Young Church Attendance: An Interview With Pastor Jesse Johnson | The American Spectator

Despite a national decline in religious affiliation, Gen Zers and Millennials are experiencing a kind of “awakening”: Young women’s church attendance has risen fourfold, while young men’s attendance has spiked fivefold in under a decade.
The data isn’t the only evidence of a renewed interest in organized religion, particularly Christianity, among younger generations. In an interview with The American Spectator, Pastor Jesse Johnson recounted his church’s experience with an influx of young attendees.  
Johnson, who pastors at nondenominational Immanuel Bible Church just outside of Washington, D.C, has witnessed a shift in his church body. “Our congregation has gotten significantly, noticeably younger in the last ten years,” he told the Spectator. “And that’s not because of any demographic outreach or anything.”
Johnson describes his church’s approach to doctrine and worship as “transcendent”; thus, Johnson attributes the small revival to “a desire in all people to connect with a truth that is bigger than them.” 
Though this generation is not the first to experience such desires, Johnson surmised that cultural coddling has likely turned young people away from organized religion in the past.
“The Boomer generation always strove for youth. There was this idea that for something to be successful it had to appeal to the youth,” explained Pastor Johnson, “And churches chased that for a while. There was this idea that if churches appealed to youth, they would secure their future.”
Unfortunately for such churches, these tactics seem to have failed. Pandering and catering to the current moment not only “turns off” young people, but Johnson suggests that it fails to satisfy the desire driving them to attend church in the first place.
“When it comes to religion, people don’t want something that is the flavor of the day,” he explained. Religion connects people to an eternal God and a higher truth. Therefore, if places of worship speak to cultural phenomena and nothing else, they…