‘Quiet revival’ for Gen Z

Are younger people returning to church? That’s what’s being reported about Gen Zers — people born between 1997 and 2012 — in places in Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

In a story in Canadian Catholic Media, the Archdiocese of Toronto’s Office of Catholic Youth reports seeing a broad surge in youth engagement across the archdiocese, as evidenced by the growth in the number of parishes offering youth programs — from 10-12 parishes in 2013 to 115 today.

“It’s been incredible, and we are literally more than halfway there to covering the entire archdiocese,” said John MacMullen, associate director of youth ministry for the archdiocese. “There is just a real healthy growth across the spectrum.”

St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Toronto also reports a resurgence in the number of Gen Z youth coming to services.

“When we reopened from COVID, that was our fastest growing demographic,” rector Jenny Andison told CTV Your Morning, noting the number of young people coming at least once a month had grown from 45 to over 500.

Research by Angus Reid indicates something is happening in this country. In 2024, the pollster found that young people ages 18-34 had higher levels of attendance and spiritual practices than older Canadians.

But Canada isn’t the only place where this is happening. A new documentary says it is occurring in the U.S., too.

Called “The Revival Generation: Gen Z Turning to Jesus” and produced by the Christian Broadcasting Network, the documentary focuses on an organization called UniteUS that does evangelism on college campuses.

“I know that a lot of the media is typically covering Gen Z in a pretty negative way,” director Laura Hand told Religion News Service. “I saw the opposite to be true, seeing these young people with such passion, hunger and true joy, spreading the gospel. I think that is very emblematic of what is happening to Gen Z at large.”

And in an opinion column in USA Today, Ed Stetzer, dean at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in California, wrote that while the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian has steadily declined, Gen Z seems to be going in the other direction.

“Overall, younger generations are more spiritually curious,” he said, citing research showing that many Gen Zers are interested in learning more about Jesus.

In the United Kingdom, a report by YouGov, in partnership with the Bible Society, found what it called a “quiet revival” in that country with the rise in church attendance among 18 to 24-year-olds. It went from four per cent in 2018 to 16 per cent in 2024.

“We found that the church is in a period of rapid growth, driven by young adults and in particular young men,” the report said. “Both within and outside the Church, young adults are more spiritually engaged than any other living generation, with Bible reading and belief in God on the rise.”

Why is this happening? For Andison of St. Paul’s in Toronto, the pandemic played a big role by the way it unsettled the lives of Gen Zers.

As a result, Gen Zers feel “lonely, isolated, anxious and fearful about the future. The promises of secularism for progress and freedoms simply have not delivered for them,” she said.

In addition to that, there is the unsettled and uncertain political situation in the U.S., and around the world, along with the employment challenges caused by tariffs and artificial intelligence for many in that generation.

One Gen Zer I spoke to said all of this has led him to start attending an Anglican church in Winnipeg. He goes because he finds certainty, meaning and comfort in the timeless rituals and rhythms of the worship services, along with providing community.

What do those who study religion think?

Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme is a professor at the University of Waterloo who studies religion in Canada. She is not surprised by reports of higher attendance at religious services by younger people.

“This life-cycle pattern has actually been quite common among past generations as well,” she said.

“Younger respondents’ rates of religiosity often look similar to those of their parents while they’re still, for the most part, living with their parents. Then, when they leave their original parental household, which many younger Millennials and Gen Z haven’t done yet, we typically have seen a decline in their rates of religiosity.”

Before calling this a trend, “we’ll have to wait and see if this same life cycle effect plays out in years to come, like it has for previous generations,” Wilkins-Laflamme said.

Joel Thiessen, who teaches at Ambrose University in Calgary, also suggests caution when reading these reports about revival among youth.

In his own research, Thiessen hasn’t seen any data suggesting sizable conversion rates occurring among Gen Z, in Canada or elsewhere. “We are not talking about a revival,” he says, suggesting church leaders need to be careful when talking about it.

At the same time, he doesn’t want to dismiss it. “We need to keep the tape rolling,” he says. “It’s a story worth following.”

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