Three weeks ago I led a men’s discipleship event at a church in a suburb of Chicago. Some of the men traveled from as far away as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Washington to attend the conference. Men of all ages were there, but a large percentage were 20-somethings. The young man who led worship that weekend is only 21.
On the second night, crowds of men ran to the stage to receive prayer for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. One of the youngest who responded was Jason Vitorsky, a 12-year-old from Missouri. Another young man, Giuseppe Battaglia from Ohio, is 15. Both were excited to tell me the next morning that they had been filled with the Spirit at the altar.
All the men spent three days worshipping, sharing meals, listening to sermons and opening their hearts in small groups. When the event ended on Saturday, nobody wanted to leave.
I don’t consider such moments unusual because I’ve led similar discipleship events for men for 15 years. I’ve witnessed growing spiritual hunger in the younger generation as I’ve mentored many young adult men. But today, even secular journalists are recognizing this as a spiritual trend. On Sept. 22, The New York Times ran an article titled “In a First Among Christians, Young Men Are More Religious Than Young Women.”
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The article’s author, Ruth Graham, interviewed Phil Barnes, a Southern Baptist pastor in Waco, Texas, who has seen an increasing number of young men joining his congregation, Hope Church. He admitted he has been curious about the trend. Barnes asked: “What’s the Lord doing? Why is he sending us all of these young men?”
For decades, women have always been more involved in church than men. They are typically the ones who attend prayer meetings, teach children’s classes and, for the most part, keep the church going. But for the first time, statistics indicate that young men are attending Christian services more often than their female counterparts, and they are more likely to identify as religious.
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