There was some noise last year about a Bible Society report which suggested a “quiet revival” was underway, with church attendance increasing particularly among young men with no previous church connection. It caused a fair ripple of excitement across Christian churches but that report has now been withdrawn. It turns out the YouGov organisation which provided the base data hadn’t been as scrupulous as it should have been about the integrity of its information. As the Trojans found out, you should always look a gift horse in the mouth!

I wonder if the attention given to the report will have prompted some young people to visit a church or explore Christian faith? Perhaps so and maybe some of them will stick. Meanwhile, the life of the Christian church will continue as it has done from the beginning not with attention grabbing headlines but with the love of God poured out into human hearts and all that flows from the actual truth rather than just stories we want to hear.