Re.Vitalize Trust, pre-Christian mission, and what the American Church should prepare for now

* Part 3 of a series: The Re-Enchanted Mission Field: Britain, America, and the Gospel after Secularism. Part 1, Part 2.

The most urgent word I heard in London was not “revival.” It was “now.”

Sarah Jackson, the CEO of Re.Vitalize Trust, begged the 400 people present at her talk to address the disappearance of Christianity now. In London, they were in a corner called destruction, and it made them scrappy. But, she said, it would be so much easier to recover if you will deal with dying churches with a heartbeat now.

That plea may be the most important lesson for the Church in the United States. Not panic, not nostalgia, not denial. Just NOW.

Mapping the disappearance

Before that plea, Sarah Jackson had spent two hours sharing how a series of 2016 articles in the British press declared Christianity dead in the youngest generation, and on life support with those older. She was charged by Nicky Gumbel, then the vicar at Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London, to map church attendance across England to see if it was true.

It was, in fact, very close to true.

So they prayed. And then they created a plan to reintroduce Christianity to England again. That plan became Re.Vitalize Trust.

The basic insight was simple and almost impossible: if they planted or revitalized three churches a year — in the empty churches scattered throughout England — in twelve years they would begin to reverse that death sentence and continue moving toward greater and greater growth. But something had to happen quickly, because churches were being sold and turned into restaurants and shops (no exaggeration).

With what felt like an impossible plan, they began collaborating with the Church of England. With their permission, they helped create alternative pathways for older vocations and younger people who wanted to serve but were not college-track in their schooling. Upon bishops’ invitations, they began planting teams of mission-formed leaders into empty churches. These teams included four to six people, often one ordained, with others trained in social mission, evangelical outreach, music and worship, and parish operations.

Ten years later, they have planted or revitalized 200 churches throughout the British Isles. And these are growing churches serving the spiritual and material needs of their communities.

Decline and renewal can both be true

This is where the story becomes more nuanced than “Britain is secularizing” versus “Britain is reviving.” Both can be true.

The United Kingdom still has declining Christian identification overall, declining average attendance, large-scale church closures, weak sacramental participation nationally, and profound institutional distrust. But at the same time, some Christian ecosystems are becoming smaller, more intentional, more conversion-driven, more networked, more entrepreneurial, and more focused on mission. That is very different from the old parish civilization model. It is also different from despair.

The Re.Vitalize story matters because it shows what can happen when Christian leaders refuse to choose between realism and wishes. They mapped decline. They prayed. They formed leaders. They collaborated with bishops. They reclaimed empty churches. They sent teams. They made first proclamation central. They built an ecosystem that could receive people when spiritual hunger surfaced.

Reintroducing Christian mission hubs — also known as churches — to Britain at the same time that secularism was crumbling from within was a stroke of God-designed genius. And it likely has a great deal to do with the sudden reversal of fortune for Christianity in some parts of the UK.

The resource church question

One of the most important developments in England is the rise of what are often called resource churches. These are strategically located churches, often urban, often younger, often evangelistic, designed not only to survive but to plant, train, renew, and send.

They are not random “new churches.” The Re.Vitalize and Holy Trinity Brompton ecosystem is highly strategic: leadership pipelines, charismatic evangelical worship, Alpha as a front door, a strong young adult focus, high production quality, deliberate church planting culture, diocesan partnerships, and often planting into dying Anglican parishes rather than starting independently. This is not accidental growth. It is an unusually organized renewal ecosystem. And many of the plants appear to have real local vitality.

Of course, the model has its critics: too charismatic, too urban-focused. But the model also matters because it is one of the few visibly fruitful evangelization strategies currently operating in a deeply secularized environment. The question for the American Catholic Church is not: can we copy this exactly? We cannot (although we can copy pieces of this, and should). The better question is: what did they see that we are not yet willing to see?

Culturally post-Christian, experientially pre-Christian

This brings us back to the language of “pre-Christian.” Britain is not historically pre-Christian. It is obviously post-Christian in its institutions, architecture, public memory, and moral imagination. But many younger adults are experientially pre-Christian.

They do not know the biblical story. They do not have Christian memory. They are not reacting against catechesis, because they were never catechized. They may not hate Christianity because they do not know enough Christianity to hate it. That creates a very different mission field.

A culturally post-Christian but experientially pre-Christian generation does not need the Church to assume knowledge, guilt, resentment, or inherited belonging. It needs the Church to proclaim. It needs the Church to explain. It needs the Church to welcome. It needs the Church to accompany. It needs the Church to be unembarrassed by Jesus.

This may be the most important pastoral distinction in the whole conversation. People are not necessarily coming back. Some are encountering Christianity as if for the first time.

What about the United States?

The United States is not Britain. Our numbers of atheists have not been as high. Our Christian identification remains higher. Our religious landscape is different. Our Catholic and Protestant realities are different. Our political entanglements are different. Our geography is different. Our parish structures are different.

And yet, among Gen Z and Millennials, the “pre-Christian” label may make more sense than many of us want to admit. Many younger Americans are not formed by Christian language, Christian community, Christian worship, Christian moral imagination, or Christian practice. But they are not simply secular atheists either.

Here is where Christian Smith and the England story belong together. The American mission field may be post-Christian in cultural residue, pre-Christian in lived experience, and re-enchanted in spiritual appetite. That means we may be dealing with people who carry fragments of Christian moral inheritance, have little direct Christian formation, distrust institutions, and yet remain hungry for meaning, transcendence, healing, beauty, ritual, silence, and God.

That is not an easy mission field. But it is a mission field. And the Church should stop pretending that maintenance will reach it.

Empty churches or mission-shaped parishes?

We have empty churches here. Would Re.Vitalize’s approach work here in the United States? In some places, I believe so. Not in the same way. Not without translation. Not without ecclesial discernment. Not without Catholic imagination. Not without serious attention to place, class, culture, leadership, parish history, and the sacramental life of the Church.

But the deeper question is not whether we can copy Britain. The deeper question is whether we can imagine our churches as mission hubs again. Not simply maintenance buildings. Not inherited religious service centers. Not sacramental filling stations. Not places waiting for people to return to a culture that no longer exists.

Mission hubs are mission-shaped parishes.

Places where the gospel is proclaimed clearly. Places where seekers can ask real questions. Places where hospitality is not a committee but a culture. Places where people can encounter Jesus Christ, be accompanied, be formed, and be sent. Places where social mission, worship, proclamation, and parish operations are not competing departments but part of one evangelical ecosystem. Places where leaders know their mission field. Places where teams are formed. Places where people who have no Christian memory can be welcomed without embarrassment, condescension, or panic. Places where the first proclamation is actually shared first.

Prepare before it is obvious

Sarah Jackson’s plea to “plant renewal now” was not triumphalist. It was urgent. And for the Church, that urgency is not only strategic; it is scriptural: “Now is the appointed time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

That does not mean panic. It means readiness. It means learning the mission field in front of us rather than the one we wish we still had. It means recovering the first proclamation, becoming unembarrassed by Jesus Christ, and preparing parishes that can welcome people with no Christian memory, no church vocabulary, and no inherited faith, but real hunger for God.

The question is not whether Britain’s experience can be copied here. The question is whether we are willing to prepare before the signs are obvious. If spiritually curious people began walking into our churches tomorrow, would we know how to welcome them, proclaim Christ to them, accompany them, and form them?

Now is the appointed time.

Watch this space.

This article is part 3 of a three part series. See the first two articles linked at the top.