As a member of Gen Z, I understand the pressures and challenges facing young people today. As a Christian, I also experience the struggles of living a Christian life and recognize the difficulties the church faces in attracting and retaining young believers. This article will discuss young people’s views on church life and explore how the church can better draw and keep them.
Young Christians today often struggle between their faith and the realities they face, including heavy academic workload, workplace competition, and misconceptions of Christianity. Caught up in anxieties about the future, they may easily overlook the importance of church life. Meanwhile, traditional worship services often seem disconnected from the pace and interests of today’s youth, who desire a vibrant, dynamic community where they can find inspiration in their faith and a sense of belonging in their lives.
Church Must Create an Open and Inclusive Environment
Young people come to the church for diverse reasons—perhaps due to a family faith formation, a friend’s invitation, or a search for meaning after experiencing pain or setbacks. However, many eventually drift away. In addition, many young people choose to participate in online gatherings at home, not because they particularly prefer online services, but because they feel reluctant to engage with in-person services.
Young people who leave the church or avoid in-person gatherings often have no opportunity to express their true thoughts. Overlooking this, the church may fail to understand the concerns of those who leave or create a safe place for them to speak out their doubts and complaints. Without actively seeking to understand why they left, the church has little hope of making meaningful improvements in the future.
Young people value their “experience” and “feelings” in social interactions. When they feel respected, cared for, and have a sense of belonging in the church, they are more willing to stay. By providing young people with a positive, meaningful emotional experience without compromising core beliefs, the church can effectively attract and retain them.
The Church Must Provide Practical Guidance
If the church remains focused solely on preaching and bringing people to Christ in a superficial manner, simply encouraging young people to “obey,” it will fail to satisfy their ideological needs.
Especially with complex ethical issues, such as topics on homosexuality and transgender, and pressing questions on truth, science, and human nature that emerged after the COVID-19 pandemic, young people face many uncertainties. These topics affect their daily lives and their understanding of how faith relates to the world. The church’s tendency to avoid such discussions can easily make young people feel disconnected, intensifying their dissatisfaction.
Furthermore, Gen Z grew up in an era that emphasizes emotional and individualized education. If the church fails to teach them critical thinking, they may tend to rely on emotional responses when dealing with problems, having cognitive conflicts with older generations. As this gap widens, young people feel a lower sense of belonging in the church.
Thus, the church should offer more in-depth, broad teachings that are closely connected to real-life situations, helping young people apply a faith-based perspective when navigating a complex world.
Church Must Meet Practical Needs of Young People
Today’s youth face immense life pressures, with an efficiency-focused mentality that permeates work, study, and even their faith life. Many young people see time as a valuable resource and lean toward activities where they can see immediate benefits. This mentality often leads them to view church activities as “wasting time.”
Additionally, society’s emphasis on wealth reinforces this mindset. Young people feel pressure from family, friends, and society to find their self-worth in career success and financial gain. In this environment, living a life of faith can seem like a luxury, secondary to the goal of career success. As a result, many may choose to skip church activities in favor of pursuits that directly enhance their skills and economic status.
With a money-oriented mindset, young people do not easily get spiritual nourishment, so they feel isolated and helpless when facing life’s burdens. When life’s pressures become overwhelming, the church should be a harbor for support and comfort, yet it often fails to meet young people’s expectations.
The church should reflect on how to address young people’s needs by providing a meaningful faith experience—such as career guidance, psychological support, and community activities that demonstrate the practical value of faith. Only by doing this can young people realize that Jesus offers spiritual support and is our source of strength for life’s challenges.
The Church Should Guide Young People to Experience God in Their Lives
Many young people come to church seeking truth or exploring theology with high expectations. In this state, they may join the church impulsively or even be baptized, hoping to find a real sense of faith and evidence of God’s existence.
However, they often feel lost, as they delve into the Bible and confront complex theological issues. The church’s answers may seem vague and insubstantial, with no convincing evidence that supports their faith or affirms God’s existence. This leaves them in an internal struggle, wanting to believe in God but also doubting in light of real-world uncertainties. How can they convince themselves that God’s words are applicable today?
Some believers, unable to find answers in the church, gradually stop attending church services and reading the Bible, even giving up on their faith altogether. Because they haven’t personally experienced God’s wonderful works, it is hard for them to resolve their doubts by relying solely on the Bible.
Young people need a community where faith and real life intersect in meaningful ways, rather than simply attending traditional worship services. If the church truly wants to attract and retain young people, it must respond to their desires and allow for a faith experience.
(Originally published by the Gospel Times, the article has been edited under permission and the author is a believer in Shanghai.)
- Edited by Katherine Guo & translated by Abigail Wu
