Are we living in a ‘new season’ in the UK?

Much has happened over the past year to expand imagination, expectations and hope around what the Lord may be doing in the UK at this moment.

For more than 25 years I have travelled the length and breadth of the nation preaching the gospel and encouraging Christians and churches to reach out to those around them. For much of that time, it’s often felt like swimming against the cultural tide. But in 2025, something changed.

For the first time, it felt as though the wind was at my back rather than in my face as I shared the gospel. Stories of people coming to faith – both miraculous and ordinary – increased significantly. Additionally there was a growing body of encouraging research and an increasing number of public figures openly professing faith in Jesus. From social media to individual conversations over coffee, there is a tangible sense that we are living in a new season in the UK. To borrow an image from Narnia, it feels as though winter is over, spring has arrived, and we are praying this season will mature into summer.

These experiences led me into 2026 with deep and authentic hope. I find myself believing afresh that the Lord is able to do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph.3v20). This renewed hope was further strengthened by recent research revealing that the much-publicised 87% rise in UK Bible sales was more conservative than the reality. Bible sales in the UK have actually increased by an astonishing 134% over the past five years.

This surge has been widely reported across the media. From the Daily Mail to The Guardian, Sky News to ITV News, and in discussions on mainstream programmes such as This Morning. This is the highest level of Bible sales since records began. Last year alone, UK Bible sales reached £6.3 million, compared with £3.16 million in 2019.

This is remarkable. It is not as though the Bible was struggling to sell in the first place. I remember sitting at a leaders’ conference many years ago when the speaker was asked: “How will we ever know if the UK is heading towards revival?” He answered immediately with: “When the secular media start reporting on it.” I do not want to get ahead of ourselves, but for the first time in my lifetime it feels as though the ground is genuinely ready for a significant move of God.

It is particularly striking that much of this growth is amongst Gen Z and millennials. For years, we have assumed younger generations were largely uninterested in Christianity. Increasingly, the evidence suggests the opposite. As a parent of teenagers and a member of Gen X myself, I’ve often felt surrounded by peers for whom atheism was the default belief framework of choice. Now it increasingly feels like the Gen Z children of the Gen X generation are rejecting their parents’ secularism in favour of the hope found in Jesus. It really does feel like things have gone full circle with my own generation having previously perhaps rejected the faith of their parents in favour of secularism.

The secular tsunami that felt overpowering and overwhelming is being pushed back in our day. Something has significantly shifted in our cultural landscape and the church must respond to the moment that we are living in. So how should we respond? We cannot live by yesterday’s rules in today’s world. We need to replace a long-term narrative of decline with a fresh narrative of hope.

My prayer is that 2025 was not a positive blip, but the beginning of something far more significant for the church in this nation. I hope you will join me in praying that what has begun in small and often unseen ways would grow into something far bigger in the days ahead.