← The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 777 | 2026 Disruptive Church Trends: Gen Z Leading Church Attendance Surge, Women Exiting Faith, + The Impact of Discipleship By Algorithm
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The Art of Leadership Network. Or if you're attracting a particular demographic, say only wealthy people or white people or just males, maybe it's time to audit your ministry and ask why. Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast. Man, I'm so excited for this episode. This is the annual church trends 2026. Church trends. I'm going to look at seven this year, and this is a kickoff to a Church Trend series. We've been doing this every year for a while now. And so coming up, I've got episodes with David Kinnaman, Varna's David Kinnaman with Luke LeFever and Daniel McLeod, Ruslan KD talking about one of the trends. And then even John Mark Comer weighs in on what he thinks the trend is. It's gonna be an incredible conversation. So I'm really glad that you've joined us. Whether you're watching, whether you're listening, welcome. This is kind of a Church Trends month, so we have a who. The best thing you can do is to follow, hit follow right now, hit subscribe. You won't miss a thing. This year, I unveil seven disruptive church trends we're gonna look at together and track in 2026, including Gen Z leading a surge in young church attendance, a rise in women exiting the faith, and discipleship by algorithm. Which is actually what makes it impossible for you to make anybody happy right now. But before we jump in, I want you to know about something I'm really excited about. We've officially launched the 2026 Church Trends Hub. So that's a brand new place where you can dive deeper into the biggest shifts shaping the church this year. And inside the hub, you're gonna get instant access to the full 2026 download. I'm giving you like a little sample. It's a over 5,000 word document. We got a leader guide inside of it so you can walk through with your whole team. And honestly, you. You're not gonna unpack this in a meeting. This could take you a month to look through. That's why we're doing episodes all month long. So if you really wanna be at the center of everything Church Trends, you gotta get into the church Trends Hub. Plus, on January 7, which is tomorrow, if you're listening to this or watching it, on release day, I'm hosting our first ever live Church Trends webinar. We're gonna walk through the trends together. I will take your questions live. And if you wanna be part of a community that's preparing for the future, not just react, this is where you wanna be. So head on over to 2026ChurchTrends.com jump in for free, and get ready for an incredible month of learning, of conversation, and hope for the future of the church. Believe it or not, this is a year of hope. So you can also join by clicking the link in the description of this episode. Wherever you're listening, wherever you're watching. So see you inside. Don't forget to join the Church Trends Hub. As you lead your church in 2026, the world and the church is shifting faster than anybod. What's even more surprising is that the shifts include some positive momentum, right? Surges in faith among the next generation, rising commitment to Christ. And yes, there are warning signs. But this year's Church Trends are as much a story of hope as they are a story of caution. So as a church leader, here's what you do. You live with the constant tension of managing the urgent while trying not to lose sight of the important, right? The danger is, though, if you keep your head down, you miss the big picture. You really don't see what's going on, and your daily efforts can get off target. And that's actually why I write this annual Church Trends report. It's to help you and your team look up, see what's changing, try to figure out why does this matter, and that'll help you lead with clarity in the middle of, like, really massive change that's happening in our culture. 2025 was a really interesting year last year, right? It was the first year we began to see the stirrings and anecdotes associated with revival become statistically meaningful. Things really did begin to. So we have a few stats, right? Bible sales, maybe you've heard this. They're up 41.5% since 2022. Spiritual app downloads rose 79.5% since 2019. And Christian music streams, they're up 50% since 2019. Now, according to Barna, even the number of Americans who say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still meaningful in their lives is up 12 percentage points between 2022 and and 2025. That said, okay, we all need to take a deep breath. Despite all the positive evidence, the talk of revival, you know, the stuff you see on Instagram, there's actually a meta trend hanging over every other church trend I'm gonna share today, and that's the ongoing general decline of Christianity in America. So some very fresh data from Barna is showing that at the same time, we're seeing some very positive trends. I'm Gonna talk about Christmas. Christianity as a whole is less important to Americans than in the past. And more Christians than ever don't actually practice their faith. For example, in 2000, 74% of Christians said their faith was central to their lives. Today it's 54%. That means that 46% of Christians do not consider their faith to be central to their lives. Which is, I think you'd agree, probably an issue, right? Similarly, and this is huge, and half of all US adults now qualify as non practicing Christians. In fact, of those who call themselves Christians, only 24% of Christians actively pursue their faith. That is a huge finding and a big change from 15 years ago, when more Christians actually practiced out their faith than didn't. So perhaps this helps explain the crisis in discipleship and partisanship that we're seeing in the church. And all of this confirms what we noted back in 2025, a year ago, that even among Gen Z, where we see all the positive stuff, they are in revival and retreat at the same time. So that said, as you track these 2026 trends, remember that the mission of the church isn't accomplished, right? There is so much left to do, so many more people to reach. And yeah, there's little signs of revival, but the big picture, a lot of work to be done. So with that said, here are seven disruptive church trends to look for in 2026. Trend number one, Gen Z is leading the surge in church attendance. So the recent rise in church attendance is being fueled by young adults. So there is a rise. Right? And Gen Z is at the forefront of it. In fact, last year, they became the most frequent church attenders in America, attending on average 1.9 times a month, which is marginally higher than millennials and meaningfully higher than their Gen X parents or boomer grandparents. And when you drill down a little bit, you see that this isn't a generational shift, it's a spike in engagement among Gen Z. So this is positive. You know, in 2021, they were barely attending church once a month. Now that's pretty much doubled to twice a month. And Millennials have seen a similar surge. And then there's data from the uk, right? It's showing that Gen Z church attendance among ages 18 to 24 has quadrupled over the last eight years, growing from 4 to 16% today. So at the most charitable level, what does this mean? Well, it means the surge back to church among many young adults might stem from their having explored what the culture has to offer and found it wanting to borrow from Luke Lafever, who's gonna be on a future episode of this podcast in the Church Trend series. The church has gone from despair to desperation. And what that's done is it's driven a lot of young adults to Jesus. They're not really seeking an echo of the culture, but an alternative to it. And that's what they're finding in Jesus, and that's what they're finding in Christianity. So what do you do about it? Well, as John Tyson points out, you can't really create a revival. Right. Even though you see stadiums filled and young adults returning. But what you can do is position yourself spiritually for renewal and revival. Revival fundamentally is God's action. But that said, preparing your church to reach the next generation is something I think every leader can embrace. This year, trend number two. Young men are coming to church and young women are leaving. So with every shift in culture and trends, there's unexpected news on the positive front. Young men, who are often thought of as, you know, the most difficult to reach, appear to be heading to church in ways nobody had anticipated, including me. So despite the good news stories that keep popping up about Gen Z's resurgence in faith, it's not equally distributed. Right. There's a spiritual languishing of Gen Z women that goes beyond church attendance. When you look at the stats around Gen Z women across the board, they are less plugged in spiritually than Gen Z men. So when it comes to prayer, when it comes to Bible reading, when it comes to attending church, Gen Z women lag behind their male counterparts. So what does this mean? Well, I don't in any way want to disparage the conversions happening among young men. But you do have to wonder, and this is just wondering. We're going to explore this in future episodes. Is the hard right swing among many US Evangelical churches simultaneously driving the surge among young men and the exit among young women? It's a question that I think we need to ask. So what's going on? Right. Well, if you see this from a positive viewpoint, the church offers a counterpoint to the culture for young men. I had one young megachurch pastor tell me that for decades, young men, he's a young guy as well, have been portrayed by the culture as dumb, incapable, and often even oppressive. Right. What many of them are finding through the teachings of Jesus is that they're called to be more than conquerors and that they have a purpose that is way bigger than their jobs. Right. However, I think you also have to ask, you know, has the resurgence of young men maybe Led to a broke culture. Not in every case, but in some cases. And if that's the case, has that driven young women away? Anecdotal evidence, for example. We've asked our audience about this, right? And I've gotten emails, I've had conversations, and we'll have more on the podcast this year about the exit of women from the church. But what I'm hearing anecdotally is that maybe women feel disempowered in church leadership or they disagree with the partisan political agenda of some churches. Another common theme I've heard is that women have risen to higher levels of leadership in their jobs or even as elected government officials, but don't see the same opportunities or valuing of their gifts in the church. So you can see this. You can see the number of female podcasters, authors, and rather large ministries and nonprofits that have sprung up outside of the church. Why? Well, you could argue because maybe there's not the platform inside the church. Right? And this is true not just of women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, but a lot of young influencer women in their 20s and 30s. So most female next gen influencers don't lead from a position in their church. They might go to church, but they don't have the position in the church. But they lead from their organizations, from their books, from their podcasts, and from their speaking engagements. And then finally, I think you have to pay attention to the lingering impacts of church scandals. Right? MeToo, ChurchToo, and the prevalence of abuse of women by male church leaders. That is probably also a factor. Again, the data haven't fully shown what's driving the exit, but people don't leave without a reason. So in 2026, there should be some more research coming out. I believe it's happening as we speak, and we will share that with you as soon as it comes out. Cause I think this is a really important trend. Right. So what do you do? Well, I think the most important thing to do is to see whether young women are leaving your church and congregation and then ask if they are. Why? Right. Or if you're attracting a particular demographic, say only wealthy people or white people, or just males, Maybe it's time to audit your ministry and ask why? Because the gospel reaches into the hearts of all people. Church trend number three, evangelism, is getting bolder and more direct. So for years, churches viewed evangelism as hosting weekend services where people could invite their friends. Still a good model. Okay, but the challenge with this model is that many Christians, number one, never invite anybody to church, despite the astonishing reality that 80% of non churchgoers say they would come to church if somebody invited them. And number two, you just have this inertia. Maybe they're not gonna do that. So enter the next generation and arise in bolder, more direct evangelism. And what we've seen is the rise of everything from college campus crusades like the Unite Us movement and past like JP Pakluda challenging Christians to share Christ every day with your Uber driver, with the person who cuts your hair, that kind of thing. But probably the biggest shift that we've seen is the emergence of YouTubers, artists and social media influencers. People like Bryce Crawford, Wesley Huff, Ruslan, Katie, who's gonna be on the podcast in a couple of episodes, the late Charlie Kirk and even Forrest Frank, taking apologetics, evangelism and their message directly to YouTube, to crowds and to the streets. So churches are kind of being bypassed in this trend, right? The trend has moved from the seats to the streets. Pastors think about this, tend to share sermon clips online. Next generation evangelists share the gospel directly with people online. And one on one. One practical thing your team can do this year is maybe to consider exploring more off stage moments, right? Brainstorm how you can start speaking directly to people on social media and do more in person sharing of the gospel. Innovation doesn't always lead to breakthroughs, but breakthroughs never happen without innovation. So maybe experiment this year. It's almost guaranteed that any church with a vibrant student ministry or young adult ministry has got some social media influencers and YouTubers attending their church. Now what do you do if that's the case in your church? Well, I'll tell you what the problem is. Online influencers who attend local churches, and many of them do, often get ignored or they get asked if they can run the soundboard or propresenter on a Sunday morning. So maybe the best thing you can do for that group this year is to pour fuel on their fire. Encouraging them, supporting them, resourcing them, and even learning from them. This episode is brought to you by the Aspen Group. Well, happy New Year everyone. And as your church kicks off 2026 with a fresh vision, don't overlook the impact of your physical space. A church building is more than just a place for people to gather once a week. It's a formational tool that's either advancing or hindering your mission. So when it comes to your space, the key is remembering what the church is really all about. Encountering God and engaging in authentic community. Aspen Groups helps churches design spaces that do both while meeting practical needs and staying resilient for the future. That way you're better equipped to move faster and go further on the mission that God has called you to. So to see what's possible for you, visit aspengroup.com carrie that's a s p e n G-R-O-U-P.com C-A-R-E y church trend number four. Preaching is starting to shift from presentation to encounter. So while the world has changed a lot in the last 30 years, you know what? Sunday services, not so much. Sure. I mean, the music, the dress code, the technology, they've all shifted. But fundamentally, the sermon is still primarily a 30 to 40 minute presentation. A few decades ago, that kind of made sense, right? Content was scarce. And if you wanted to hear a sermon, you needed to be present in person or subscribe to the cassette ministry, right? What was plentiful 30 years ago were community and connection. But fast forward to today and guess what? Content's everywhere. People are swimming, they're drowning in content. You can pretty much get any sermon anywhere in the world absolutely free. Meanwhile, in an exact reversal of three decades ago, community and connection, they're scarce. Really scarce. So one of the shifts some church leaders are starting to embrace is moving beyond Sunday morning simply being about disseminating information or engaging a public performance to be the best preacher you know or worship leader around. Instead, what they're starting to see Sunday mornings as is a chance to facilitate an experience or encounter between people and God. And if you think about it, I think that's the right move, right? In an age drowning in information, people are tired of showing up for church hoping to find God, but only finding us and our performance instead. And if you study what's happening with Gen Z, right? They're not showing up to church to go through the motions. They're passionate. They've got a full on embrace of a new faith that is emotional and intellectual and it's happening, right? The Internet, if you think about your online ministry versus in person, the Internet disseminates information and the church should facilitate an experience with the living God. Now, as basic as that sounds, I know you went to seminary, right? What it means is that maybe starting to approach worship a little more prayerfully, maybe anticipating that God might do something in people's hearts and minds and that is bigger than what we do or intend to do. It means maybe intentionally inviting the Holy Spirit to be at work in us and in our services, not just programming it down and trying to get it done on time, but to actually really open up so that what happens online and what happens in the room feels different. Church trend number five, Discipleship is now largely controlled by algorithm. And pastors are paying a huge price for this. As David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock have pointed out, most people today are discipled by algorithms more than they're discipled by their pastor or their local church. Now, that was true a decade ago. What we're seeing right now, though, are the compound effects that are now unmistakable and also deeply painful to most church leaders. J.D. greer really helped me see this. In episode 770 of my leadership podcast, we were talking about, you know, any pastor you talk to these days say that no matter what they say publicly about a cultural issue, they never do it. Right? Right. It's increasingly impossible to say anything on key cultural or theological issues that doesn't generate a slew of negative responses online and in person. Right. With people in your church, with people online. As the culture wars rage on, almost any move you make as a church is gonna be labeled to something. Right. You're too liberal as a pastor, you're too conservative, you're too partisan. You're not partisan enough. You will just honestly never get it right. So why is that? It's because everyone in your congregation is being discipled all week long by different algorithms. So if you were to actually, you know, peel the camera back, get a look at what's actually happening in your congregation, you would see that one person's Instagram feed is serving up ultra right wing partisan commentary. Right. While another's TikTok feed is feeding them progressive politics. And by the time your congregation arrives at church ready to be discipled, they have already spent 49 hours of screen time that week, on average, being formed by algorithms. So think about that 49 hours versus your 30 minute message and 2 hours of small group. Right. You don't really stand a chance. So digital discipleship is happening. It's just being led by an algorithm, not by the church. So what do you do? Well, the calling of the church is not to win the culture wars. It's to be the church to preach Jesus crucified, risen and reigning, and not to echo the latest talking points from whatever news outlet or algorithm people happen to be steeped in. If everyone in your church agrees with you all the time, chances are you're discipling an echo chamber, not a true church. Right. Could you change your approach to grow your church by, you know, echoing a particular algorithm or extreme point of view? You know what you could. And you sometimes see those churches growing. But if you do this, it won't be long until you realize that you've attracted a group of angry, factionalized people. Because if people join you because of what they're against, it won't be long before they decide to turn against you. So my prediction is that over time, the partisanship of the church is going to fall to the same fate that the progressive left of the mainline church did. So this right wing swing we're seeing is already fractioning a little bit. I think that'll go the way of the progressiveness of the mainline church. And here's the real issue. When you become indistinguishable from the culture, there is nothing left to convert people to. So you know, Ryan Burges research shows that 27% of people who now identify as evangelicals rarely if ever go to church. It's become a secular, political term. So if you're effectively preaching the gospel, the real gospel, right here's what's going to happen. You're going to inevitably be accused of being too liberal, too conservative, too vocal, too right, too left. And the accusations will always shift, paradoxically. And this is your encouragement, that may be a sign that you're preaching faithfully. Keep going. The algorithm is wreaking havoc in our brains. Trend number six, senior pastors are aging out and young pastors are not replacing them. So the average age of a senior pastor in America is around 58. And with that being the case, the church has got some serious work ahead of it, both in terms of raising up next gen leaders and filling future vacancies. So think about this. In 1992, the average pastor was 44 years old. Only 6% were over the age of 65. Well, not anymore, right? Several factors are shaping this. First, the math alone suggests that the generational gap of young Christians heading into ministry won't be numerically large enough to fill the gap. So that's a problem. Not enough young leaders. Second, many churches have been hit by inflation and rising costs. So salaries have not really kept pace with what people expect to be paid today. The stereotype is that senior pastors are overpaid. The reality, honestly, is that many are underpaid. Other positions on church haven't kept up with what a living wage pays these days. So there's a little bit of a pay gap that would attract the next generation. And then finally, despite Gen Z leading the turnaround in the church today, the generation that is currently in leadership in the church doesn't seem to have a ton of confidence in younger leaders. In fact, barna data shows 71 of leaders agree or somewhat agree that they are concerned with the quality of future Christian leaders. So it's not hard to imagine how difficult senior pastor and senior staff searches are going to get over the next few years. Right? Small churches might go without leadership or pool resources with other small congregations. BI vocational ministry could actually continue to grow. But if you're one of the hundreds of thousands of churches that'll be looking for a new pastor in the next decade, the time to start planning for succession is now. Now, mostly that's going to involve developing leaders from within and hiring them to fill pastoral vacancies. A lot of churches need to adjust pay as well. One of the best ways to correct this is to rationalize your current staff. If you've got 10 or 15 staff or 100 staff, you know, think about this. Who are the A players, the B players and the C players? Keep the A players. Transition out the B and C players. Then you'll have more salary room to attract the next generation. You're also going to have a better team. Okay? A few highly competent, motivated and called staff will lead the church much better than twice the number of average or below average team members. And finally, church leaders can start challenging middle school and high school students to pray about a call into ministry and maybe identify their pastoral gifting and their apostolic gifting and say, hey, maybe you should consider ministry. This episode is brought to you by Igniter Media. So let's be honest. Keeping your church's visuals and communications fresh week after week? That's tough work, right? And that's where Igniter Media comes in. Igniter has a robust library of ready made church media, from sermon videos to beautifully designed backgrounds that work seamlessly in all church presentation software applications. So whether you're a big church with a design staff or a small church with not a lot of budget, Igniter's got you covered. And for my listeners, Igniter is offering an exclusive discount on any of their memberships. Plus, they're giving you a free exclusive sermon series package valued at $330, which includes a complimentary sermon bumper title graphics, worship background, social graphics, canva templates, and a propresenter theme. Check it out@ignitermedia.com Carrie that's ignitermedia.com Carrie finally, church trend number seven. The church has yet to brace for the coming AI revolution, so it's hard to say exactly when artificial intelligence will become the dominant story. Not just in technology, which it already is, but in society as a whole, but it's probably going to happen sooner rather than later. Not only will AI be the biggest revolution humanity has ever seen, it'll be the biggest disruption we've ever experienced in our lifetimes and perhaps in human history. And while this is an incomplete list of the challenges the rise of AI is going to pose to civilization, and I don't use that term lightly, here are a few things that we should all be watching for in 2026. You've already seen the first seeds of each disruption happen. But I think what's going to happen is that in the future, we're going to see 10x to 1000x the impact of what we're now seeing. So, disruption number one, a white collar job bloodbath. Many CEOs are already announcing layoffs in white collar firms because of their adoption of AI. The same kind of disruption that came to farming in the 1980s and manufacturing in the 90s and the 2000s is about to hit professions like law, accounting, banking, and even engineering. Number two, mental health challenges will increase as AI companionship surges. So currently the number one use of AI is companionship and therapy. Do you know 72% of teens use AI companions, and 31% of them say they prefer their AI companions to real human beings. They're better than relationships that they have with their parents and friends. That's concerning, right? We've seen tragic teen suicides already that have resulted from relationships that teens created with AI. But expect those sadly to spike over the course of 2026. And then disruption number three, deep fakes are going to erode the line between truth and fiction. So we already live in a post truth culture, but the rise of AI generated deep fakes that are honestly imperceptible from reality are gonna fill our feeds more and more. I'm actually working on a new book called AI in the Future, how to Lead in a World you'd Barely Recognize. It's going to be released later in 2026. I'm going to go into a lot more detail, but imagine a scenario in which 25% of your congregation is unemployed. So as hard as it is to talk about, imagine a scenario in which 25% of your congregation is unemployed and they happen to be your best givers who once held the most lucrative jobs, right? Not only are they unemployed, but imagine a scenario in which they're unemployable because their industry is wiped out. And what happens when the mental health crisis that arises from AI makes the mental health crisis caused by social media look like the kiddie pool. What happens when your congregation, already discipled and twisted by an algorithm, can no longer tell the difference between truth and fiction and maybe no longer care? Right. It's important for church leaders to be spiritually, mentally and theologically prepared to pastor people in a highly disruptive era. So start now if you want some good news. And we need some good news after that. I believe the church is perfectly positioned to minister to a world fundamentally disrupted by AI. Why? Not because we're super tech savvy or have the best prompts, but because as the world becomes more artificial, the church becomes more human. That's what we should do. And I believe the church's future direction is human connection. So these are the church trends that I'm keeping my eye on in 2026. I hope and pray that they help you and your team thrive as you respond to the organizational, cultural and personal challenges you face. We're in a very unique moment as a church, one that leaders have prayed for for years in terms of the seeds of revival we're seeing. But if we leverage it well, we could see the mission of the church realized at a level we haven't seen in our lifetimes. Yes, the overall trends can still be discouraging, but that means you've got work to do and that means we can do this together. So let's work and pray toward a better gospel soaked future together. And don't forget to head over to 2026churchtrends.com to download the entire leader guide with discussion questions for your team on the next episode. I'm going to sit down with David Kinnaman. We've also got Luke LeFever and Daniel McLeod, Ruslan KD and some John Mark Comer in the mix. And man, we have got an incredible podcast lineup independent of church trends lined up for you in 2026. Again, best thing you can do is just follow or subscribe wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening. And Spotify does this cool thing now where if you're listening to an episode, you can actually just tap on it and it'll switch to video. I have this conversation all the time with people. It's like, do you watch podcasts? Do you listen to podcasts? And the answer is now if you follow on Spotify, you can do both seamlessly so you never lose your place. You don't start, you know, watching video and then have to switch to audio and where was I? And did I hear that? So that's kind of cool. Anyway, that's just nerdy me nerding out. Also coming up, beyond the Church Trend series, John Crist, Henry Cloud, Craig Groeschel, Beth Moore, Carl Lentz, and a whole lot more. Thanks so much for listening. If this conversation was helpful, leave a review or comment wherever you're listening, and don't forget to share it with a friend and your team.