CNLP 778 | Tapping the Brakes on The Talk of Revival: David Kinnaman Nuances What's Happening with Christianity in America + Digital Discipleship
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
Carey Nieuwhof
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2026
⏱️ 94 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is America in revival? Well, not quite, according to Barna CEO David Kinnaman, who joins Carey to discuss 2026 church trends.
New data shows overall American Christianity is still in decline AND that Gen Z men are dialing into Jesus, young adults are the most churched group in America, and that we're setting ourselves up for a succession crisis.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Art of Leadership Network. |
| 0:03.0 | We're not quite ready to declare America in revival. |
| 0:06.0 | Is that true? |
| 0:06.6 | That is absolutely correct. |
| 0:07.8 | How come? |
| 0:08.5 | Why not? |
| 0:09.7 | Well, listen, it's a big country, for one. |
| 0:13.5 | One of the central themes is that most people are Christian, they have a Christian background. |
| 0:19.1 | But that level of Christian identity has declined over |
| 0:22.4 | 25 years from 83% to 71%. Welcome to the Kerry Newhoff Leadership Podcast. It's Carrie here. I'm so |
| 0:33.1 | glad you joined us, whether you're watching, wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening. And to all of you who are brand new, really glad that you joined us. We know we got a lot of next-gen leaders, actually, that's the majority of our audience. So really glad that you're with us. We're going to be talking about you, going to be talking about the church. And I'm excited because we're doing a deep dive into our 2626 church trends. I release every year. Church |
| 0:56.2 | trends for the year thinks I'm watching with a lot of research behind them. And today, I am sitting |
| 1:01.4 | down with the one and only David Kinneman. He is the CEO of Barna, the research group that so many |
| 1:07.7 | of you know. He is an author. He is a speaker. He's a friend. He's a top leader. |
| 1:13.1 | And one of the minds and the hearts that I cherish most in the church these days. And I got |
| 1:19.3 | questions. I call David. And we get a long friendship and we're bringing that to you today |
| 1:24.2 | on the podcast. So we're going to dive right into my conversation with David |
| 1:29.3 | Kinneman, the CEO of the Barnagroup. Well, it's so good to be in studio with David Kinneman. |
| 1:35.0 | David, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks, Kerry. Great to be here. It's our annual church |
| 1:39.2 | trends month. We are diving into the data, trying to make sense of what we're seeing. You and I were just, |
| 1:47.5 | before we started recording, going over some data that was just in from Barnet, even before |
| 1:52.9 | I wrote the Church Trends report. And it's sort of what we were talking about even a year ago |
... |
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