► Listen on Amazon
► Listen on Apple
► Listen on Spotify
► Listen on YouTube
You can find previous episodes of “The Stone Chapel Podcast” at Lanier Theological Library.
“The Stone Chapel Podcast” is part of the ChurchLeaders Podcast Network.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and space.
Ed Stetzer
Ed Stetzer, the Dean of the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University.
David Capes
Dr. Ed Stetzer, Ed, good to see you. Welcome back to “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
Ed Stetzer
The coolest named podcast in all the world with one of my favorite New Testament scholars. So good to be here with you. David.
David Capes
Oh, man, it’s exciting. And what I’m excited about is the fact that you and some of your friends are going to be here June 21, 2025, on your “Lead the Way” tour. So, what is the “Lead the Way” tour all about?
Ed Stetzer
Okay, it’s a little strange. So, you know the Talbot School of Theology is the third-largest multi-denominational seminary in the world. We’re growing, and we got this amazing faculty. So I wanted to create a tour where I could help get the word out about our amazing faculty. As a New Testament scholar, you know some of our amazing New Testament folks. Clint Arnold just published an 800-page volume on Colossians. We’ve got these amazing people.
I literally got a Sprinter van. I didn’t use tuition money. It came from a donor, by the way. And I’m driving around doing pastors’ conferences. In the last four months, I’ve spoken to 10,000 pastors and church leaders, telling them about the cultural moment. How the moment we’re in doesn’t pause the mission we’re on. I’m literally driving around in a Sprinter van. When I’m with you in Houston, Ed Stetzer will have driven the van across the Southwest. We’re doing a stop in Dallas the day before, and I’m sleeping in the van on the way. And we’re just having fun getting the word out about Talbot.
David Capes
It’s about Talbot, but it’s also about the state of the church, where the church is right now.
Ed Stetzer
Overwhelming yes. I’m getting the word out about Talbot, but the whole focus of the tour is on, and actually powered by the State of the Church, which is this cooperative venture with Gloo and Barna. It’s basically looking at the trends, the changes in religion. I wrote an article in USA Today, and the New York Times also had a story about the shifts in religion, including increased attendance for Gen Z men and the state of the Bible.
John Plake of the American Bible Society will be with us at the Lanier Theological Library. John has the “state of the Bible” data, which is showing shifts of interest towards the positive to Bible engagement, particularly among young men. David Kinnaman of the Barna Group will be there. He’s going to talk about research data. Every month the Barna Group is releasing new research about the state of the church. You can go to stateofthechurch.com if people want to follow along. Nicole Martin of Christianity Today is going to be there. She’s been tracking trends, talking about what’s going on in culture.
So this is why I love The Lanier Theological Library. I’ve been doing most of these stops by myself. But you brought the whole band. We’ve got John Plake from American Bible Society, Nicole Martin from Christianity Today. We got David Kinnaman from Barna, and me, your favorite motivational speaker, who’s actually is living in a van “down by the river”!
David Capes
I started to say we’ve got a river not too far from here. So we could arrange that! Let’s just camp out down there. Now this is really exciting. There’s some interesting things happening as you know, in culture right now. Some surprising things. We’ve had this trend about the growth of “nones” for a number of years.
Ed Stetzer
For 30 years, there has been 1% more Americans identify as “nones” than the year before. Until about three years ago.
David Capes
And we’ve seen a different kind of trend happening. We don’t want to give away what you’re doing, because we want people to hear the whole story.
Ed Stetzer
There’s plenty to say, so I’m not giving away much. There’s a crisis of young men in our culture. There’s a crisis in our culture in general. And one of the things we find is that when cultures go through tumultuous and turbulent times, people realize they’re building their houses on sinking sand. So, among young men in particular, and non-college educated young men in particular, there’s a crisis, and they’re looking for something other than what they have now. Some of them are turning to really bad things like Andrew Tate and the hyper sick masculinity and all the terribleness that is around Andrew Tate’s name. Some of them are turning to Joe Rogan. He’s not in the same category, but some of them are turning to Joe Rogan. But here’s the thing for me, I don’t want them to be discipled by Joe Rogan. I want them to be discipled by the older men in churches that believe and teach the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that’s also happening as well.
Let me give you an example. I’m going to unpack this more at the meeting. For the first time in the history of tracking religion research in America, more Gen Z young men are going to church than Gen Z young women. If the front-page news wasn’t just crazy every day, that would be on the front page of the news. Now, there is a genuine increase in young men, but also young women are dropping out of church at a higher rate than we’ve seen before. So, there’s a bit of a bifurcation going on between young men and young women. So, it’s not all good news.
I’m going to talk about the rise of Bible sales. Wall Street Journal, on the front page says there’s a 23% jump in Bible sales, mostly driven by first time buyers. So there’s definitely something going on in culture. We’ve been friends a long time and we served together as Wheaton Colleges Deans. So you know I ran LifeWay Research, before I went to the Billy Graham Center. I did research, and I told people all the time, quit overreacting. Just read the trends one at a time.
The planning for “state of the church” started in 2024. I’m just telling you the data right now couldn’t have come at a better time to get before pastors and tell them the story. For pastors, church leaders, interested Christians, we’re going to unpack this. You’re going to hear from four of us, which I think is unusual for what you do at Lanier.
David Capes
It’s very unusual to bring in that many people for these talks. The talks aren’t going to be super long, maybe 20-25 minutes. We’re going to have a lot of opportunities for you guys to take questions together. It’s going to be a great opportunity for church leaders. Anybody that at the helm of a church, a deacon or elder, they could be a part of this as well. We want them to know about it.
