30 OCTOBER 2025
"You can't develop deep spirituality in 8-second reels": Tim Alford on Gen Z, the quiet revival, and why this moment matters
National Director of Limitless, Elim's youth and kids ministries, unpacks the spiritual awakening among young people and what the church needs to do differently to not miss this opportunity.
Something is shifting. Church attendance among Gen Z has quadrupled. Bible sales are at unprecedented rates. Young people are openly hungry for spiritual experience in ways we haven't seen in decades. But as Tim Alford warns in this powerful conversation with Mark Pugh, if we're not careful, we could miss the moment entirely.
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Listen to Episode 4 and subscribe at elim.org.uk/elimleaderspodcast.
In this episode
The data backs up what we're seeing
The headlines have been impossible to ignore. The Bible Society's Quiet Revival report revealed a quadrupling of church attendance among Gen Z in recent years. Sales of youth Bibles have doubled. Even YouTube algorithms are serving up content about 'Gen Z rejecting atheism'.
But for Tim Alford, National Director of Limitless - Elim's national youth and kids ministry - these statistics simply confirm what he's been experiencing on the ground: “There is a spiritual openness like I have not seen before in all my years working with young people.”
Over the last four years alone, Limitless has seen more than 2,500 young people respond to the gospel. The engagement in worship, Tim says, is like nothing he's witnessed in his lifetime.
Yet this openness isn't exclusively Christian. Gen Z are exploring spirituality through TikTok and Instagram - paganism, witchcraft, manifestation, even shamanism (reportedly the fastest-growing religious expression in the UK). If the church doesn't rise to this moment with authenticity and power, young people will look elsewhere.
Why now? The rise and fall of new atheism
Tim points to the collapse of the New Atheism movement as one cultural factor. “The hollowness of that has been laid bare,” he explains. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris - their arguments felt intimidating a decade ago, but they couldn't satisfy the deep human longing for transcendence.
“We are made for intimacy and relationship with God,” Tim says. “If we don't find it in God, we will try to find it somewhere else. And the New Atheism movement just couldn't satiate that desire.”
The other major factor? The mental health epidemic fuelled by digital addiction. Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation demonstrates that excessive social media consumption doesn't just correlate with anxiety and depression - it causes it. Into this crisis, the gospel message of peace, joy, identity, and unconditional love in Christ is profoundly timely.
But here's the challenge: “If we have a generation who continues to be digitally addicted and wildly overstimulated, those things are falling on shallow soil and they cannot take root. You can't develop deep spirituality in eight-second reels.”
Social media: The leader's struggle too
Before diving into what churches should do, Tim and Mark take an honest detour into the impact of social media on church leaders themselves. It's a conversation many of us need to hear.
“We've been among the pioneers, the early adopters,” Mark reflects. “We have not been able to curate the experience for the next generation because we have been caught up in it.”
Tim doesn't pull punches: we're not the consumers of social media - we're the product. Our attention is the commodity being sold to advertisers. The algorithms, notifications, and endless scrolling are all designed to create compulsion and addiction.
His practical boundaries have been transformative:
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Start every day with Jesus, not your phone. “I will spend time with God alone before I spend any time with my phone.”
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Give your phone a bedtime. Switch off an hour to 90 minutes before sleep to allow proper rest.
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Take a 24-hour digital Sabbath every week. “I am not the Messiah," Tim says. “The world will go on quite fine without me being on social media for 24 hours.”
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Turn off all notifications. Access your phone when you need it, not when it needs you.
Tim eventually deleted all his social media accounts four months ago. “The less engagement I've had, the more joyful I've become,” he reports. He's modelling for his kids and young people that “you can live an engaged and flourishing life and not be on social media.”
The point isn't legalism - it's freedom. “If we're going to be spiritual parents for this generation, let's not ask them to do something we're not willing or able to do ourselves."
Putting the nets down on the other side
So what does the church need to do differently? Tim offers two crucial shifts:
1. Make room for spiritual experience, not just information
“These young people are hungry for spirituality. They're not hungry to sit in a church service,” Tim explains. “If they engage in our church services and there is no spirituality, don't be surprised if they seek to satiate that appetite somewhere else.”
He's talking about the proactive stewarding of God's presence and power - encounter, not just explanation. “We sometimes robbed Christianity of the thing that makes it so powerful, which is the presence of God,” he says.
Yes, we need to be seeker-sensitive and explain what's happening. But we can't dilute or hide from the presence and power of God moving in our midst. "In this cultural moment, that's a grave missional error.”
At Limitless Festival, they keep the program tight at the front specifically to leave loads of space for the Holy Spirit. “God is faithful. When we draw near to Him, He draws near to us.”
The challenge for many leaders? Our services are programmed to the minute. Songs, notices, sermon - where's the space to simply say, “Okay, Holy Spirit, whatever You want?”
2. Offer intergenerational spiritual family
For churches worried they don't have young people or a youth worker, Tim has encouraging news: “The thing that young people are most warmed to are churches that feel like family.”
So many Gen Z come from broken homes and complicated family situations. What they need are spiritual parents and grandparents who know how to love people well.
“Some of the best youth workers I know are 50-plus,” Tim says. “They don't consider themselves youth workers - they just know how to love people.”
There's no pressure to pretend you're young or relevant. “Authenticity trumps relevance every single time." Be like Billy Graham at his final public address to hundreds of thousands of young people: "I'm old enough to be your granddad, and I want to talk to you like your granddad.”
Don't miss the moment
Tim's final encouragement comes from Mark 1, where Jesus is in the middle of a revival - the sick are healed, demons are cast out, the whole town is at the door. But instead of capitalising on the momentum, Jesus goes away to pray. When the disciples find Him, confused and urgent, Jesus says: “Let's go somewhere else.”
“Our job in ministry is not to build the greatest, biggest ministry empire possible,” Tim reflects. “Our job is to listen to what God is asking us to do and to do that.”
Yes, there are principles to employ and cultural insights to understand. But ultimately, we need to listen to the Lord to discern what He's asking us to do in our specific context and locality. That's where we will bear the most fruit.
The quiet revival is happening. The question is: will we put our nets down on the other side?
Take Action
Listen to the full conversation between Mark Pugh and Tim Alford on the Elim Leaders Podcast: creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/elimleaders
Share this episode with youth leaders, pastors, and anyone working with young people in your church.
Leave a comment on your podcast platform - we'd love to hear how this conversation impacts you.
Explore Limitless resources including training events, Limitless Pioneers (helping churches start new youth works), and the Limitless Festival at limitlesselim.co.uk
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Stay tuned for our next episode with more inspiration and transformational leadership.