The generation we thought we were losing may be showing up again. What kind of church will they find?
While I was working on our recent article about small churches and declining church attendance, I came across something I almost included near the end and moved on from.
I’m glad I didn’t, because I think it deserves its own conversation.
For years we’ve heard essentially the same story about younger generations and Christianity. About all groups really. Churches are getting older while people are walking away.
There is plenty of truth behind that story. We shouldn’t pretend otherwise. The last article i wrote went into some of the numbers not just for the small church but for the country as a whole.
But something interesting has been happening.
Barna’s recent research found that Gen Z Christians who attend church are now showing up more frequently than older generations. The typical Gen Z churchgoer attends about 1.9 weekends per month, with Millennials close behind at 1.8. Barna says those are the highest attendance levels they’ve recorded for young Christians since they began tracking them.
And i can see it too. Some of the brightest and best youth i know i see at church every sunday. One of them is there more than I am, attending with friends, helping with children and stuarding others to christ.
This year Barna asked pastors what they were seeing with the youth in their churchs. Forty-five percent said they had seen increased engagement from Gen Z.
That’s enough to make you stop for a minute.
Maybe the generation we’ve spent years talking about losing isn’t quite as finished with church as we thought.
Are We Seeing the Beginning of Revival?
For the first time in a while, there are some real reasons to be hopeful.
Over the last year we have watched story after story come out of college campuses where thousands of young adults are gathering to worship, hear the gospel, and publicly respond to Christ. At the University of South Florida, nearly 7,000 students gathered for a UniteUS event, with organizers reporting more than 1,000 decisions for Christ and over 300 baptisms. Around 8,000 students gathered at the University of Tennessee. Thousands more have gathered at Clemson, Oklahoma, Ohio State, NC State, and other campuses across the country.
These aren’t just a handful of young people quietly showing a little more interest in religion. We are seeing arenas filled with college students worshiping together, Bible studies growing inside fraternities and sororities, young adults being baptized, and ministries reporting thousands of people making decisions to follow Christ.
Can we definitively call that a nationwide revival yet? Maybe not. But I also don’t think we should be so cautious that we miss something encouraging happening right in front of us.
The numbers we’ve already seen from Barna make these stories even more interesting. Gen Z Christians who attend church are showing up more often. Pastors are reporting greater engagement from younger adults. Bible reading among younger Christians has also been moving upward.
There seems to be a real spiritual hunger there.
And maybe that’s the part churches should pay the most attention to.
Young adults may be looking for more than a polished Sunday service. They may be looking for something increasingly difficult to find outside the church. People who know them. A place to belong. Purpose. Relationships that last longer than an online interaction. A community where someone actually notices when they don’t show up.
If Gen Z really is beginning to walk back through the doors of our churches, that’s incredibly hopeful.
Now we have to ask what kind of church they’re going to find when they get there.
The numbers are encouraging, but the more interesting question may be why.
Over the last year we have watched thousands of young adults gather on college campuses to worship, hear the gospel, pray together, and be baptized. We can debate whether that is enough to call it revival yet, but there is clearly a hunger there.
Gen Z has grown up in a world that is constantly connected and, at the same time, very often incredibly isolating. Everything moves quickly. Conversations happen through screens. Friendships can be spread across half a dozen apps and time zones. You can make a thousand likes and retweets and never once make an actual connection.
The church can offer something very different.
Community. Togetherness. People who know your name. Different generations sitting in the same room. A place where questions can be asked face to face and where someone notices when you aren’t there. A community that offers something greater than shallow engagement, but actual meaning and answers to a life of questions.
Some of the most diligent Christians I know are part of this generation. I know young adults less than half my age who are already on their second or third Bible because they have worn through them. Their pages are marked up. Notes fill the margins. They ask questions, sometimes difficult ones, because they genuinely want to understand the word of God.
There is a real thirst for the Word there, and churches should be careful not to meet that hunger with suspicion or condemnation.
Young people are going to walk into our churches carrying questions, experiences, doubts, and habits that may look different from ours. Our first response cannot be to tell them everything that is wrong with them.
Listen to them. Learn their names. Let them ask questions. Invite them into the life of the church. Give them opportunities to serve and relate with Christians who have walked with Christ longer than they have been alive. I see this in my own children as they get older, and atleast where I am I have hopes for this generation and those that come after them.
If this generation is looking for community, truth, and something deeper than the fast-moving online world around them, the church already has something incredibly valuable to offer.
We just need to make sure the doors are open when they come looking.
