Growing Younger: Latest research points to young generations seeking belonging and prayer

Two new research papers, from either side of the Atlantic, point to an emerging generation longing to belong to a meaningful, authentic Church community that will encourage and teach them how to pray and grow. CCX summarises these latest findings, and points to our own research on what can best nurture the spirituality of young people.

At CCX we are privileged to support thousands of church leaders from different contexts and traditions; Anglican and Pentecostal, evangelical and sacramental, pioneer and pastor. Our resources and courses encourage leaders and their teams to pray and discern God’s will for their context, never looking to teach one model above another.

But one yearning, regardless of tradition or location, is expressed across every denomination that we partner with – the desire to grow younger, to reach more young people and involve children and young adults in the life and leadership of the Church.

Research and resources that inform us about this much expressed desire are thus hugely valuable, and these past months have presented us with two new sources of insight.

Research published in July from Theos, on behalf of the Church of England’s Vision and Strategy team, explores the journeys of 30 young adults aged 18–30 who began attending Anglican churches within the last five years. Rather than measuring trends, it listens to their stories and asks what the Church can learn from them. The report highlighted a common search for meaning, belonging and purpose, with participants drawn to churches that felt authentic, confident and serious about faith, while community was often a key reason they stayed.

Then in September, Barna published the latest aspect of its State of the Church initiative (crucially, examining the Church in the United States), with a piece focusing on What Young Adults Are Looking for Spiritually at Church. It found that 34% of Gen Z and Millennial respondents said they were attending church more frequently than a year earlier, and that prayer was the number-one spiritual reason young adults gave for attending church, with number-two being a desire ‘to worship Jesus with other people’.

While asking different questions in different nations, there is still much to be gleaned from both reports. Excitingly for us here at CCX, both sets of findings echo important insights from our own 2025 research into the spiritual growth of 18- to 35-year-olds in the UK Church.

Here we highlight four key learnings from across these bodies of research that we hope will be an encouragement to all churches looking to reach new young people with the love of Christ, and help them find belonging in a community that will disciple and grow them.

1. Young adults are looking for ‘authentic’ Christianity

A striking aspect of Barna’s research is the simplicity of what young adults say they want.

Prayer was the most commonly selected spiritual reason for attending church, chosen by 45% of the 3,049 18-to-35-year-olds surveyed. The desire to worship Jesus alongside other people followed at 38%. Barna observes that this challenges the assumption that reaching younger adults necessarily requires more novelty, production or reinvention.

The Theos research offers a striking parallel amongst those they surveyed in the UK. Its participants found their way into very different expressions of Anglicanism, from contemporary evangelical churches to Anglo-Catholic parishes and cathedrals.

What connected their experiences was not a particular style, but an appreciation for the ‘authenticity’ and ‘seriousness’ of worship, and for churches displaying confidence, consistency and depth.

Our own research points in much the same direction, and helps to suggest what that ‘authenticity’ can look like.

Our Exploring spiritual growth research identified five practices that participants suggested aid spiritual growth, one of which was time spent with God: 48% of survey respondents mentioned it. Participants described benefiting from regular patterns of prayer, Bible reading, worship and participation in the sacraments. Crucially, the time needed to be purposeful and regular, giving God the opportunity to speak, keeping our mind on God, and providing opportunities for self-reflection.

The common thread across the Barna, Theos and CCX research is that young adults are not asking the Church to disguise its spirituality, traditions, or practices in order to make itself appealing. Many would appear actively drawn towards prayer, worship, Scripture and encounter, within churches confident enough to take their own faith seriously.

An interesting parallel is being witnessed in the Catholic church of France, as the number of young adults seeking baptism continues a year-on-year growth that began in 2022.

The question for churches may therefore be less “How can we make Christianity more palatable?” and more “How can we help people encounter the depth of God in a Christian life? How can we help them be formed by it and take confidence in sharing it?”

2. Curiosity needs somewhere to go

The Theos research shows just how many routes a contemporary journey towards faith could take.

For some participants, social media, podcasts, online debates or Christian influencers sparked initial curiosity. That interest could then deepen through reading Scripture, exploring theology or asking questions about meaning and purpose, often before somebody had ever walked into a church. Relationships with friends, clergy, chaplains, teachers and church members then frequently helped people move from private curiosity to participation in Christian community. 

Barna identified a similar thread. Its researchers distinguish between the needs of newer Christians and those who have followed Jesus for longer, describing the opportunity for churches as helping early curiosity develop into greater spiritual depth. There is a journey that doesn’t ‘end’ upon crossing the threshold of the church. There is a traceable pattern that points to: “a defined slice of young adults showing up more often and doing so for devotional reasons…”

Our own research suggests an important part of that transition happens when young adults are given an invitation and opportunity to take ownership of their faith.

‘Choosing to grow’ was the second most frequently cited cause of growth in our findings. Participants spoke about submitting to Jesus, deliberately making time for God and taking greater responsibility for their spiritual lives. One younger participant described a significant period of growth as the point when they became less reliant on being spiritually “spoonfed”.

This offers churches an important challenge.

The presence of spiritual curiosity is good news, but curiosity is not yet discipleship. Churches need clearly identifiable pathways which allow questioning to become exploration, exploration to become participation and participation to grow into a personally owned faith.

That might mean giving newcomers permission to ask difficult questions, teaching them how to pray and read Scripture for themselves, and helping them understand that following Jesus eventually involves a response and a choice. Does that look like a course for those exploring faith? Is that a specific group that they know they’re invited to? Could it be a meeting with a member of the church who has a gift in teaching and encouraging new Christians?

Whatever the practice or pathway of the church, it should be a route known by everyone, with a level of invitation that allows anyone to point a newcomer in the right direction.

3. Community matters, but not simply because people want friends

Community is vital. The sense of ‘being part of something’ appears again and again across all three pieces of research. Such was its centrality to the findings of our research that we suggested if church leaders take only one thing from it, the most effective thing they could do in the spiritual formation of 18- to 35-year-olds was to help them find community.

Theos found that a sense of belonging was an important reason participants continued attending church and became more involved – and a ‘belonging’ that carried a greater significance than other communities might offer. Take this response from Millie, one of the Theos research participants:

“I’m part of lots of communities, but that’s not actually what community is and what it’s supposed to be… this feeling and these people that actually all really care and want to help each other grow is something that isn’t there in so many communities… I genuinely don’t even think is anywhere else in society anymore.”

The Barna research focuses primarily on spiritual motivations, but even its second most popular answer is explicitly communal: young adults want to worship Jesus with other people.

Our research goes considerably further in explaining why community matters. It was by far the most frequently mentioned cause of spiritual growth, identified by 80% of interviewees – but with an important distinction that points beyond simply being sociable with other Christians.

Formational community is desired, characterised by trust and authenticity, seeing other people model a growing faith. Young people keen to explore and grow their faith appreciated a mutual challenge and accountability, alongside opportunities to try new things.

We should take notice of this repeated finding that younger adults want community – one that our research identified as “trust and authenticity” alongside “mutual challenge and accountability”. A welcome matters. Coffee after the service matters. Friendship matters. But so does space to challenge established culture and practice, to encounter ‘authentic’ Christian practices – an opportunity to be welcomed and invited to pray in community, to nurture their curiosity in relationship, to be formed as a disciple rather than merely build attendance.

Young people desire community with a purpose. A deeper question is whether our communities are helping those young people become more like Jesus.

4. The goal is not a younger Church. It is younger disciples who make disciples

There is an understandable excitement whenever research suggests greater openness to Christianity among young adults.

But Barna itself is cautious about overstatement. While 34% of the American young adults it surveyed say they are attending church more frequently than a year ago, 45% report no change and 21% say they are attending less. Barna describes what it is observing as a pattern rather than evidence of a sweeping movement. 

Theos is similarly careful. Its thirty interviews are not attempting to outline that a nationwide revival is at hand. The research instead gives us something different and potentially just as valuable: a closer view of the journeys being taken by some of those who are finding their way towards Christianity now.

For CCX, this draws us back to what we mean by growth.

Our discipleship research found that spiritual growth becomes outward-facing. Participants described a greater desire to engage in mission, serve and lead, and mentor other people. One spoke about moving from being nurtured by others to becoming the person doing the nurturing.

Growth also had an effect beyond the individual. Forty-two per cent of interviewees said their growth inspired others to grow, 40% said it created opportunities for evangelism and 28% said it led them to invest in someone else’s spiritual growth.

That is an important reminder when we talk about wanting the Church to “grow younger”. It’s not about ‘targeting’ a new demographic, but ensuring that we’re well equipped and attentive to what a younger generation desires, and how we can best walk alongside them as they grow and reach others.

The most encouraging message from across these research pieces is a simple one. To realise its desire to grow younger, the Church has something that will not only ‘attract’ young people, but that our research also suggests will in turn help them in their spiritual growth; an encounter with God, prayer, serious faith, authentic community and opportunities to participate.

The task is not to invent a completely new Church for a new generation. It is to ensure that when young people come looking for God at a church, in a new church plant, a renewed community or something beyond the walls of the church, they are met by welcoming, confident communities, ready to help them start praying, to find belonging, to keep growing and, in time, to invite others on the journey too.

Explore the CCX discipleship research in full: