Is Gen Z Coming Back to Church?

There have been some surprising headlines lately about young people and Christianity.

For decades, the story of religion in America seemed to move in only one direction. Church attendance declined. The number of Americans identifying as Christian declined. The number identifying with no religion increased. Each younger generation seemed less religious than the one before it.

But lately, something interesting has been happening.

Barna Group reports that among those who attend church, Gen Z and Millennials are now attending more frequently than older generations—a reversal of the pattern researchers had seen for decades. The typical Gen Z churchgoer now attends about 1.9 weekends per month, compared with an average of 1.6 among churched adults overall. Barna describes this as a meaningful increase in religious engagement among younger Christians.

So, is Gen Z coming back to church?

Maybe. But the evidence tells us not to get ahead of ourselves.

Pew Research Center has looked carefully at the same question, and its conclusion is much more cautious. Its national surveys find “no clear evidence” of a widespread religious revival among young adults.

Before going further, though, it is worth being clear about what I mean by revival. I am not talking about revivalism—the idea that the right methods, emotional experiences, or human decisions can somehow produce conversion or spiritual renewal. Scripture places the initiative with God. Jesus says, “The wind blows where it wishes” (John 3:8), and Paul reminds us that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

By revival, then, I mean something much simpler and, I believe, biblical: God bringing people to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ through His Word, renewing His people in faith, and drawing those who have wandered away back to Christ and His Church. We do not manufacture such a renewal. The Holy Spirit creates and sustains faith through the means God has given His Church.

And by that measure, we should be careful about declaring a revival just yet.

Today's young adults remain considerably less religious than older Americans. Among adults ages 18–24, 26% are former Christians, while only 5% are converts to Christianity. Young adults today are also less religious than young adults were ten or twenty years ago.

So we probably shouldn't start announcing the next Great Awakening.

But there is another part of the data that I find almost as interesting.

Something appears to have changed.

The decline appears to have stopped—or at least paused.

After decades of falling religious affiliation, worship attendance, prayer, and religious commitment, Pew has found remarkable stability since approximately 2020. About 70% of American adults continue to identify with some religion. Daily prayer has remained around 44–46%, and monthly worship attendance has remained in the low 30s.

Pew itself calls this stability “striking” because it follows such a prolonged period of decline.

Even more intriguingly, America's youngest adults are presently no less religious than the generation immediately ahead of them. Pew cautions that this has happened before and may not last as these young people age. We should take that warning seriously.

So this isn't a revival.

At least not yet.

But perhaps something has changed.

And that raises a question I find fascinating.

Have We Hit Rock Bottom?

That depends on what we mean by “rock bottom.”

If we mean, Has American society become as bad as it is going to get? I certainly don't know. Neither does anyone else.

Christians should be particularly humble about such predictions. God has not given us a secret map of His providence by which we can identify exactly where our civilization stands on some divine timeline.

But perhaps there is another way to think about “rock bottom.”

What if America isn't experiencing a religious revival at all?

What if we are simply beginning to discover that some of the things we trusted instead of God cannot deliver what they promised?

That's a different question.

And an interesting theory of history might help us think about it.

The Fourth Turning

In the 1990s, historians and generational theorists William Strauss and Neil Howe developed what became known as the theory of the Fourth Turning.

Strauss and Howe did not merely look at modern American history. They traced generational patterns through centuries of Anglo-American history, reaching back through the Reformation era.

They argued that societies tend to move through recurring generational cycles roughly corresponding to the length of a long human life—a saeculum. Within that larger cycle, they identified four “turnings.”

Institutions are built and strengthened.

A younger generation begins questioning those institutions and their underlying values.

Individualism increases while confidence in institutions deteriorates.

Finally comes a Fourth Turning—a Crisis—during which the contradictions and tensions that have accumulated become increasingly difficult to sustain. Institutions fail or are rebuilt, society reorganizes, and eventually another cycle begins.

Strauss and Howe saw versions of this pattern surrounding events such as the Reformation-era crises, the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and Second World War.

Long before our present turmoil, they predicted another period of major crisis in the early twenty-first century.

Now, we need to be careful.

The Fourth Turning is not Christian doctrine.

The Scriptures nowhere teach that civilizations operate according to an eighty-year clock. Strauss and Howe were historians and social theorists, not prophets. Their theory has critics, and history is always messier than the patterns we impose upon it.

But what if they noticed something about human beings that Christianity can help explain?

When Natural Law Snaps Back

When I was in seminary, one of my professors proposed an intriguing way for Christians to think about the Fourth Turning.

Could what Strauss and Howe observed sociologically have something to do with natural law and the first use of God's Law?

Lutherans traditionally speak of the first use of the Law as a curb. God uses His Law to restrain fallen humanity so that sin does not simply consume human society.

And that restraint isn't limited to people who believe in Christianity.

Paul writes that even those who do not possess God's revealed Law in Scripture nevertheless “show that the work of the law is written on their hearts” (Romans 2:15).

God has also created the world with an order.

• We are creatures, not creators.
• We have bodies.
• We need relationships.
• Children need care.
• Communities require trust.
• Freedom requires responsibility.
• Actions have consequences.
• Human beings need meaning and belonging.
• Sin damages people.
• We can rebel against that created order.

But we cannot repeal it.

And perhaps what Strauss and Howe describe as periodic social crisis is sometimes the consequence of generations pushing increasingly hard against created limits until reality itself becomes the curb.

Think about that.

God doesn't necessarily have to send some extraordinary catastrophe from heaven every time human beings rebel against His ordering of creation.

Sometimes the consequences are already contained within what we have chosen.

Scripture says:

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”

—Galatians 6:7

There is sowing.

Then there is often a period when nothing seems to happen.

And eventually there is reaping.

The delay can fool us into believing there are no consequences.

Until the harvest arrives.

Why Would This Happen in Generations?

Scripture actually gives us an interesting anthropology for this.

Judges tells us that after the generation that had experienced God's mighty acts died,

“there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.”

—Judges 2:10

The pattern that follows throughout Judges is painfully repetitive.

• God's people forget.
• They rebel.
• Disorder follows.
• They suffer.
• They cry out.
• God delivers them.
• Peace returns.
• And eventually another generation forgets.

Moses warned Israel about something similar in Deuteronomy 8. Interestingly, the greatest danger wasn't necessarily suffering.

It was prosperity.

They would eat and be full. They would build houses. Their wealth would multiply. Life would become comfortable.

And then Moses warned:

“your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God.”

Perhaps there is something deeply human about this.

One generation learns a lesson painfully and builds fences.

The next generation inherits the fences but not necessarily the painful experience that made them necessary.

Eventually someone asks:

Why is this fence here?

It begins to look arbitrary.

Restrictive.

Outdated.

Perhaps even oppressive.

So the fence comes down.

And for a while everything seems fine.

Until eventually someone discovers:

Oh. That's why the fence was there.

Maybe that is at least part of what Strauss and Howe observed.

Not a mysterious clock built into history.

But fallen humanity repeatedly forgetting what previous generations learned through suffering.

What If Some of Our Fences Have Come Down?

This is where the question becomes uncomfortable, because this isn't fundamentally about Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives.

Every human heart makes idols.

And modern American culture has made some enormous promises.

Individualism will make us free.

Yet we are experiencing profound loneliness.

Technology will connect us.

Yet many people have thousands of digital connections and very few people they can call at 2:00 in the morning.

Sexual freedom will liberate us.

Yet intimacy, marriage, family formation, and stable relationships remain extraordinarily difficult for many.

Career success will give us identity.

Yet burnout follows us everywhere.

Consumerism will satisfy us.

Yet there is always one more thing we need.

Social media will give us community.

Yet a follower is not necessarily a friend.

Self-expression will finally allow us to discover who we really are.

Yet constantly having to construct and defend an identity can become exhausting.

Politics will save the country.

Yet political participation increasingly functions like religion while leaving many of us frightened, angry, and suspicious of our neighbors.

And Christians don't get to stand outside this critique.

• Conservative or liberal politics cannot save us either.
• Capitalism, Communism, or Socialism cannot save us.
• Progressive or Traditional values cannot forgive sins.
• A favorable election cannot raise the dead.
• Even the Church as a human institution becomes an idol if preserving the institution becomes more important than the mission Christ has given it.

Every created thing eventually collapses when we ask it to carry the weight of a god.

So have we reached rock bottom?

I don't know.

But perhaps we don't need to know.

Maybe a more important question is whether increasing numbers of our neighbors are beginning to discover that the wells from which they have been drinking are dry.

And that brings us back to Gen Z.

Maybe They Aren't Coming Back—Maybe They're Looking

There is an enormous difference between the two.

The statistics do not presently show millions of young Americans suddenly converting to Christianity.

But what if some of them are beginning to ask better questions?

Why am I so lonely?

Why doesn't success satisfy me?

Why do I have so many connections and so few relationships?

Why is limitless freedom exhausting?

Why do I want somewhere to belong?

Why do I still feel guilty when I've been told guilt is something I should simply reject?

Why does my life need to mean something?

Why am I afraid of dying?

Natural law can help expose the problem.

The first use of the Law can curb.

A Fourth Turning might even contribute to the rebuilding of healthier institutions.

But none of those things can save anyone.

Natural law can tell us that something is wrong. It cannot forgive what is wrong.

A cultural crisis can destroy an idol.

It cannot raise the dead.

For that, we need something from outside ourselves.

We need Christ!

And That Is Where Our Discernment Becomes Very Practical

For these Twelve Weeks of Prayerful Discernment, we have been thinking and praying about the future of Holy Trinity.

• What should our priorities be?
• What ministries should we continue?
• What might need to change?
• What resources has God given us?
• Where is He calling us to serve?

Those are important questions.

But perhaps the religious trends around us suggest another question we should put alongside them:

If a generation discovers that what it has been sold cannot save it, what will it find when it comes looking at Holy Trinity?

Will people find a congregation primarily worried about keeping an institution alive?

Or will they encounter people who genuinely believe Jesus is alive?

Will they find people remembering what church used to be?

Or people interested in the neighbor God has placed before them today?

Will they find programs?

Or relationships?

Will they encounter judgment without repentance?

Acceptance without truth?

Politics disguised as Christianity?

Moralism?

Entertainment?

Or will they encounter something they simply cannot get anywhere else?

Jesus Christ crucified and risen for sinners.

Something Concrete

This cannot remain theoretical.

• If our secular culture has produced isolation, invite someone to dinner.
• If people have lost community, learn someone's name.
• If young adults don't have trustworthy older adults in their lives, become one.
• If parents are overwhelmed, help them.
• If children need stable adults who know and love them, teach Sunday School or help with our preschool.
• If someone doesn't know Scripture, open a Bible with them.
• If someone asks a difficult question, don't become defensive. Listen. Ask another question. Walk with them.
• If someone hasn't attended church in twenty years, sit beside them so they don't have to figure everything out alone.
• If someone is lonely, bring them into an actual community.
• If someone is ashamed of what they have done, tell them about Absolution.
• If someone is exhausted from trying to construct an identity, tell them what it means to be Baptized into Christ.
• If someone wonders what their life is for, teach them about vocation—the ordinary people and places through which God gives us neighbors to love.
• If someone is afraid of death, don't give them vague optimism.

Tell them about the resurrection!

This is where Christianity offers something radically different from the promises that surround us.

To a culture exhausted from creating its identity, Christ gives an identity received:

You are baptized into Christ.

To people desperate to belong, Christ gives a family:

The communion of saints.

To people drowning in competing claims about truth, Christ gives:

His Word.

To people carrying real guilt, Christ gives something we cannot manufacture for ourselves:

“I forgive you all your sins.”

To increasingly disembodied people living through screens, Christ gathers actual human bodies around an actual table and gives:

His body and His blood.

To people wondering what their lives are for, Christ gives:

Vocation—a neighbor to love.

And to people frightened about the future, Christ gives something much greater than optimism:

Resurrection!

So, Is Gen Z Coming Back to Church?

Maybe.

It's too early to know.

Is America moving toward a religious revival?

We should certainly pray for one. But the evidence doesn't establish that yet.

Have we reached rock bottom?

I don't know.

Are Strauss and Howe correct that we are living through another great generational turning?

Perhaps. It is an interesting lens through which to view history, but it is not an article of faith.

But there is another question we can answer.

Jesus said:

“I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

—Matthew 16:18

Is Christ still building His Church?

Yes!

Unlike every other question we have asked, that answer rests upon a promise.

And perhaps that changes how we approach these Twelve Weeks of Prayerful Discernment.

• We do not need to predict America's future before we can discern our vocation within it.
• We don't need to know whether revival is coming.
• We don't need to know whether the Fourth Turning has reached its bottom.
• We don't even need to know whether the decline of Christianity has permanently stopped.

We need to be faithful with the people Christ places before us.

Perhaps, then, our prayer should not simply be:

“Lord, send revival.”

Perhaps it should also be:

“Lord, make us ready to receive the people You send.”

Because if the world really is beginning to discover that its gods cannot save it, the question for Holy Trinity isn't whether we predicted the turning correctly.

The question is whether, when our neighbors come looking for something that can bear the weight of their hope, we will be ready to give them Jesus.