American Christianity is experiencing a winter of discontent.

Shrinking church attendance and increasing secularization in recent decades have given rise to such terms as “dechurching” and “nones.”

During 1948, 91% of Americans identified as Christian, while only 2% claimed no religious affiliation, according to Gallup. By 2023, Christianity had slipped to 66%, and the share of nones (religiously unaffiliated) was 22%.

Seventy percent of Americans were church members in 1992, compared to 45% in 2023.

Regular church attendance (weekly or nearly every week) declined from 46% in 2000 to 30% in 2023. Meanwhile, the share of Americans who never attend church rose from 13% to 31%.

Beyond falling rates of affiliation, membership, and attendance, some suggest there is growing antagonism toward Christianity.

In Life in the Negative World, cultural critic Aaron M. Renn argues that prior to 1994, most Americans viewed Christianity positively, accepting its spiritual and moral norms as their own.

From 1994–2014, Renn says many perceived Christianity neutrally, as one spiritual and moral option among many. After 2014, opinions turned negative.

“Holding to Christian moral views, publicly affirming the teachings of the Bible, or violating the new secular moral order can lead to negative consequences,” Renn explains.

Renn captures the anxious mood of many ministry leaders.

Is America lost to Christianity? Has the Church begun a long slide into irrelevance — or worse, social and political conflict?

Cycles of Renewal

Concerning trends notwithstanding, declaring defeat would be a mistake.

Both the Bible and church history point to cycles of decline and renewal among God’s people. Those who forgot God’s mighty works often drifted from faith until a new generation sought God and a fresh season of divine activity emerged.

The story of Othniel in Judges 3 highlights a familiar pattern in the book and indeed the Old Testament: disobedience, divine judgment, distress, and deliverance.

According to verses 7–8, “The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord,” whose anger “burned against Israel.” Consequently, God allowed a foreign king to subjugate the Israelites for eight years.

But when the people “cried out to the Lord, he raised up for them a deliverer” (verse 9). As a result, “the land had peace for forty years” (verse 11).

Despite humanity’s shortcomings, God’s redemptive plan always advances. Thus, we have reason to hope our current winter of discontent will give way to a springtime of renewal.

It’s easy to criticize ancient Israel’s seeming faithlessness, but Christian history similarly reveals a series of spiritual ups and downs.

For example, the religious fervor that brought Puritan colonists to the New World eventually flagged.

During the 18th century, the First Great Awakening reached New England through the preaching of ministers like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards.

As many turned to faith, new churches sprung up across the colonies.

By the Revolutionary War’s conclusion, a decline in faith resulted in only 7% of Americans attending services regularly.

Influential thinkers, including Voltaire in France and Thomas Paine in America, predicted the imminent demise of Christianity.

These grim prognostications proved erroneous. The Second Great Awakening started around the turn of the 19th century, as revivals broke out at Yale College in Connecticut and in the frontier town of Cane Ridge, Kentucky.

Among the racially and ethnically diverse crowds at Cane Ridge were many enslaved African Americans, who planted churches to meet the needs of their community.

On the southern and western frontiers, Baptist and Methodist church planters established evangelical Christianity as the dominant form of Protestantism.

Nevertheless, church attendance and morality had declined again by the Civil War.

During Reconstruction, the evangelistic ministries of D.L. Moody and others touched off a series of revivals, sparking what some call the Missionary Awakening.

Over the next 20 years, some 25,000 American college students, aflame with revival, became missionaries to Africa, Latin America, China, and beyond. Their work helped pave the way for the greatest period of Christian expansion in history.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Pentecostal movement emerged, with missionaries from Azusa Street soon fanning out around the world.

While the new Pentecostal Movement flourished over the next century, American society simultaneously experienced moral decline and crises.

Despite humanity’s shortcomings, God’s redemptive plan
always advances. Thus, we have reason to hope
our current winter of discontent will give way to a springtime
of renewal.

In 1966 — amid war, civil unrest, and the global spread of atheistic Communism — Time magazine asked on its cover, “Is God Dead?”

Within a few years, the diverse and youthful Jesus Movement seemingly answered the question. Across the country, thousands of teens and young adults turned to Christ and joined evangelical congregations, changing church demographics and worship styles.

Black songwriter and singer Andraé Crouch infused the movement with powerful revival lyrics, moving white evangelicals toward greater acceptance of racial and ethnic diversity in worship.

Latino leader Nicky Cruz, a convert of Teen Challenge founder David Wilkerson’s ministry, became a household name among Christians.

In the 21st century, with the American Church again facing decline and questions about its relevance, God is still at work. And the pattern of history suggests a new awakening may be on the horizon.

Awakening and Revival

Some secular observers explain the ebb and flow of history in cyclical terms.

In their 1991 book Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069, William Strauss and Neil Howe sought to identify predictable generational patterns.

Strauss and Howe proposed that every generation experiences four seasons: a high, an awakening, an unraveling, and a crisis. In this model, each season lasts about 20 years.

A high is a time of societal prosperity, such as an economic boom. That eventually leads to an awakening — a search for greater meaning, which can include spiritual discovery.

As the fervor of awakening fades, a time of moral, social and relational unraveling begins.

Then comes a time of crisis. Disruptive events, such as wars or economic downturns, upend institutions. If the society manages to solve its crisis, the cycle begins anew.

Of course, this social-science theory is not infallible. And all human events are subject to God’s sovereign will.

If the generational theory is correct, however, there will be another awakening soon.

Howe suggests America has experienced a crisis phase for the past 20 years, perhaps beginning with the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the onset of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan shortly thereafter, or the economic recession of 2007–09.

More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, market disruptions, wars in Ukraine and Israel, and the threat of new global conflicts have shaken the entire world.

Perhaps a new cycle will eventually break through this difficult winter season. If the theory holds, an awakening might dawn sometime after 2040, with its characteristic explosion of spiritual hunger and religious zeal.

Does this mean church leaders must wait helplessly for 15 years until the next great awakening dawns? Of course not.

First, a definition of terms is in order. Christians often use such words as renewal, revival, awakening, and outpouring synonymously.

For Strauss and Howe, an awakening is an extended period of searching, spiritual hunger, and social reform following a time of prosperity and success. Their theory accounts for such periods in Europe and America since the Middle Ages.

Awakenings occur every 80 to 100 years and typically lead to increased religious observance and innovation.

Some in today’s so-called Christian nationalist movement imagine human political systems and leaders establishing lasting spiritual dominion. However, the Assemblies of God has always maintained that only Christ’s triumphal return will usher in His eternal Kingdom.

Until Jesus comes, fallen humanity will continue its cycle of failure and repentance. And God will maintain His gracious program of rescuing, redeeming, and reviving people through Christ.

In contrast to awakening as a social phenomenon, revival is a sovereign act of God as He once again pours out His Spirit on the Church.

The Book of Acts describes what to expect during such times. Not only will we experience signs and wonders, but we will also see more people repenting, turning to Christ, praying, learning the Word, worshipping, loving their neighbors, committing to missions, and giving generously.

All of these factors are observable during times of genuine revival throughout church history.

At the same time, an awakening does not necessarily guarantee the number of Christians will increase. During a high tide of hunger for transcendence, all spiritual boats rise.

Alongside the Jesus Movement during the 1960s and ’70s, for instance, there was a surge of interest among Americans in Eastern religions, sects, cults, new religions, and psychedelic drugs.

Meanwhile, Europe saw a catastrophic abandonment of Christianity amid a secular awakening to postmodernism.

The net results of an awakening will depend on God’s grace in sending revival and the Church’s response in making the most of a new season of opportunity.

Spiritual Hunger

For centuries, revivals have coincided with awakenings. Yet ministry leaders cannot take this for granted.

As we prepare our lives and congregations for the next period of mass hunger for spiritual meaning, we must realize how much is at stake. The spiritual future of our children and grandchildren depends on believers rising to the coming opportunity.

Our actions and attitudes today will help determine what the next awakening looks like. We must remain expectant, prayerful, and diligent as we wait for the Lord to move as only He can.

God can send revival at any time. He can also speed up the arrival of a national awakening.

We can trust that God
is at work today, preparing us for a marvelous season
of victory in the
years ahead. In the meantime, we have much work to do.

In the post-war years leading to the last awakening in the U.S., there were many notable revivals.

A 1949 crusade in Los Angeles stretched into eight weeks, helping launch the evangelistic ministry of a young preacher named Billy Graham.

Around the same time, crowds flocked to the healing revival meetings of Oral Roberts, William Branham, James Gordon Lindsay, and others.

These movements helped set the stage for charismatic renewal in Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, and fanned flames of revival among Pentecostals.

Parachurch organizations flourished throughout the 1950s. That decade saw the founding of many new Christian educational institutions, including Evangel College (now Evangel University) in Springfield, Missouri, during 1955.

In 1953, newly elected U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was baptized in water at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.

As a bulwark against communism, Eisenhower encouraged Americans to go to church — and many took up the challenge.

African American churches were leading social and cultural change. Secular histories often gloss over the deeply Christian roots of the Civil Rights Movement. In many respects, this cry for injustice was born of faith and shaped by revival.

The events of the 1950s and ’60s helped prepare the Church for a harvest of souls during the awakening that followed.

Preaching, salvations, healings, infrastructure, and transformation all laid a foundation for the Jesus Movement awakening.

We can trust that God is at work today, preparing us for a marvelous season of victory in the years ahead. In the meantime, we have much work to do.

Leading the Way

The most important thing we can do to usher in the next great awakening is pray!

No revival has ever emerged in an atmosphere of prayerlessness.

As in the Book of Acts, we must be willing to pray as long as it takes for God to pour out His Spirit on our sons and daughters (1:14; 2:17).

We need to seek God with hope and anticipation once again, boldly asking Him to move among us as He did in the Early Church.

When those believers gathered in the Upper Room and prayed, God sent His Spirit (2:4). And when they declared the primacy and lordship of Jesus Christ, lives changed.

Those who heard Peter’s preaching on the Day of Pentecost “were cut to the heart” and asked, “Brothers, what shall we do?” (verse 37).

Peter’s altar call message was simple: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (verse 38).

Three thousand people responded and became Christians that day (verse 41). But it was just the beginning.

Prophesying of God’s continued work among generations to come, Peter said, “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off — for all whom the Lord our God will call” (verse 39).

Acts further chronicles the transformative results of this outpouring. Following the Day of Pentecost, believers were eager to gather for fellowship and discipleship (2:42,46). They gave generously and cared for one another’s needs (verse 45).

Christ followers worshipped God not only with their words, but also with their lives, gaining favor in the community (verse 47).

A great burden for the spiritually lost gripped the Early Church (4:20). God called missionaries, and they answered (13:2–5).

Whenever there is a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, these signs follow. But it always begins with prayer.

Tertullian, a Christian theologian who lived in second-century Carthage, offered this description of prayer meetings during his time:

We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications. This strong exertion God delights in. We pray, too, for the emperors, for their ministers and for all in authority, for the welfare of the world, for the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the final consummation.

Early in our Movement, Pentecostals spoke of travailing in intercession, crying out to God with tears and groaning, and praying in tongues.

Those who came before us understood that prayer is work that requires commitment and exertion. But nothing is more vital — or fruitful.

Never has there been a more important time for intercession than our current moment. This generation desperately needs to encounter God.

If the Church is to rise up, we must first fall to our knees and pray.

Along with a passion for prayer, we need a lifestyle of repentance that leads to holiness.

Finding the presence of God in prayer will produce godly sorrow in us. Our values and behaviors will change. Not only will God give us victory over sinful behaviors and habits, but He will also change our priorities so that we spend our time differently.

Never has there been a more important time for intercession than our current moment. This generation desperately needs
to encounter God.

Entertainment will lose its attraction as we seek God’s face rather than scrolling our smartphones.

In the past, Christians often turned a change of priorities into strict holiness codes, forbidding their children from doing things that were not necessarily problematic.

Legalism in the place of holiness never passes revival from one generation to another. But revival will always refine our behaviors, improve our use of time, and make an impression on the young people who witness these things.

Holiness is not a list of behaviors or prohibitions. True holiness comes from experiencing God’s life-changing power in such a way that we express His character, especially by loving and serving others.

As believers seek God, the Holy Spirit forms His character in them. This is what makes a church attractive to people who are searching for meaning and longing for something real.

A hallmark of holiness is love and concern for lost people. Without these characteristics, the Church will not be ready for the next awakening.

Revivals are never tidy because God’s power attracts people who are hurting and needy.

When some men punched through a roof to bring their friend to Jesus, it likely made a mess. Nevertheless, the paralyzed man encountered Christ’s compassion, forgiveness, and healing (Mark 2:1–12).

An unloving congregation will never tolerate an influx of seekers and new believers or the disruptions they bring. But a habit of praying for the lost prepares hearts to receive them.

Another important element that must precede a great awakening is passion for God’s Word.

Bible engagement is declining in America — inside and outside the Church. Many Christians are unfamiliar with the basics of Scripture and rarely read it on their own.

There is a desperate need for effective Bible preaching and teaching. Such communication requires passion for studying the Word.

As we prepare for the next great awakening, church leaders should commit to such study and encourage called people to pursue theological training.

Bible study at all levels must increase — from personal devotions to academic pursuits, and from pews to pulpits.

A heart for the lost and knowledge of Scripture equips believers for evangelism, which helps fuel revival.

During the Jesus Movement, young Christians were eager to share their testimonies and invite others to accept Christ. Many songs from that period are about witnessing and reaching the lost.

When God’s people become passionate about sharing the gospel, they will be ready to embrace a spiritual awakening as a Kingdom opportunity.

The Church must maintain a missional focus from one generation to the next. Young people in our children’s ministries and youth groups will lead the next great awakening.

Discipleship is essential for passing on Bible knowledge, godly wisdom, theological understanding, and Pentecostal distinctives.

Older Christians can pave the way for the next great awakening by investing in Generation Z. Those who will cry out for hope and truth 20 years from now will need mature pastors who can disciple them in the historic virtues of our faith.

Members of Gen Z can become the David Wilkersons who reach the Nicky Cruzes of the future. The boys and girls in our church classrooms today may one day take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

There are things we can do now to equip tomorrow’s church leaders.

Pastors can mentor rising leaders, encouraging them in their faith, sharing wisdom, and creating opportunities for ministry.

Congregants can provide support for young people to attend church camps and participate in missions trips. Every congregation should invest financially in the education of at least one minister in training.

As a 12-year-old who felt a calling to ministry, I volunteered to do some cleanup work in the church on a Saturday.

Afterward, the pastor took me for a hamburger and befriended me. I came away from that lunch meeting feeling like my faith and work for God mattered.

Through his actions and words of encouragement, the pastor validated my sense of calling.

By doing the same for young people in our spheres of influence, today’s ministry leaders can help prepare for the next awakening.

Against the pessimism of our current winter of discontent, I believe the years ahead could bring the greatest period of Christian expansion the Church has ever seen.

This is not guaranteed, however. A Christ-centered spiritual awakening is the fruit of God’s Spirit being poured out in response to the prayers of His Church.

If we are to reap a future harvest, we must do our part to prepare the soil now. It’s hard work, much of it taking place quietly behind the scenes.

Yet we must not grow weary in doing good. “For at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

May the Spirit of God mobilize us now with a long season of revivals leading to America’s next great awakening!

This article appears in the Winter 2025 issue of Influence magazine.