Young people and prayer

Premier Christian Newscast

This week we’re digging into a fascinating new survey which suggests younger generations might be more open to faith than their parents. The poll was published last month and found 56% of those aged 18-34 had prayed in their lives. This was much higher than the 55 and above cohort, where only four in ten of those surveyed said they had ever tried prayer.

Commentators, including from the Church of England who commissioned the survey, have suggested the findings tell the lie to the common trope that interest in spirituality has been dwindling with every year that passes. Instead, maybe GenZers and Millennials are actually a really promising generation to evangelise to?

Has the church been asleep at the wheel and missed a trick in trying to reach these prayerful young adults? Or is this actually a classic case of over-enthusiastic Christians reading far too much into a vaguely worded survey?

In today’s show we’re asking two Christian journalists to help us unpick the findings of this survey and explore if there really might be a generational shift in secular Britain underway.