As students gathered for extended worship, prayer and repentance at Southeastern University in Florida last month, author and speaker Jennie Allen said what she witnessed felt strikingly similar to the early days of the revival that broke out at Asbury University in Kentucky in 2023.
Allen, founder of IF:Gathering and Gather25, a vision to mobilize the global Church, had been traveling across college campuses with the Unite ministry when she was invited to speak at the Florida university. She said she did not expect what followed: hours of worship, public confession and an undeniable spiritual outpouring.
“We have been blessed to be on the road on about 20 campuses,” the Dallas-based Bible teacher told The Christian Post. “And we have seen over and over again a huge response to repentance, to the Gospel, to baptism, and it’s just been beautiful and amazing.”
The moment that seemed to shift the atmosphere at Southeastern, Allen recalled, came during a time of confession following her message.
“I got up, I spoke, the room did confession, which I’ve done in many rooms before,” she said. “But a girl yelled out ‘abortion’ as loud as she could.”
The student, Allen said, collapsed to the floor after speaking the word aloud.
“I think after that, it got real,” she said. “Everyone began saying things that were harder to say.”
For about 15 minutes, students publicly confessed struggles they had been carrying privately. Soon afterward, Allen said, a call to vocational ministry and missions drew an overwhelming response.
“Two-thirds of the room came forward to go into vocational ministry or onto the mission field,” she said. “It was insane.”
The gathering continued for hours and eventually days, with students remaining in worship and prayer late into the night. Allen said she changed her flight to stay longer, eventually remaining in the room until 3 a.m.
“What I’ve told people that feel like it’s emotionalism is: imagine not looking at your phone for six hours and worshiping and praying for six hours,” she said. “And now imagine that for 10 days. Nobody can. And that’s what happened.”
For Allen, the events unfolding on campuses reflect a deeper spiritual hunger she believes is growing among Gen Z. At the same time she has been witnessing revival-like moments, Allen has been researching and writing about what she calls “hidden lies” shaping the next generation, the subject of her new book, The Lie You Don’t Know You Believe, which recently became a New York Times bestseller.
Among the most common struggles students confess, she said, are feelings of worthlessness, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Many students are gripped by fear about the future and shaped by unspoken, painful experiences earlier in life.
“There’s a lot of suicide ideation happening, which is absolutely heartbreaking,” Allen said. “I’ll have the most precious girls looking in my eyes, saying, ‘I want to take my life.’ This happens almost every time I speak on a campus.”
“Underneath addiction, whether it’s pornography, drugs, alcohol or sex, there’s usually a story of something that happened to them at a certain age that they can’t forget,” she said.
Yet Allen said the desperation many young people feel is also fueling their spiritual openness. The mother of four said she’s personally baptized hundreds of students over the past two and a half years and heard testimonies from young people coming to faith despite having no Christian background.
“The desperation is the reason this outpouring of the Lord is happening,” she said. “They’ve tried everything the world has to offer, and they’re sick of it. They want something different.”
“They’re coming to Christ, and they have two atheist parents,” she added. “They’re coming to Christ and they have addiction that they never touch again after that.”
The author stressed the mental health crisis affecting Gen Z is closely tied to deeper spiritual struggles, particularly beliefs about identity and worth. Many people, she added, accept these narratives without realizing it because the beliefs were formed in childhood.
“We are living in our heads, believing what the enemy has said about us to be true,” she said. “And when we believe those lies, we miss God’s purposes for our lives.”
“Most of us can remember the first time we believed we were worthless or had to measure up,” she said. “Those thoughts dig deep trenches for decades, so we think they’re true.”
The process of healing, she contended, often begins with naming those thoughts out loud.
“Even asking the question, ‘Could this be a lie?’ is powerful,” she said. “As long as it stays in our head and isn’t named out loud to someone and to the Lord, it has all the power.”
Allen recently illustrated that point in an informal video interview she filmed with strangers along the Katy Trail in Dallas, asking them to say the negative thoughts they believed about themselves.
“One girl had tears in her eyes and said she had never said it out loud before,” Allen recalled. “The moment she did, she said, ‘I’ve wasted a lot of time thinking about this.’”
While older generations often assume Gen Z is spiritually disengaged, Allen believes the opposite is happening. In fact, many students she’s encountered say they’ve heard about Christianity but have never personally experienced the message of grace.
Moments of public confession, like the one she witnessed at Southeastern, often become turning points, Allen said.
“They want God,” she said. “This is not complicated for them. They feel hopeless and helpless, and when they hear that the God of the universe loves them and knows their name, they’re in.”
“A seven-foot athlete stood in front of me with tears falling down his face and said, ‘I never knew God loved me,’” she recalled. “When things are named out loud, when confession is practiced, there’s a movement of God in it. That girl yelling out ‘abortion’ in that room was, I think, the moment the outpouring began.”
Looking ahead, Allen said the simplicity of Gen Z’s faith gives her hope for the future of the Church.
“They’re so compelled by the love of God that they want to make a difference,” she said. “It’s really simple for them. Jesus changed their life, and they want other people to experience that too.”
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]
