Youngest Adults Outpace Parents' Generation in Worship Attendance: 41% of 18-to-22-Year-Olds Attend at Least Monthly in Pew Survey
A Pew Research Center report released October 28 found that America's youngest adults are attending religious services more often than their parents' generation. As reported by The Baptist Paper, 41% of respondents born between 2004 and 2008, now ages 18 to 22, said they attend religious services at least monthly, higher than the U.S. public overall at 33% and every age group except those born before 1950, at 43%.
The same report carries signals in the other direction: slightly older Gen Z adults born between 2000 and 2003, now ages 23 to 26, reported the lowest numbers of any age group, with only 27% attending services at least monthly, along with the lowest rates for daily prayer (26%), viewing religion as very important (27%) and identifying with a religion (50%). Within the youngest group, 47% of men reported attending at least monthly, compared with 35% of women. Chip Rotolo, a senior researcher on Pew's religion and public life team, called the 41% figure "pretty remarkably high," while cautioning that the cohort included only 443 respondents, with a margin of error of about six percentage points, and that it is too soon to tell whether the finding is a blip or the start of a larger trend.
The report draws on two Pew surveys: the 2026 National Public Opinion Reference Survey, with 5,511 U.S. adults, and the 2025 Cross-Sectional Engagement Survey, with 5,393 U.S. adults.
The finding follows other surveys over the past year. Barna Group, an evangelical polling firm, reported in September 2025 that among those already attending church, Gen Z attends more regularly than other generations of churchgoers, at 1.9 times per month, just slightly more frequently than millennial churchgoers at 1.8 times. Rotolo said there are no signs that today's young adults are more religious than young people of the same age a decade or more ago, and that the picture needs a longer view.
(Source: The Baptist Paper)
Source: The Baptist Paper
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 教会礼拜场景（资料图）。Thangginlian Taithul 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / A church worship service (file photo). Photo by Thangginlian Taithul, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
