Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / "Quiet Revival" Report Withdrawn. Why? What Now? || SLP642

Transcript

"Quiet Revival" Report Withdrawn. Why? What Now? || SLP642 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: UGOB have acknowledged they made a serious error, and as a result, the data's corrupted and can no longer be relied upon.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Bible Society is withdrawing the report.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now I regret getting as excited about this one report as I did.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps I should have had a more wait and see attitude.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps the Bible Society should have had a more wait and see attitude.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: But when Justin Briley and I put on a responding to the rebirth conference in November of last year, it was not a responding to the revival conference.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was a responding to the rebirth in God Conversations kind of conference.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: And our final word to the conference is I think where we need to land on this kind of stuff.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: I drew people's attention to Jesus walking on the water.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I put it like this.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is it high tide?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is it low tide?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is the tide returning?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Is it not?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: To be honest, you can take lots of different views on culturally what's happening, and there'll be lots of different experiences that you're having in your local church expression.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: But high tide or low tide, uh, Jesus comes walking on the water.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible Society have pulled their Quiet Revival report in response to UGov admitting that their data is not reliable.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is huge.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: The Quiet Revival Report was huge, the reaction to it was huge, them having to pull it is also huge.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's disappointing and embarrassing.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what the CEO of the Bible Society, Paul Williams, had to say.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, I'm Paul Williams, Chief Executive Bible Society, and I've got some disappointing news about the Quiet Revival Report.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: UGOV have acknowledged they made a serious error, and as a result, the data's corrupted and can no longer be relied upon.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Bible Society is withdrawing the report.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: This doesn't mean that the findings are wrong, it means that we can't reliably know one way or the other what the actual situation on the ground is.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Ugov have accepted full responsibility for this mistake, but it is incredibly disappointing and frustrating.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very much from the outside looking in, but it does sound to me like the Bible Society was constantly asking Ugov, can we really trust these stats?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Can we really trust these stats?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is surprising that Ugov kept on saying, trust us, trust us, trust us, and it turns out that their data was not reliable.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now we don't know how unreliable it is, and we're going to wait for uh some more robust studies to be done, but it's disappointing and it's embarrassing to row back on the excitement around the quiet revival.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: We were excited here at Speak Life.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: We made a video that began like this.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is huge.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Last year, the spectator said its number one most read article was by Justin Briley that a revival of Christianity is underway in Britain.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Many people dismissed that because, well, Justin Briley has a book to sell.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: His book is called The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, which spoke of key figures in the meaning crisis coming out on the side of Christianity, but it was very light on statistical data to support it.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Last year, Justin was asked about the statistical backing.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And are there any stats if we're going to have a kind of reason?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: This is the thing.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: And the only stats I quote in the book are the ones that are contrary to my thesis.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, we're there are actually we know well that the decline in church going, the decline in religiosity, the rise of the so-called nuns, people who don't claim any religious affiliation.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's all out there.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: We can all see the statistics about church going in the West.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: And what I present in the book, at least, is essentially just a sense that actually that might not be the full story.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: That actually there's there's a sense in which there's a turning of the tide.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now that doesn't mean that we're seeing a a wave coming back at us, but I feel like something has changed, and we might just be at the furthest end of that secularism before it comes back in.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Justin was sensing a change at the level of intellectual discourse about Christianity, and many of us on the ground have been sensing a change.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: There are more people showing up in church with not much of an idea why they are there.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: We have felt a vibe shift, but where is the data to back it up?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: The data is now in.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible Society's report was released today.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's called the Quiet Revival.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: You can understand the excitement.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: We have been looking at the meaning crisis that is gripping the West and the ways in which people are trickling back to church.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is not a flood by any means, but there has seemed to be a trickle of people showing up in churches looking for something meaningful in the midst of the meaning crisis.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Justin Briley had noticed that his surprising rebirth of belief in God was very much about the surprising rebirth of a God conversation that was happening when we were meant to be at low tide spiritually.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: He was very aware, as he wrote the book and as he did the podcast series, that his rebirth language was not about revival.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Rebirth of God conversations is a different thing to actual bums in pews.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: What got us all excited about the quiet revival data is that it seemed to be talking about increases in church attendance, but it was increases in self-reported church attendance, and it seems like UGov did not guard against bogus respondents in the way that they should have.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: So the Bible Society was understandably excited about the numbers.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: The numbers seemed to be robust coming from UGov.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Turns out that's not the case.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And if anything was more contested about the Quiet Revival Report than the data itself, I think it was the name.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: People are very protective about the definition of revival, and perhaps that was misjudged as a title for this.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now I regret getting as excited about this one report as I did.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps I should have had a more wait and see attitude.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps the Bible Society should have had a more wait and see attitude.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: But when Justin Briley and I put on a responding to the rebirth conference in November of last year, we did so because of looking at years of responding to the meaning crisis and interesting minorities of people now interested in the God Conversation.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was not a responding to the Revival Conference, it was a responding to the Rebirth in God Conversations kind of conference.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: We chose as our image for the conference just a single young man on the threshold of church wondering whether he'll step across it or not.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the image of crowds coming to the door.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the image of crowds of Christians marching on the city to bring about Christian values.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: But it is the story of the ones and the threes coming together, and what are they seeking?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think they are seeking refuge from a storm.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is not about masses of people beating down church doors, and it's not about masses of Christians marching on parliament.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is about the ones and twos and threes that are showing up at the moment.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And our final word to the conference is I think where we need to land on this kind of stuff.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I drew people's attention to Jesus walking on the water.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: I put it like this.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is it high tide?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is it low tide?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is the tide returning?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Is it not?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: To be honest, you can take lots of different views on culturally what's happening, and there'll be lots of different experiences that you're having in your local church expression.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: But high tide or low tide, uh, Jesus comes walking on the water.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: On top of all that cultural analysis, and in spite of all our best-laid plans, Jesus comes and confronts us.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can we have Matthew 14 up on the screen?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'll I'll switch between Matthew 14 and Mark 6.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same story told by the two different evangelists.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus, it begins with Jesus on a mountainside by himself, communing with the Father.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we we might worry about the prospects of Christianity.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um the prospects of Christianity are just fine.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, and in the bond of the Spirit, he is in the highest place, and it's unimprovably good, and ultimately you can't stuff this thing up.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: He went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them walking on the lake.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is it plane sailing or is it choppy waters?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Is it high tide, is it low tide?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, get your eyes on him.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Have we sounded the depths?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do we know have we charted the waters?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Get your eyes on him.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: There he is walking on the lake.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then Mark adds this detail.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: He was about to pass them by.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Have you noticed that?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: But when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: They cried out because they all saw him and were terrified.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Immediately he spoke to them and said, Take courage, it is I, don't be afraid.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down, and they were completely amazed.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus was about to pass them by if they were not to invite him in.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so here's my final word.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I you might be experiencing plain sailing, you might be experiencing high tide, you might be experiencing choppy waters, you might be experiencing very low tide right now.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but whatever the case, you need Jesus in the boat.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: You need to invite Jesus in.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And for those who are looking in on the outside of faith and you're wondering what to make of this cultural moment, well, maybe it's high tide, maybe it's low tide, maybe it's choppy waters, maybe it's plain sailing.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: You need Jesus in the boat.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe today is a moment where you want to invite Jesus in and say, Lord Jesus, whether you're in this boat or not, it's choppy waters and I need help.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and Jesus is there at the right hand of the Father, and walking on the waves in the middle of a storm.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: That for me is the upshot of all of this, whether it's high tide or low tide, whether it's choppy waters or plane sailing, it's Jesus.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: He walks on water.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Quite apart from any cultural moment, it is always Jesus who is dealing with people, and he's always dealing with individuals.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want him in your boat?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's a word for individuals, but a word for the church is also the the prospects for the Church of Jesus Christ are not about one census report or one survey.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: The prospects for the church are unimprovably good because we are hidden with Christ at the right hand of God.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And though we might have been blown around by different winds of reports about the quiet revival, etc., we don't pin our hopes to any of these things.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus has united us to himself and taken us to the right hand of the Father.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: The prospects of the church are unimprovably good because our prospects are Christ's prospects.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Let's keep our eyes on him.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you want a way to keep your eyes on Jesus, whether you're a Christian or not, 321 is for you.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's life according to Jesus.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can do it in eight sessions.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can binge it in two hours or take the eight sessions to go through.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus shows us God's threeness, the world's two-ness, your oneness.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Go to 321course.com and you'll see life again according to Jesus.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: That'll do us for now.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Have you given the video a like?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Can you think about who you can share it with and why don't you subscribe to us?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll see you on the next video.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: God bless.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: This might be the most hopeful trend that nobody is talking about.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Last year we introduced someone to Jesus for less than a fiver, and we need your help to do it again in 2026.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Have you heard the reports?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: People are searching for Jesus again.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: When they look, they often find stuff that is confusing, shallow, or downright misleading.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we created 321, a free online introduction to Christianity that meets seekers where they are.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: In just the past two years, 36,000 people have signed up online and over 10,000 people have done it in person.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: But the best part?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Lives are changing.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I just love hearing stories like Sarah's.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted to check out Christianity, but all the options in her online search came with a price tag.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: This did not seem right to her, so she did something strange.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: She prayed.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the very next morning she came across the 321 advert.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: She took the course and encountered Christ, the one who loves her and has saved her from the pit.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And here is the crazy part.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: It cost just four pounds to show her that ad.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Put it another way, for every 40 pounds of online advertising, we find 10 Sarahs.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it cost four pounds to get it in front of Sarah.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And stories like Sarah are happening again and again because this generation is more open than we think.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: The soil is ready.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: But moments like this don't stay open forever.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: So this Easter, we are asking 100 people to step in and help us to reach more seekers like Sarah.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: If it only costs four pounds to show Sarah the ad that led her to Jesus, just think what you could make possible with£20 a month.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Many more people could encounter Jesus through your generosity.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And this Easter, every gift is being doubled for the first year.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if this story moves you, this is your moment to help someone else find the hope that they are already searching for.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is a moment to sow in faith and trust God for the harvest.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Will you be one of the hundred?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Will you give for gospel growth?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you give before Easter Monday, your donation will be doubled by a match funder for the first year.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So your 20 pounds would be worth 40 pounds.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Visit speaklife.org.uk slash growth to give now.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's speaklife.org.uk slash growth.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you and God bless.