Hope for the Future: How Younger Generations View the Christian Faith
Early data points to both real challenges and real openness to Jesus among younger generations. This article highlights key concerns and hopeful signs, then offers three practical decisions churches can make to pass down the faith.
- Research shows both troubling trends and genuine spiritual curiosity among younger Americans.
- Gen Z is open to Jesus even when skeptical of church as an institution.
- Churches can respond by going “down and out,” staying “salty,” and praying with expectant “dirty windows.”
by Luke Proctor
When I first arrived at Plainfield Christian Church, I was a baby-faced 22-year-old fresh out of Bible college, armed with a dump truck full of idealistic zeal and an ordination certificate.
Then I met Bill.
Bill was in his 80s, and he scared me. Bill had been an Air Force fighter pilot during both the Korean and Vietnam Wars and had a thundering voice that put James Earl Jones to shame.
I like to tell jokes. Bill had a reputation as a no-nonsense Bible teacher.
I like jeans and hoodies. Bill wore suits that carried the authority of a man who had nothing left to prove . . . pressed, proper, and unapologetically old-school.
The generational differences were just too stark. Why would a kid like me want to go to church with a guy like that?
Is There Any Hope?
Generationally, I’m a Millennial (born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s). Then comes Generation Z (late 1990s to early 2010s), and finally Generation Alpha (early 2010s and onward).
I grew up hearing about how the good ol’ days of Christianity in the West were over. We saw statistics implying that American Christianity was shriveling and gradually failing to pass the baton of faith to the next generation. In my classes at school, we studied charts about faith and church attendance that all had one thing in common: generation by generation, they were trending down.
My news feed was inundated with stories of how the fastest-growing religious segment in the country were the “nones.” I read about how millennials were deconstructing, COVID-19 was killing churches, and Gen Z was anointed as the first post-Christian generation in American history. The future looked bleak.
As a millennial training for vocational ministry, I figured that all those statistics and charts meant that Bill’s generation were the heroes, and I was destined to spend my life managing the decline of the Western church.
Then, something changed. We started hearing rumors of awakenings and outpourings of God’s Spirit on college campuses. We heard stories about Bible sales increasing, church attendance surging, and a window of cultural favor toward the things of God. And, lo and behold, we also saw more young baby-faces like me walking in the front door of our church.
A closer look at the data reveals some interesting trends.
Cause for Concern
There are still some troubling trends that the American church is facing:
- Only four percent of Americans have a “biblical worldview,” and only six percent of Christians do (American Worldview Inventory)
- Young adults often don’t feel like they can be themselves or ask honest questions in religious gatherings (Springtide Research Institute).
- The church’s witness to younger Americans (ages 18-29) has been damaged by Christian nationalism (Public Religion Research Institute).
But what about the revival stories we’re hearing amongst Gen Z?
- Gen Z is still the most religiously unaffiliated generation on record (Public Religion Research Institute).
- Even the most-engaged young Christians are still attending church less than half the time, averaging 1.6-1.9 times per month (Barna).
- Syncretism is on the rise. While Gen Z attends our churches, they might also dabble in astrology, stoicism, Tik Tok gurus, porn, online gambling, yoga, conspiracy theories, or witchcraft in their search for transcendence . . . all while checking “none” on a religion survey.
What about Gen Alpha?
- Only 45 percent of Christian parents with Gen Alpha kids regularly initiate faith conversations with their children (Barna).
- Only 15 percent of Christian parents say their highest parenting goal is to pass down the faith to their kids (OneHope).
In other words, we’re not out of the woods yet.
Millennials are prone to “believing” without “belonging,” opting for a more personal spirituality gathered from a buffet of podcasts and influencers rather than formal church membership. Where will they look for real guidance?
Gen Z is likely to see the church as hypocritical, judgmental, or too political. They are skeptical of anything that feels too branded, scripted, or authoritarian. Where will they look for real community?
Gen Alpha is the first generation to be raised by digital natives and will be the most screen-saturated generation in history, growing up using Artificial Intelligence from the time they are toddlers. Where will they look for real truth?
But fear not. Jesus said the “gates of hell shall not prevail” (Matthew 16:18, English Standard Version) against his church, and he was right.
Reasons for Hope
Beneath all the concerning statistics, there is a rumbling resurgence of real faith taking root:
- Two-thirds of Americans still identify as Christian (American Worldview Inventory).
- 90 percent of Americans have at least some degree of curiosity about the supernatural realm (Barna).
- For the first time in decades, more men (43%) than women (36%) are attending church regularly (Barna).
So, are the rumors about Gen Z’s resurgence of faith real? Cautiously, yes! Even if they are hesitant about the church as an institution or “Christianity” as a brand, Gen Z is remarkably open to Jesus.
- In America, over half of Gen Z teens feel motivated to learn more about Jesus (Barna).
- For the first time in decades, young people are outpacing older generations in their church attendance. Gen Z now attends church more regularly than any other generation! And millennials are second! (Barna)
- The oldest members of Gen Alpha are just turning 15, but early research shows that 66 percent identify as Christian, and 82 percent say they’re at least slightly spiritual (Springtide).
So, what should we do?
Based on this data and what we’ve experienced in our community, churches hoping to pass down the faith to the next generation should make three core decisions:
Trade “Up and In” for “Down and Out.”
Stephen Foster is the rector at St. Aldates church in Oxford, England. Oxford is a historically secular city and home to perhaps the world’s most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins.
St. Aldates church is 800 years old. I saw it with my own eyes, and the stories I heard flabbergasted me: a magnificent, outdated, low-tech building swarming with young people worshiping God, sitting on the floor, opening their Bibles, and pulsing with hunger for Jesus. The wave of awakening is real.
Stephen Foster says that every church naturally gravitates “up and in.” The longer we’re together, the more upward we go in age, and the more inward we go in focus. This is the natural gravitational pull of every church. Therefore, to counteract that, the intentional push of every church must be to go “down and out.” To stay in step with Jesus’ missional heartbeat, we must constantly push downward in age and outward in focus.
Pretty much all the data you can find affirms that 70-80 percent of Christians made their decision to follow Jesus by the time they turned 18. The implication is: we must catch them young, or we might not catch them at all.
At our church, we unashamedly say that we are disproportionately invested in the next generation. Our staffing, our building, our calendar, and our budget are all disproportionately focused on going “down and out.”
Trade Trendy for Salty.
The next generation has scrolled every feed, streamed every song, satisfied every craving, binged every show, and they are still restless and hungry for something real. In a world drowning in content, young people are hungering for connection.
When they show up at your church, they’re not looking for a flashy lightshow followed by a TED-talk by some guy with nice shoes. They want something weirder than that.
Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet” (Matthew 5:13).
Stop trying to be cool and start embracing how strange church is.
Young people don’t want you to water down the truth. They want a safe space to ask hard questions about what God actually says about doubt, deconstruction, mental health, addiction, sex, gender, race, politics, and poverty. They want to be invited into the strange practices of baptism, communion, singing, preaching, prayer requests, testimonies, Bible studies, and potluck dinners. Stay salty, church!
Keep Your Windows Dirty.
I once heard of a residential facility for children with mental disabilities called The Shepherd’s Home. At this facility, they teach the kids about Jesus: his birth, death, resurrection, and second coming. The staff of the ministry say that one of the biggest challenges they deal with are all the dirty windows. Why?
Because every morning when the children get up from their beds, they run to the window and press their faces to the glass to see if Jesus is coming back today.
Our best work on our best day cannot bring about the kingdom of heaven. That’s why Jesus told us to pray, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:38).
Let’s be churches with dirty windows, where we show up every day pressing our nose against the glass, praying and expecting God to do something great in the next generation.
Thankfully, My Friend Bill Has Dirty Windows
Though our generational differences are stark, Bill and I became good friends. And Bill’s willingness to welcome a millennial like me has made an eternal difference in my life.
When my car broke down, he quietly paid for the mechanic to fix it.
When I had to do a funeral, he offered to buy me a suit (like his)
When we were stressed about grocery bills, a cooler full of meat appeared on our porch.
When I preached a clunker of a sermon, Bill winked, “I still ain’t heard a bad one from you yet, young man. But when I do, I’ll tell ya.”
And when Bill found out that my six-year-old son Calvin wants to be a fighter pilot, Bill had a flight suit specially made to fit him. Bill then took the patches off his flight suit, including his captain’s bars, and sewed them onto Calvin’s. Then he came to my house, gave the flight suit to Calvin, and had my son take an oath that he had written to “listen to God’s voice and follow his direction.”
As I watched my 90-year-old friend Bill pass a blessing along to my Gen Alpha son, I thought of Psalm 145:4, “One generation shall commend your works to another.”
And if we keep our windows dirty, I can’t help but believe that our best days are yet to come.
Author: Luke Proctor
Luke Proctor is Senior Minister with Plainfield Christian Church, Plainfield, Indiana.
