It’s one of the more surprising stats in recent memory: Gen Z and millennial Christians now attend church more frequently than other generations. After years of decreasing church involvement, young adults are showing up in droves.
Pastor Chris Durso has some thoughts on why — and how the Church can meet this moment.
Durso, who recently launched Good Company Church in downtown Manhattan, says the shift he’s seeing isn’t about tradition or reclaiming what was lost. It’s about building something different.
“We’re not trying to be a polished machine,” he says of the approach his new church is taking. “That doesn’t work anymore.”
Good Company began as a Bible study in a hair salon. Originally called Soho Bible Study, it was casual, small and never intended to become a full church. But over time, the momentum grew — and so did the need. When the church formally launched this summer, Durso made a deliberate choice to focus on just the essentials.
“Even though it’s only week six, every week I keep stripping things back,” he said on the latest episode of the RELEVANT Podcast. “People don’t want the performance anymore. They want to worship. They want to learn. They want truth.”
That simplicity is resonating beyond Manhattan. According to Barna’s State of the Church 2025 report, 66% of all U.S. adults say they’ve made a personal commitment to Jesus that remains important in their lives — a 12-point jump since 2021. That’s nearly 30 million more adults who say they follow Jesus than just four years ago.
Durso says the turning point came after 2020.
“People went through crisis alone,” he says. “And they found God there. Now they’re coming back, but they’re not looking for the same thing they left.”
The post-pandemic landscape exposed a gap between what churches were offering and what people actually needed. Flashy sermons and polished branding didn’t connect the same way they used to.
“Before 2020, churches acted like people stayed away because they didn’t know who Jesus was,” Durso says. “Now we know they’ve heard of Him — they just weren’t sure they could trust us.”
It’s a shift toward substance over spectacle.
“I think what this generation is looking for is just flat-footed preaching,” Durso says. “It doesn’t have to be loud. It could be a whisper. It’s not about the volume. It’s about the honesty.”
That kind of honesty, he said, creates space for disagreement without division.
In New York, where cultural tensions run high, Durso’s church attracts people from every background — and not everyone agrees on everything. That’s the point.
“I believe what the Bible says about sin,” he says. “But I also want people to keep coming, even if they don’t agree yet. The only way we grow is by walking together.”
It’s an approach that doesn’t always fit the mold. But Durso says people can sense when the message is real.
“It’s so much easier to build that way,” he says. “People respect honesty. They’re not looking for a leader who has all the answers—they just want one who won’t fake it.”
“That’s why I’m not going left or right,” he continued. “I’m going Kingdom. The Church doesn’t need to pick a side — it needs to be human.”
If anything, the return of young adults to church signals a desire for meaning that isn’t algorithmic or transactional. They’ve seen every version of curated spirituality online.
What they want now is something that can’t be scrolled past.
“It’s not that people don’t want God,” Durso says. “They just don’t want to go to a church that treats them like customers. But if you give them the truth — without the manipulation, without the spin — they’ll stay.”
Watch more of our conversation with Chris Durso on episode 1270 of The RELEVANT Podcast, or listen here: