The most interesting thing happening in Denver may not be happening at the Capitol, a city council meeting, or whatever government task force is currently discovering the existence of common sense six months late.
It may be happening in church.
The Denver Gazette reports that several Denver churches are seeing real growth among Millennials and Gen Z, including Lifegate Church, RST Church, Park Church, BridgeWay Church, and others. Some churches are reporting packed services, record baptisms, and large numbers of younger adults who had rarely or never attended church before. Lifegate says attendance has been climbing by about 25% each year, while RST reported 100 baptisms last year and found that 48% of Easter survey respondents had rarely or never gone to church.
That matters.
Not because crowded church services automatically mean spiritual revival. A full room can mean many things. Sometimes it means faithful preaching, deep hunger, and the Spirit of God at work. Sometimes it means good coffee, good music, and a fog machine with a theology degree. We should be careful before declaring victory.
But we should also not miss what is happening. Young people in one of the least religious states in the country are showing up hungry. They are lonely. They are anxious. They are digitally exhausted. They are tired of pretending that a life built around screens, apps, career moves, political outrage, and curated loneliness is enough.
Scripture is not surprised by this.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says God “has planted eternity in the human heart.” That does not mean every spiritual hunger is healthy or every religious impulse is true. It means human beings were not made to live as self-contained little kingdoms. We were made for God. When a culture spends decades telling people they are accidents, consumers, political identities, sexual identities, economic units, or profile pictures with legs, eventually the soul starts coughing.
Acts 17 tells us God created the nations and marked out their times and boundaries so people “would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him.” That is a remarkable word for our moment. The Lord is not confused by Denver. He is not intimidated by secular culture, pandemic fallout, political insanity, or the weird little religion of expressive individualism. God is still drawing people to Himself.
Christians should care because this is not only a church story. It is a public-life story.
Loneliness has civic consequences. Family breakdown has civic consequences. Anxiety has civic consequences. When people lose a sense of truth, purpose, belonging, and moral order, they do not become neutral. They become vulnerable to every ideology, addiction, tribe, and government program promising meaning on sale for three easy payments.
The church must not answer that hunger with political tribalism. But we must not answer it with civic retreat either. If young people are looking for truth, community, purpose, and hope, then Christians need to offer more than a Sunday experience. We need to offer a people formed by Jesus.
That includes worship. It includes repentance. It includes Scripture. It includes actual community, not just standing near strangers while lyrics appear on a screen. Hebrews 10:24-25 tells believers to “think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works” and not to neglect meeting together. The gathering of the church is not a lifestyle accessory. It is spiritual formation.
But the church gathered should become the church scattered. If these young believers are being discipled well, Denver should feel it. Families should feel it. Foster kids should feel it. Neighbors should feel it. Schools, workplaces, nonprofits, city meetings, and public debates should eventually feel it, too.
Not because the church becomes a campaign office. Please, no. We have enough campaign offices, and most of them already smell faintly of desperation and bad coffee.
But because disciples of Jesus bring truth, mercy, courage, restraint, neighbor love, and moral clarity wherever they go. That includes public life.
Here is where wisdom is needed. Churches should not chase youth culture so hard they lose the gospel. Young adults do not need Christianity shrink-wrapped in trendiness. They need Christ. They need the Word. They need older saints. They need repentance and grace. They need real friendship, honest answers, and a faith strong enough to survive Monday.
My bottom line is simple: if younger Coloradans are reaching for faith, Christians should rejoice, pray, and get serious. This is not the moment for churches to become entertainment venues, political bunkers, or vague spirituality clubs with better parking.
Open the doors. Open the Bible. Set the table. Tell the truth. Love the lonely. Disciple the young. Serve the city.
And when the hungry show up, do not give them fog machine Christianity.
Give them Jesus.
Source: The Denver Gazette
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