience that actually there's a real return to Jesus, you know, even among Catholics and especially among Catholics. So there's just good news breaking out all over. And let's keep praying that God will use that and that we would be good stewards of these next few years so that in five years, 10 years time, those who have been influenced by Jesus would not come back and say, I'm an ex Christian, I'm an ex Jesus follower. It didn't work out for me. I bought the T shirt, I'm out. Instead, let's do careful, thoughtful, relational work that gives people a chance to live into the hope of the resurrection.
- [89:55]
A
Well, you know, and I'd just say maybe a final word for church leaders watching, listening teams, watching and listening is this is an opportunity not for a retreat, but an advance. There are trends that we haven't seen or thought we would see in our lifetime that are happening. The data is mixed. You know, it's always a little less than you want on this side of heaven for sure. But like, you're doing incredible work. We're in your corner 100%. And David, I just appreciate our partnership so much. So if people want more, you can go to churchtrends.com there's state of the church.com you can go to 2026churchtrends.com and that'll lead you more into our research. So anything else you want to direct people toward?
- [90:42]
B
Well, we'd love to have you subscribe to our free email newsletter called the Barnett Update. And that's@barna.com so I'm on it. We give quite a bit away and we'd love to have people subscribe to our Barna access if they're interested. But we love serving alongside you. We are pursuing hard this vision. I like that with those words that advance, not retreat of preparing the church for this moment. You know, Jesus says to pray to the Lord of the harvest because the harvest is great, but the workers are few. And in Matthew, that particular section of Matthew's recounting of Jesus saying that there's two other times in two of the other gospels where Jesus is quoted as saying the harvest is white and the harvest is ready and pray for the harvest. But in Matthew gives the context where it says that Jesus saw the crowds and he had compassion on them because they were helpless. Harassment.
- [91:35]
A
Helpless harassment without a shepherd.
- [91:37]
B
That's right. And so don't grow weary because it is a, it is a hard time in the political environment, in the relational environment, even financially, you know, for a lot of leaders. And I think, I think, you know, I don't want to be prophetic about this, but I think there'll be some economic challenges and some other things that are, that are around the corner. And so we've just got to be sober about that and to recognize like these are the moments. Like we have been praying for a long time. We have taken a lot of hits by being honest about as a company, the negative downtrends on Christianity. Now we are taking hits for being overly optimistic or at least reporting the data that things are like, where are you getting those Bibles?
- [92:22]
A
You can't please everybody. Is that what you're saying, David? Oh, okay.
- [92:25]
B
So the critics, the critics come out whether you have good news or bad news, but you know, keep going. Like this is an important moment. These are the moments we've been praying. We've been praying for our kids and our grandkids, my three kids and, you know, their, their peers, my, my nephews and nieces. And just like God, just work in the hearts of this next generation. Call these leaders to yourself, speak to them, awaken them to your great purposes. There's something about this moment that is, is very special and what a privilege it is to be side by side next to you at this moment.
- [92:56]
A
Yeah. And I always feel the same way about you, David. Really grateful for your friendship, grateful for your leadership. Thank you.
- [93:03]
B
Of course.
- [93:03]
A
Well, I hope that conversation was helpful. I always learn every time I sit down with David and you probably want more. So the websites to look for are stateofthechurch.com and also my website, 2026 Church Trends gets you the full 5,000 word report. It's got all the data, all the links. It's got a leader guide for you and your team. You can find the show notes by clicking going to the Art of Leadership Academy. You can register for free there. We got webinars inside that and a whole lot more. Hey, next time we are going to dive deep into church trends round two. I've got Luke Lefever and Daniel McLeod. We're going to talk about Gen Z. They're Both Gen Z, 26, 28 years old. What is happening with young men, Gen Z women? How is evangelism going to the street? What are these creators and influencers actually doing? If you really want to get your pulse on the next generation, that's coming up. Also coming up on the podcast we have got Ruslan kd, I've got John, Mark Comer, Craig Groeschel, John Crist, Henry Cloud, Patrick Lencioni and a whole lot more coming up. So thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for listening. Give us a like or subscribe if you're following. And if you follow, if you're listening, you'll never miss an episode, including the next one. Thanks so much for listening, listening and tuning in. And I hope our time together today has helped you identify and break a growth barrier you're facing.