At the start of this year, Ruth-Ann Briscoe filled her calendar with different churches to try each Sunday, determined to find a community to call home. Belonging to Generation Z, Briscoe’s story is one anecdote in the flood of media and ecclesial narratives about young people and religious revival.
While religious service attendance has been on the decline globally for the last 15 years, multiple studies in recent years have sought to quantify those anecdotes.
According to the Public Religion Research Institute, “younger Americans continue to be less religious than older Americans, in terms of both religious affiliation and regular church attendance.”
Overall, young people are still significantly underrepresented in churches. Millennials and Gen Z make up about 43% of the U.S. population but only 14% of church attendees. Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation, those ages 65 and older, make up just 18% of the U.S. population, but account for about 35% of church participants.
But the frequency of church attendance among younger groups may be rising, especially since the pandemic.
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