The Quiet Revival: How Manchester Students are Encountering God
Earlier this year, the Bible Society released The Quiet Revival report, which showed national growth in the number of young adults attending church and reading the Bible. Jamie Mackenzie, Anglican Chaplain to Manchester’s universities, is seeing this growth first-hand in the student communities he works with.
Earlier this year, the Bible Society released The Quiet Revival report, which showed national growth in the number of young adults attending church and reading the Bible. Jamie Mackenzie, Anglican Chaplain to Manchester’s universities, is seeing this growth first-hand in the student communities he works with.
When he started as Chaplain, Jamie realised that the students were keen to learn the Word of God. He has since provided around 140 Bibles to student Christian Unions (CUs) across various campuses, but the demand is so great that they keep running out.
“Students are asking for copies of the whole Bible as they have proven to be much more popular than the smaller New Testaments!” he says.
“There is, without a doubt, a very real openness and hunger from students towards all things of faith. It has been particularly encouraging to see the work of the universities’ Christian Unions, which joined together during Freshers’ Week to host a number of mission and outreach events; evangelising and worshipping on Oxford Road (pictured above), proclaiming the Gospel at events (pictured below) and handing out Bibles on the streets… lots of Bibles!”
Seb Fetea, a student from the University of Manchester’s Christian Union, said, “We have found across student ministries, CUs and student churches that the spiritual temperature on campus has massively increased. During Freshers’ Week, the Christian Unions ran many welcoming events and together gave out well over 300 Bibles, with so many people preferring to take the whole versions of the Bible over the individual Gospel books! Students are so interested in the Bible as a place that gives loving answers with purpose to questions the world is not answering.”
It’s not just Manchester which is seeing this spiritual growth among students. In recent years, the student mission charity, Fusion Movement, has reported seeing an increasing number of students nationally who are ‘encountering Jesus through scripture, often for the first time and miraculously or unexpectedly.’ Fusion recently commissioned an independent research project to find out more, resulting in the report “What Do Today’s Students Think About the Bible?” It highlights some encouraging findings:
- 33% of non-Christian students and 37% of students with “No Religion” stated that they owned a copy of the Bible.
- 29% of all students said that they read the Bible weekly.
- 50% of all students viewed the Bible as relevant to today’s world.
- 33% of non-Christian students are interested in reading the Bible with a friend.
- 10% of all students would be interested in reading the Bible in their spare time, but do not own a copy of the Bible.
This research, combined with Jamie’s experiences at Manchester’s universities, reveals an opportunity for spiritual transformation among Gen Z. Jamie sees their growing interest in engaging with the Bible as presenting two key challenges for local churches. He encourages parishes to consider, “Firstly, how can we ensure more Bibles are available to students? Secondly, how do we prepare ourselves to welcome, love, and disciple these students, many of whom will have questions about what they are reading as they encounter God’s living Word?”
If your parish would like to get involved with collecting and donating Bibles for Manchester students, please get in touch with Jamie by emailing: unichaplain@manchester.ac.uk