Welcome to the podcast. Hey, we're going to dive into today's conversation in a few minutes.

But first, my monthly segment with David Kinneman from the Barna Group,

we are talking about the state of the church.

And right now, we've got Bible reading like Bible trends under the microscope.

What are we learning?

Well, we're excited to announce that we're seeing some real substantial rise in Bible reading among Americans.

So the data show that there has been a significant rise in the percentage of Americans who say they read the Bible in the last seven days.

It has really bounced back in this last 12 to 24 months. A lot of the other trends

have been bouncing back since COVID over the last four or five years, but Bible reading

in particular has taken a couple of years. But we see that just about half of all Americans say

they read the Bible in typical month. And COVID times, it was actually down to 30%. So it's a big significant.

It was down to 30% five or six years ago and all of a sudden it's up to fit. That's huge.

It's not quite a doubling. Forty-fourty-six percent currently. Wow. So that's a big shift.

And the real notable thing is that just like some of the other trends that we're

reporting, the most significant increase is among Gen Z and Millennials.

Gen Z has doubled their reported reading of the Bible in the last year, which is just like

mind-boggling. Millennials have gone from

about 18% to 34%. So they're just about double, not quite. And so it's this sort of resurgence

of spiritual interest, and especially among younger generations that is defining American spirituality

right now.

Well, I've heard a lot about Bible sales, but, you know, I don't know about you. I bought a couple of books I haven't read behind me yet.

But, you know, Bible reading is a really encouraging trend. So we're seeing that spike up. It's funny, even at our church, I was meeting with my lead pastor

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