I wasn’t sure I was going to write about this. When the Bible Society released their research under the title The Quiet Revival, I thought others would say what needed saying. I wasn’t sure I had anything to add beyond their careful analysis and thoughtful conclusions. But over the past few weeks, I’ve been unsettled by what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen. The phrase has kept tugging at me. And now here I am, writing about the very thing I hesitated to touch.
Two moments have stuck with me. The first came when I heard people praying: “Let’s make the quiet revival loud!” The assumption was that quiet isn’t enough, that unless it fills a stadium or trends on social media, it doesn’t really count. The second came when I noticed an increase of street preachers – people with megaphones on high streets, shouting Bible verses at passers-by, and complaining when they were asked to move on, as if that were some political attack on freedom of speech.
Both moments left me wondering. Have we confused loudness with faithfulness? Have we bought into the culture of noise?
Because the world we live in seems dominated by the loudest voices. Politicians who shout their way into headlines. Media personalities who speak with certainty on every subject, even when they’re wrong. Commentators who thrive on outrage because outrage gets clicks. It’s as if volume has become the measure of truth. If you want to be heard, you have to be louder than everyone else.
But is that the way of Jesus? Is that the rhythm of God’s kingdom?
I don’t think it is. Loud is empire. Quiet is God.
Miracles
What strikes me about the miracles of Jesus is how varied they were – sometimes public, sometimes private, sometimes whispered about, sometimes proclaimed. He healed in synagogues and temple courts, on roadsides and hillsides, in kitchens and bedrooms. He even healed at a distance, with nothing more than a word.
At times he told people to keep it quiet. At other times he sent them home to share the news. But what’s consistent is this: the miracles were never staged for spectacle. They weren’t designed to generate noise or to build hype.
Each one was personal. A face-to-face encounter, a response to faith, a glimpse of God’s kingdom breaking in for that person, in that moment, in that place. Whether hidden in a back room or witnessed by a crowd, the focus was never on the volume of the story afterwards. It was on the relationship, the presence, the faith, the love revealed in quiet power.
That’s what I find so striking. Jesus carried power without spectacle. He embodied a miraculous quiet.
Relationship
And that thread continues.
Jesus wasn’t a Bible-basher. He wasn’t quoting verses at people as if they were ammunition. He embodied the Word in flesh and blood. He lived it, carried it, and offered it through relationship.
When Zacchaeus climbed a tree to see him, Jesus didn’t shout a sermon. He invited himself to dinner. When he met the woman at the well, he didn’t condemn her. He asked her questions. He listened. He stayed with her long enough for honesty to rise to the surface.
Even his miracles were relational. He touched people, looked them in the eye, listened to their voices. The power was never impersonal. It was always presence.
And this is what the early church carried forward. They didn’t out-shout Rome. They didn’t buy billboards or dominate public squares with noise. They gathered in homes. They prayed in whispers. They broke bread and shared life. And somehow, without volume, their witness spread. Not because they shouted the loudest, but because they loved the deepest. Neighbours looked at them and said: “See how they love one another.”
Substance, not surface. Relationship, not rhetoric.
The Hidden
Here’s the challenge: we don’t like hiddenness.
We live in an age of exposure. Everything is documented, shared, amplified. Even the quiet must be branded, posted, made visible. We struggle to believe that something hidden could have power.
But the kingdom, His kingdom, is hidden by design. A seed in the soil. Yeast folded into dough. A whisper instead of a storm. Growth that begins underground, invisible, slow – and yet unstoppable.
This is why Jesus resisted turning miracles into spectacles. It’s why the early church didn’t build empires of volume. Because the kingdom doesn’t need pomp. It doesn’t need to mimic Rome’s parades or today’s marketing strategies. It moves differently. In the quiet. Hidden.
Rome was the empire of Jesus’ time – loud, triumphal, full of pomp and circumstance. Its armies marched with fanfare. Its victories were carved in stone. Its power was designed to be seen and heard. And in many ways, we still live under empire today. Not Rome, but the empires of politics, consumerism, media. They thrive on volume. They thrive on attention.
But God calls us to another way. A way that doesn’t depend on noise to be real. A way that trusts the hidden work of the Spirit in everyday lives, in small communities, in unremarkable moments of love.
A Necessary Confession
And I should pause here with a confession. Because even as I write this, I know I’m using social media to share it. I’m posting reflections about quiet and hiddenness into the loudest platforms of our age. Is that hypocritical? Perhaps it could be.
But here’s how I see it. There’s a difference between amplification and invitation. There’s a difference between chasing noise and offering space. When I share these words, I don’t want to add to the shouting. I want to open up room for reflection. I want to offer a pause in the middle of the scroll.
That’s not to say I always get it right. I’m caught in the same tension as anyone else. But perhaps that’s part of living faithfully in an empire of noise – recognising the temptation to be loud, and choosing instead to create space for quiet, even in public places.
A Concluding Question
So I find myself returning to the question that first unsettled me.
What if revival was never meant to be loud? What if it was always meant to be carried in the miraculous moments that don’t make headlines, in the relationships that grow without fanfare, in the hidden work of a kingdom that doesn’t belong to empire?
And more than that: what if the growth of Christian community was always meant to be organic – slow, steady, built over time, woven into the relationships we form with the people around us in the everyday?
Because if that’s true, then the quiet revival is not something to make loud. It’s something to notice, to nurture, to live.
Maybe the kingdom has always grown this way. Not through shouting, but through sharing. Not through volume, but through love. Not through empire, but through God’s quiet, hidden work in the world.
And maybe that’s the invitation for us. To lean into the quiet. To resist the culture of noise. To trust that God is moving – in whispers, in hiddenness, in the slow, organic growth of love that changes lives more deeply than volume ever could.
Josh | A Curious Follower
If something here has stirred a thought or opened a question for you, I’d love to hear it. Not as noise to add to the crowd, but as part of a conversation — gentle, honest, human. You can share your reflections in the comments, or simply carry them into a chat with a friend.
A Curious Follower isn’t about shouting louder. It’s about noticing together, paying attention to the quiet ways change and connection grow. If you’d like to walk that journey with me, you’re welcome to subscribe — but even more than that, you’re welcome to join in the wondering.
Let’s keep listening. Let’s keep noticing. Let’s keep learning what the quiet might be saying.