Reflecting on the role of faith among young cadets and civilians during the 2019 Christmas season, we looked at the proportion of our sample that claimed to be Christian in these groups. We continue this journey by digging a little deeper. This time, we examine the proportion of young people who actively try to share their faith lives. Most of our sample are on a college campus or an academy, many of whom live in a micro community where they work, sleep and study. It is in this same environment where they live out their faith. Do they actively reach out to other people to share their faith?

We use our most recent data, collected from 2017 to 2023 (N=3,012). Here, we see a different picture emerge when we ask the question, “Have you ever tried to encourage someone to believe in Jesus Christ or to accept Jesus Christ as his or her savior?” Our previous findings suggested that cadets, especially academy cadets, were much more likely to identify as Christian than their civilian counterparts with 80% of academy cadets but only 63% of civilian students claiming to be Christians. When it comes to outreach, it appears that 39% of academy cadets and 32% of civilian cadets say that they have asked someone to believe in Jesus. However, these differences do not appear to be statistically significant (Chi-Square=5.568, p<.234). This finding probably reflects the small number of civilians in our latest data, just 209.

Many would consider Christian evangelization as an invitation from a believer to convince others to join their deeply held beliefs. Our data demonstrate that about a third of our sample, no matter their military affiliation, has actively tried to do this. As another Christmas season comes to an end, our data give us some insights into the spiritual lives of young people today.