Weekly worship attendance among U.S. Millennials more than doubled from 2021 to 2022, according to a Barna Group report published August 4.
In 2019, 21% of Millennials report weekly worship attendance, which rose to 25% in 2020 before dropping to 17% in 2021 and then jumping to 39% this year.
By comparison, 25% of Boomers attended worship weekly in 2019, rising to 32% in 2020, falling to 21% in 2021 and then increasing to 25% in 2022.
Gen-X had 24% of respondents reporting weekly attendance in 2019, which increased to 29% in 2020, decreasing to 15% in 2021 and then rising to 31% in 2022.
“The boost in Millennial attendance may surprise some, especially pastors,” the report noted. “Barna’s data suggest the increase of Millennials’ overall church attendance can largely be attributed to non-white Millennials.”
From 2019 to 2021, the difference in non-white and white Millennial attendance was close, with a 5% gap in 2019, a 3% gap in 2020 and no difference in 2021.
The gap noticeably widened in 2022, with 35% of white Millennials attending weekly compared to 45% of non-white Millennials.
Boomers had the highest percentage of respondents (22%) say that they have “stopped attending [church] entirely” since the pandemic began, compared to 15% of Gen-Xers and 13% of Millennials.
Boomers also were most likely to be attending the same church as they did prior to the pandemic (65%), followed by 60% of Gen-Xers and 57% of Millennials.
Millennials had the most respondents (22%) say they have attended multiple churches since the pandemic began, compared to 18% of Gen-Xers and 7% of Boomers.
The full report is available here. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
Managing editor for news and opinion at Good Faith Media.
