Young men are trickling back into churches, but are they here to stay — and are we ready for them? Steve McAlpine joins to unpack the subtle but significant shifts in cultural currents and what churches must rethink to disciple a new kind of Christian convert.
Key points:
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Why Google searches for “Bible” and “Christianity” are spiking — and what it might mean.
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The end of nominalism and the rise of “full-fat” faith.
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What young men are really looking for when they show up at church.
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Why Sunday attendance and midweek group aren’t enough.
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The critical role of Christian households in modeling a different life.
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Why tone, not just truth, matters more than ever.
Stephen McAlpine worked as a National Communicator for City Bible Forum, and was also pastoring a church in Perth. He has degrees in journalism and theology and enjoys combining the two through writing and blogging, especially on matters of church planting and cultural negotiation for Christians in the increasingly complex West.
TOOL BOX:
Disruptive Witness by Alan Noble
You Are Not Your Own by Alan Noble
First Things – journal of religion and public life
“Full Fat Faith” article by James Marriott (The Times, UK)
Wes Huff – Christian apologist (his YouTube channel)
Questioning Christianity by Dan Paterson
Stephen’s Substack – a great place to start working through a platform for cultural commentary and analysis
CREDITS:
This episode was brought to you by Trellis
The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia
To pray for Reach Australia, join our WhatsApp Group
For ideas or questions please email [email protected]
Support Reach Australia’s online library
TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00:00:08:18 – 00:00:26:12
Pete Hughes
G’day, I’m Pete Hughes and welcome to the One Thing. It’s a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for the gospel ministry every week. And the one thing is brought to you by Reach Australia. We want to see thousands of healthy, evangelistic and multiplying churches all over our country. I mean, we’re going to be talking with Steve McAlpine just about some culture kind of stuff.
00:00:26:13 – 00:00:43:22
Pete Hughes
But, Steve, we were just discussing before your you are a runner, but I never mention it to people. But you don’t. Oh come on. You are you you you have the runner’s physique. You are. You are the long distance runner. But you didn’t do the Sydney Marathon. I mean, not that would. That would have been disappointing.
00:00:43:23 – 00:00:59:17
Pete Hughes
It was. I even went for a run on the day because I was coming back from injury, and I. I felt like the clipped winged goose. Oh. Watching everyone. You know, I went and watched it on telly and suddenly sort of out of a little bit would have been great. What’s the longest run you ever done? Well, 42 points today.
00:00:59:22 – 00:01:24:11
Pete Hughes
Got to go. Yeah. I bit. Yeah. And what’s. Okay? What’s been the hardest marathon you run? The hardest marathon I ran was probably the first one because, you know, you haven’t been that deep in a run and you’re told it’s 30 K’s plus 12 K’s, and you feel fantastic at 30. Awesome. Okay. And then I hit a wall, and then the self-loathing kicks in with six KS to go.
00:01:24:11 – 00:01:42:10
Pete Hughes
And it just doesn’t end, you know? And people pass you and say, you see, you don’t lose seconds in those laughs at the start of a marathon. You’re going, I better keep to my set pace per kilometer in close, close to the seconds as possible. If you burn out and hit the wall, you’re not losing seconds. You’re losing minutes.
00:01:42:12 – 00:02:00:01
Pete Hughes
Wow. That’s depressing. I’m just, you know, I’m just impressed with the the mental focus. Like, I can probably I think I run about five K, and that’s about the fact that as far as my mental kind of state goes in terms of I’m just really bored. I just want to go home. Yeah. So I run to run the crazy off, but it clearly doesn’t work.
00:02:00:03 – 00:02:24:22
Pete Hughes
Here I am. It’s still it. All right. We’re not here to talk about your running. We’re here. You have now press play on another episode of the One Thing at a churches address. The cultural changes that are taking place, particularly with young men in our world today. Today’s podcast is brought to you by trellis. Trellises are designed to help pastors build Bible reading programs in minutes.
00:02:24:24 – 00:02:49:08
Pete Hughes
Make a plan or upload your own trellis handles the rest each day. Trellis. Send your reading straight to the people’s phones, then track Bible engagement. Using built in analytics is it Trellis Duo or follow the link in the show notes to get started. And now back to the podcast. Can. So there’s a lot of different cultural shifts at the moment.
00:02:49:12 – 00:03:15:06
Pete Hughes
What are some of the cultural shifts you’re seeing at the moment, especially when it comes to, say, young men and young men coming to church? I know that was a thing like six months ago. Is that do you reckon that’s still a thing? Well, I think it’s a thing in the sense that people tell me anecdotally, and then you get the quiet revival report from the United Kingdom and the British, Bible Society report saying that the percentage increase of a low bar has increased.
00:03:15:08 – 00:03:37:12
Pete Hughes
And then other people are going to deny that the Humanist Society said that’s cooking the books a little, and there are other ways to navigate that. Yeah, but anecdotally people are saying that’s true. But I think what you’re finding more than anything is that there’s been a little bit more oxygen in the air to have conversations around Christianity and The economist, no friend of Christian Frameworks.
00:03:37:14 – 00:04:02:11
Pete Hughes
I, Google doesn’t lie. Well, probably does a little chart of the, Google searches between 2019 and 2024 on Bible and Christianity through their roof. Really, you can’t break, you know, you can’t fool the algorithm and that level it. That’s what it says. Google searches on Bible and Christianity in the. According to The Economist showing the Google stats through the roof.
00:04:02:13 – 00:04:29:17
Pete Hughes
Something is happening and I think it’s too early to tell what is happening and whether that has any long term impact. But certainly the conversation around Christianity has amped up. If you’re looking at social media, if you’re looking at the big players, the people like Jordan Peterson, people like Joe Rogan, and the like. And so you’re starting to see a conversation, whether that’s the first sign of spring or, you know, it’s a false sign.
00:04:29:19 – 00:04:56:03
Pete Hughes
Or the last bloom of a trade. It’s about to die. Oh, yeah. Well, you. Yeah, that’s a really interesting way. Okay, so it could be the beginning of revival. It could be the beginning of the end is everything. But I think the thing that I would want to say is, at a psychological level, it’s more impactful to us than even on an actual level, because Christians are looking at things psychologically as well.
00:04:56:03 – 00:05:18:16
Pete Hughes
And saying, is this the end or is this a new beginning? It’s very easy to read our hopes and fears into statistics. Do you think? I think I saw you write somewhere along the way that we’re seeing more Christian Christians rather than just, are we seeing the death of nominalism? Is that part of what we were also seeing 100%, even the stats over the last few census data since I.
00:05:18:18 – 00:05:37:20
Pete Hughes
What’s to double? Double since the censuses, since I. Yeah, whatever it is. Yeah. Many senses the nominalism has drained off and then people like James Marriott writing in the times, he’s a secular writer and he has said and he’s a young man, that he noticed his local Anglican church on the Sunday evening was full of young people.
00:05:37:22 – 00:05:56:19
Pete Hughes
And he wonders if secularism has overplayed its hand. And then he did a deep dive in an article called Full Fat Faith, which is really interesting. Great headline. Right? You know, this is in Skinny Milk Faith, the nominal isms died off. And I wrote a piece saying it may not be more Christians, but the Christians are more Christian.
00:05:57:00 – 00:06:21:03
Pete Hughes
You’re not signing up half baked. These days, and there’s a disciplining and discipling process happening. And, you know, as we think about, the great Pope Benedict, the 16th, one of the great hopes of the last 100 years, theologically, he said of the Catholic Church, and it’s true, pruned, it grows. And that’s Jesus words, you know. Yeah, yeah.
00:06:21:04 – 00:06:52:05
Pete Hughes
And so there has been a pruning, and I think that will continue at a nominal level. And I think there’s been an intensifying around those people who are staying. It cannot be because the cultural shift has been so hard to push against. So let’s let’s go back to if we’re seeing that younger generation coming in, particularly younger men, what do you think churches need to do differently if that’s a way, if that is a wave of people coming in.
00:06:52:07 – 00:07:14:08
Pete Hughes
But what do you think they need to do differently for this curious, committed young Christians? How will that and also, how do you think that might change the church in the future? WrestleMania. No no no we need more. Anybody in church. No no no that’s not what I would say. One of the things many of them are coming for, young men are coming is because there’s a lack of sense of direction, meaning, purpose.
00:07:14:08 – 00:07:36:16
Pete Hughes
And also they’ve been flayed a bit for being toxic or whatever they are. And there’s a pragmatic push to it as well. Well, it’s sort my life out, right. And you kind of want to say yes, and it may make it harder. It I don’t want you to become a Christian for purely it works reasons. I want you to become a Christian because it’s true and right.
00:07:36:18 – 00:08:01:11
Pete Hughes
And I think that people coming into the church today, especially young men, are looking for something that looks older than they are, has got a bit of gristle to it and, would shape their lives. And look, I do think some things need to be thought through. If you have young men coming who don’t have a framework, who come from poor family backgrounds, as in unsettled family backgrounds, just saying.
00:08:01:12 – 00:08:28:21
Pete Hughes
Turn up on Sunday and Wednesday night might not be enough. You may have to model to them what healthy family life looks like. Christian families may need to up the game and say, we’ll sort of adopt one of these younger people into our, you know, community. So I think a young person coming to church today called, has to see what Christian life looks like, lived out together in a way that’s more intentional than perhaps in the past where we assumed it.
00:08:29:01 – 00:08:43:19
Pete Hughes
All right. So discipleship, not just in the building, but actually in the home as well. So I can see this is what it looks like when you’re not there on Sunday, when you’re not there in Bible study. Is that what you mean? It is because they still live in a culture where they still believe you. Do you? Yeah.
00:08:43:21 – 00:09:08:24
Pete Hughes
They just want to do it conservatively or they want to do it their way, which is against the woke or whatever they railing against are. We don’t believe in you, do you? We believe in dying to yourself. And there are things that that is going to demand of young men, in ways that we hadn’t thought about and in ways that are quite confronting to Christians who have expected a certain level of moral framework among the people who come to them.
00:09:09:05 – 00:09:37:02
Pete Hughes
And that’s not going to be the case that you mentioned just before about how the fact that you’re offering Christianity is also offering a life of suffering. It’s not easy. That’s right. And do you think that’s a positive thing for young men or a negative thing like, because I can see for some young men they go, yeah, I want to step up, I want to I do want to say, oh, or is it that you know, where people have accused the current generation of young men as being, risk averse?
00:09:37:04 – 00:09:55:05
Pete Hughes
Soft? I don’t want to use. Well, I want, I want to use the word soft, but I just did so that’s the word. Yeah. What how does where does that that message of suffering and how would they respond to it? Well, I think you’d want to put the suffering in the context of, what is it? There’s a joy in the midst of serving Jesus, even when it’s hard.
00:09:55:05 – 00:10:16:24
Pete Hughes
Some of the suffering is going to have to be. I have to suffer and put my sin to death through, that life of comfort and ease of another part of the suffering is going to be I have to put aside my desire to, you know, blame someone on social media. Or I have to put it aside, my desire to sleep around and get hammered.
00:10:17:01 – 00:10:38:02
Pete Hughes
And don’t assume as Christians that young men coming in will actually know that off the bat. Yeah. And so that’s an I have seen that before with young men in the 90s who became Christian. And they were reading, oh, it says not to get drunk. I guess we shouldn’t get drunk. Whereas our assumption was good people don’t get drunk.
00:10:38:04 – 00:10:56:15
Pete Hughes
Well, I didn’t have that assumption. Yeah, but I read it in Scripture. Yeah. And so I be positive that the Holy Spirit will transform people. Yeah. One of the other things I’d say is play up the fact that this is a transcendent movement. We’re not looking for just an earthly response to, you know, like stoicism or something like that.
00:10:56:17 – 00:11:17:14
Pete Hughes
The Spirit of God will transform people. And we have a relationship with the Heavenly Father, that Christ has given us and connects us to by the Holy Spirit. Fire that up a little bit. I think in the coming decade, I think at least, and it sounds like you bring the discipleship into the home, bringing people into home, not making assumptions.
00:11:17:16 – 00:11:35:08
Pete Hughes
Because I go, yes, do you understand what the Christian life means? So that’s going to be some of the things that pastors are going to have to adjust to change, I guess. Yeah. And other people, I would say what you want to see is not just a performance on a Sunday and how that happens, but they want to come into a community that looks a little different.
00:11:35:10 – 00:11:56:22
Pete Hughes
Not. And that’s hard in cities where everyone’s very busy and I’ll see you next Sunday or whatever. Yeah, but you’ve got to try and figure a way to do that. Yeah. Are there any other structural things you think are the structural things that will change? Because if let’s just say, let’s just play it out, there’s a whole bunch of young men who come into the church, they want to serve Jesus.
00:11:56:22 – 00:12:19:07
Pete Hughes
What will that change the way church looks like in, say, 10 or 20 years time, do you think? Yeah. That’s interesting. It depends how their lives go in the next ten years. Coming in, maybe not in relationships with anyone that we’re not. We’re automatically thinking in our world. How do we do? Family, church? We’ve got a shrinking population in terms of, birth rates.
00:12:19:09 – 00:12:39:24
Pete Hughes
We’ve got a smaller household, groupings in our culture, single person dwellings are on the rise. Church might look different. It also means that I think with young men, they learn shoulder to shoulder as much as they do face to face. There might have to be a bit more active, shoulder to shoulder discipleship going on.
00:12:40:01 – 00:12:55:04
Pete Hughes
What does that look like? Well, I think it means let’s go and do a task together. And in that process will be discipling each other. And that doesn’t mean to say we’re not sitting down reading the Bible with people. We need to do that as well. But they are going to ask, how does that work? What does that look like?
00:12:55:06 – 00:13:13:03
Pete Hughes
And I think that’s going to be important. Now you’ve already mentioned a number of different things where you’ve, you know, read that or you’ve seen this or what. How does a, the current pastor who’s trying to run a church write a sermon, do all the bits and pieces, how does he keep his finger on culture?
00:13:13:05 – 00:13:31:13
Pete Hughes
What advice have you got for him? You know, I am not a pastor. Okay, very easy for us because we don’t do any of that on Sunday, so. Well, I think you don’t need to know at all. And you need to, to be honest, knowing the Bible really, really well. Yeah. And being very godly and prayerful is 90% of it, isn’t it?
00:13:31:15 – 00:13:48:19
Pete Hughes
Surely. Absolutely. Yeah, I think so. So actually, I, you and I were at a concert, actually, where I think right there at different nights, to say, I actually do want to mention who it was, but it was a very loud concert. Let’s just go with that. Right. Yeah. And, it’s funny because I had just read, that morning about, Nebuchadnezzar.
00:13:48:19 – 00:14:10:11
Pete Hughes
And I am the greatest. I am that, you know, and God humbling him. And, I mean, I’m watching this artist do exactly that. And on the. I feel very uncomfortable for that guy right now. Yeah, but I think it was because I. I had the Bible there and I’m looking at the cultural moment, it was that, well, that’s where the wisdom comes from, that if you have the scriptures you’re putting on your sort of you’re putting on your Scripture glasses and looking at the world through the lens of them.
00:14:10:11 – 00:14:30:19
Pete Hughes
Yeah. I think, you know, read, watch stuff. Yep. But, pick a few people that you think are worth actually following. And if I were to name 2 or 3 people that I think that you should read constantly, I would say Allen Noble. Right. I was reading a couple of books, Disruptive Witness, and you were not your own.
00:14:30:21 – 00:14:53:21
Pete Hughes
I would definitely read, him I would read, a couple of journals, probably. I think I would read something, like first things and I would read anything by. Yeah. I just take a few things and say, I’ll stick with these things. But I think things like Substack have got great writers who give good overviews, and I think that’s a good way to start there.
00:14:53:21 – 00:15:14:07
Pete Hughes
Obviously books and but I in one sense, it’s funny. I’ve dropped off watching Netflix and shows, and I tend to think we overplay that. I can be culturally savvy in my sermon with a Netflix series. I just don’t buy that anymore, to be honest. Okay, so who is Westhoff and why should I care? That’s a good question.
00:15:14:09 – 00:15:39:09
Pete Hughes
Westhoff is an apologist. Not in the William Lane Craig model of apologist and so Westhoff went viral because he had a bit of a, a conversation with someone who chucked a hissy fit because Westhoff kept calling out his, you know, misreading of the Bible, miss rate misunderstanding. And the bloke ended up storming off the set, which got Joe Rogan interested.
00:15:39:14 – 00:16:04:04
Pete Hughes
Oh, wow. Okay. And Joe Rogan had Westhoff on for a long form podcast right of several hours and 6 million views. Wow. And where’s Huff? I’m going to change his name to Wes Bath. He’s he’s built. He is. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. And suddenly young men were watching Wes half with his slicked hair and his fade and his black t shirt and his nice demeanor.
00:16:04:06 – 00:16:25:08
Pete Hughes
And what happened was he Christianity started to look a little bit robust and a little bit polite, in the sense that he could hold his own and not be rude. The key thing that I think was interesting, being on Rogan, was that ways half didn’t go on to Rogan, assuming because he was a Christian, he had a higher platform right.
00:16:25:10 – 00:16:44:04
Pete Hughes
Next week Rogan’s got some other nutter on the show, and so Westhoff is the kind of apologist that knows where he sits in the culture and that he doesn’t have an elevated platform. And I think that’s critical. People like Westhoff are being followed and listened to because they’re good gateways to a lot of the issues around the Bible.
00:16:44:08 – 00:17:04:06
Pete Hughes
Now, I would say that identity and meaning and purpose of the big apologetic issues a culturally, the West half also picks up on the science of things, the the documentation, the textual proofs. He’s very good with that. So, a lot of people are looking for those answers as well. And he’s very good and very steady on them.
00:17:04:08 – 00:17:25:13
Pete Hughes
I think the kind of where’s half apologist is probably the future. And I know a couple of young guys like that. And you have someone like, well, the chap who’s bringing him out to Australia. Right? Dan Patterson in Queensland with questioning Christianity. He also has the same approach. He does not assume he gets a place at the table higher than what the culture will give him.
00:17:25:15 – 00:17:43:16
Pete Hughes
It’s interesting because both of those guys have a very yeah like demeanor is very calm, but I’m being clear about what I’m saying. And they’re not yelling at people. No, but you’re right. There is a humility there as well. Yeah. I if I put myself in the same category, that’s just puffing me up and, you know, I did it.
00:17:43:16 – 00:18:07:20
Pete Hughes
But I did ten sessions at shore a few weeks ago with the year 12 boys and sessions of different cohorts, same session, but vastly different every session. And when a lot of Q and I. And what was interesting afterwards was that the staff said to me, the really curly questions, you just assumed you didn’t know everything, and you just said, yeah, that’s true.
00:18:07:20 – 00:18:28:08
Pete Hughes
Yeah, I could see that because I and I think that’s true tone matters in the current context, especially with young men. Do you reckon? Okay. So I’m sorry to interrupt you for a second, but you reckon tone actually matters more than truth at the moment for those that we’re speaking to? Or is that a dangerous option? But it’s not a wrong assumption.
00:18:28:14 – 00:18:47:07
Pete Hughes
But what it is, is how do you hold those intention? They won’t hear truth without the right tone. All right. And one of the young men at the school said, oh, be great, just get out of the pub and have a beer with you. I said, well, the school might have something to say about that. Yeah. Just just for, that was, that is not.
00:18:47:12 – 00:19:04:14
Pete Hughes
We’re not recommending that reach Australia. In case anyone he’s a from shore but yes I, we had we had a long conversation afterwards and he said I just want to have those kind of conversations. I know my mates want to have those kind of conversations. Where is the place to have those kind of conversations now is year 12.
00:19:04:17 – 00:19:27:10
Pete Hughes
School will finish and it’s a different conversation in school to outside of school. So he and his friends may be looking for those kind of conversations outside of school when they’re finished school in their university. So I think there’s place for tone to be, the kind of thing that draws questions out of people. And to listen to people today is to love them, because no one listen to anyone.
00:19:27:10 – 00:19:57:18
Pete Hughes
We’re just waiting for the space so that I can say the next thing right. Listening to people and asking questions and finding out what the question is behind the question, you can see 10% of the iceberg, the other 90%, you’ve just got to you’ve got to put your filters on to watch what’s going on. And I think with young men in particular, don’t try to flex on them, give them some credit and give them some honor in the questions that that’s a key thing, isn’t it?
00:19:57:18 – 00:20:18:07
Pete Hughes
Really. Give them some honor because they’re not getting it from anywhere else. Exactly. They don’t. They are being shredded by everything else. Yeah. See, what’s the one thing. What’s the one thing you really want people to I mean, gospel workers, particularly to think about as they are addressing culture, perhaps seeing the young men come in. What’s the one thing consistency in your own life?
00:20:18:09 – 00:20:42:22
Pete Hughes
I think, apologize for the things you do wrong. Blame shift and look like the kind of person that younger men might look to and go, I would like to be like that when I’m older and, honor the women in your life in such a way that younger men look at that and go, I would like to be that kind of man to women when I’m older as well.
00:20:42:24 – 00:21:01:01
Pete Hughes
That’s not rocket science, but it is. Imitate me as I imitate Christ. Yeah, and I think that’s going to be crucial. Yeah. That’s a that’s a big, big thing there. Okay. In the toolbox, Steven, I don’t know. Steve’s talking about a lot of different things. We’ll have some of those in the in the toolbox. Probably not all of them, because I’m not sure we’ll fit them all in.
00:21:01:03 – 00:21:15:24
Pete Hughes
You may have to go back and have a look and actually do some of your own research. So, just to get your head around that, this may be an episode you want to talk about as a staff team. You may want to think about how, what what are the young men who are coming to our church?
00:21:15:24 – 00:21:29:20
Pete Hughes
Are they actually they why are they they, and maybe even have a chat with them about that. But if you found that, I hope this a helpful episode, why not do us a favor and pass it around? So thank you so much for joining us. That’s great to be here on Peter’s chat soon.
