Hot Topics (Part 4)
What’s really going on with Gen Z?
Gen Z is the most engaged generation—research shows that they are going to church more than anyone else.
However, their questions, their expectations and how they explore belief are unlike any other generation, leaving church leaders feeling puzzled.
What’s resonating with Gen Z? What’s falling flat? How should church leaders respond with wisdom, humility and hope?
In this episode, I interview Chris Allen, Executive Pastor of CenterPoint Church in Orem, Utah, about the misconceptions of reaching Gen Z, how CenterPoint is approaching Gen Z’s interest in church and some best practices to connect with Gen Z.
Gen Z isn’t leaving the church. They’re leaning in—just differently. [episode 429] #unstuckchurch Share on X Authenticity isn’t a strategy Gen Z will adopt. It’s a filter they use to decide whether they’ll stay. [episode 429] #unstuckchurch Share on X This generation doesn’t want a separate lane in the church. They want to belong to the whole thing—across generations. [episode 429] #unstuckchurch Share on X Maybe the wisest move right now isn’t over-planning the future—but leaning into the spiritual hunger we’re seeing today [episode 429] #unstuckchurch Share on X
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Transcript
Sean:
Welcome to the Unstuck Church Podcast, where today we’re diving into a conversation that a lot of church leaders are talking about, but few feel confident in navigating. And that’s what’s really going on with Gen Z and the church right now. If you’ve been following recent research, you know, the landscape is shifting in surprising ways. Barna’s newest data shows that Gen Z and millennials are actually attending church more frequently than older generations. For the first time in decades, our youngest adults aren’t stepping away from faith. They’re leaning into it, but their expectations, their questions, and the way they explore belief, look very different than what many of us grew up with.
And that’s exactly why we wanted to have this conversation today. We certainly aren’t the experts, but we are watching these trends unfold in real time. What’s resonating with Gen Z? What’s falling flat? Where do we see the genuine spiritual hunger? And how should church leaders respond with wisdom, humility, and some hope? So today Amy sits down with Chris Allen, Executive Pastor at CenterPoint Church in Orem, Utah, to unpack what he’s seeing on the ground, especially in Utah Valley, the youngest region in the country. Amy and Chris are gonna talk about some misconceptions, talk honestly about ministry experiments that haven’t worked, and then highlight some practices that really are connecting with Gen Z.
Before we get to the conversation though, I wanna say thanks to this episode’s podcast sponsor Donorbox. You know, a lot of churches still rely on cash and checks primarily for offerings, but half of churchgoers really prefer to give electronically. Donorbox’s Live Kiosk solution can help churches like yours increase their giving by up to 35%. All you need is a tablet, a card reader and Donorbox’s app. Donorbox will let your congregants make tithes, offerings and donations instantly with cards or digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. You can get two months of the Live Kiosk for free at donorbox.org/unstuckpodcast. That’s donorbox.org/unstuckpodcast.
Alright, now here’s Amy’s conversation with Pastor Chris Allen.
Amy:
Well, Chris, we’ve been hearing more and more from church leaders about Gen Z’s growing interest in faith and church. You know, the new research is showing that Gen Z and millennials are now the most frequent churchgoers, averaging I think it was 1.8 months, something like that, respectively. That’s a complete reversal from the past decades when older generations were the backbone of church attendance. And so I still hear so much confusion when I talk with pastors about who exactly Gen Z is and what defines them in the way that they think about faith, the way they think about life. So could you just kick off this conversation by framing that up?
Chris:
Absolutely. I mean, first of all, let’s give our listeners the age range that we’re talking about here. Math is hard, Amy.
Amy:
Math is hard.
Chris:
Gen Z, they were born between 97 and 2012. Right? So you’ve got kind of in your church right now, your 13 year olds to your 28 year olds. And I don’t know who gets to decide these ranges, by the way.
Amy:
I don’t either.
Chris:
I grew up my entire life being told I was Gen X. And then I think somewhere in my late twenties, someone like redrew the lines and decided that I’m a millennial.
Amy:
You might be a geriatric millennial, like Sean.
Chris:
It explains why I still live with my in-laws, right? No digs. I literally do. But I mean, typically the generations are classified by the era that they’re born into, right? So Gen Z, you think about what they were born into, they’re born into the fallout of modern society’s broken institutions. So we have divided political parties. Sexual identity is a big deal. Social media has exploded. The digital age split homes, even COVID. So this generation, they don’t remember a time before the iPhone or the internet. That kind of blows my mind.
Amy:
Doesn’t it?
Chris:
But they’re also born into the fallout from that age. So they’ve seen institutions fail. They’ve seen personality-driven churches fail. And so they are quicker, I believe, to cut to the chase of give me something authentic. Give me real hope. And so they’re being described right now, and I think this is accurate. They’re being described as spiritually curious because they’ve seen everything else fall short. But they’re also spiritually cautious, especially of religious institutions because again, they’ve seen everything else fail.
Amy:
That’s a great perspective. And Chris, part of where you’re located, being in the Utah Valley, I think you’ve told me this, it’s the youngest region in the country. Can you shape what you’re seeing with Gen Z in that area of the country?
Chris:
Yeah. So you said it. Well, Utah is the youngest state in the United States by a median age at about 32 years old. Utah County’s the youngest county in that state. And then the two cities that we kind of serve, Orem and Provo are the youngest sister cities in the country. The median age, Amy, is 25.
Amy:
Oh my goodness.
Chris:
Some censuses in Provo say it’s closer to 23. And I tell you, you see this every day. I’ll walk into a Trader Joe’s and I will feel like I just walked into a college sorority house. It’s like I just raised the average age 20 years, and it’s like, is it okay if I’m here? I promise I won’t be long. I’m not trying to ruin the party. I’m just trying to get some cookies. So, you know, being in a church in a town where the average resident’s 25, we were kind of already seeing this movement hit early in recent years. But what amplified it exponentially, unfortunately, was the Charlie Kirk tragedy. But at the same time, it did amplify something spiritually. And prior to that event, Amy, Utah Valley University, the city of Orem, it wasn’t really on the map. And our church is just blocks away from ground zero of that tragedy. So that moment in tandem with the young demographic, again, as tragic as it was, it just poured gas on an already spiritual hotspot for Gen Z.
Amy:
Wow. Yeah. I think you said you can actually see the university from your campus. Is that true?
Chris:
Oh, yeah. We’ll have students that’ll park in our church parking lot and walk there to avoid some of the parking situations that they’ve got, and it’s blocks away.
Amy:
Wow. Well, I’ve heard you say that you think it’s crucial we approach this conversation more as eyewitnesses than experts. I love that phrase. Can you unpack that idea a little bit?
Chris:
You know, as church leaders, and I imagine most of our listeners are probably also strategists, and you all are the experts at this, and we naturally try to forecast and kind of think several steps and even years ahead, which is good to do. But practically, this generation is evolving so fast. It would be, I think, really difficult to know exactly what two or even three years from now is gonna look like.
Amy:
Right.
Chris:
So when I say approach Gen Z as eyewitnesses rather than experts, think of it kind of like the 10 day weather forecast. Okay. I wanted to be a weatherman Amy, so just humor me here for a moment. Day one and two of your weather forecast on your phone, they’re pretty accurate, right? And you can more or less count on tomorrow and the next day of your weatherman’s forecast most of the time. But you look all the way down to day 10, that’s gonna be a coin toss. It’s 50/50. There is so much that can change and change rapidly.
So when I say be an eyewitness, I mean just stay present. Don’t miss what God’s doing right now. The spiritual hunger that we’re seeing, this might be a once in a generational revival moment, and we don’t wanna miss it. So maybe the wisest move is not over planning the next few years based on what is happening today. But rather take the time, take the equity, lean in over the next few months and this year, learn from their hunger, build real relationships with them, which is what they want, by the way. And plan, yes, plan of course, but hold it loosely. We like to say, hold it with open hands. And I suggest treat it like the weather forecast, look 12, maybe 18 months out, but three to five years ahead. That’s like the 10 day forecast. This is just a fast moving front. We don’t wanna miss the moment.
Amy:
I’ll tell you what, that forecast thing I might take with me because that’s what we experience with churches all the time when we’re leading them through strategic planning. You know, when I started with The Unstuck Group, we were doing 10 year visions, and now we’re telling churches three to five. But even in that you have to have an annual rhythm because of the changing conditions. You might have to pivot, you might have to switch. And what a great word picture with this generation. Chris, what are the strongest signs of like spiritual curiosity or hunger that you’re seeing right now? You’re talking about this revival. So can you paint a picture of that for us?
Chris:
Yeah. How much time do we have? This is a long-form podcast, right?
Amy:
Listen, like two hours, two and a half hours. So go ahead.
Chris:
I mean, we could talk about some of the obvious signs such as, you know, steady rise in attendance on Sundays, and that’s been happening for the last couple years. And then obviously very dramatic in the last eight weeks. We’re taping this in November, so we’re only about two months removed from the Charlie Kirk tragedy. But I think more telling than that is just the rise of authentic faith encounters. And what I mean by that, we’ll just watch this even in casual ways every Sunday. We’ll see long and lingering moments before and after services. They don’t leave our foyer, you know, they don’t just come in on time and leave. They stick around, they come early.
Amy:
Which is a problem for you because you’re up like 50% in a turn away situation with non-optimal service times being pushed uphill right now. Right?
Chris:
That’s right. That’s right. So parking’s a disaster. Foyer’s a disaster. Bathrooms are a disaster. But it’s a beautiful disaster. And, you know, we’re watching students who are coming forward for prayer. They’re praying for each other. The rate of baptisms is like 20 to 25%. I can’t keep track, Amy, of the exchanges that I’ll have with young adults who come in with a very strong social identity and yet they’re asking us, inviting us to speak really hard spiritual truths and to be direct even if, or honestly, especially if it contrasts those social identities. And so there’s a lot of moments like that.
This next thing though is the head scratcher for us that we’re still trying to figure out. The amount of Bible giveaways that we hand out this last year. We are a church of 1500 last summer. We’ve hit 2,500 a couple of times in the last two months. And I tell you that not trying to brag on size or growth ’cause it’s fickle, it could drop 500 people next week. But just to give you a scope for what I’m about to tell you next, the last 10 months we’ve given away over 1200 Bibles since January. 400 of those, a third of ’em in the last two months. So even as a church of 1500 on the low end, you know, that’s almost one per person. On the high end of 2,500, it’s every other person. We don’t know yet what that is other than yes, a spiritual curiosity. Why is the most digitized generation actually want paper and something they can hold. That’s an interesting thing to pay attention to as well.
Amy:
It sure is. Chris, how do you think Gen Z’s ideas of like community, and you’ve used the word authenticity, how does that differ from what older generations looked for in a church?
Chris:
Yeah. And this is maybe one of the more defining elements of Gen Z. I can tell you this, they don’t want surface level friendliness. They don’t want to feel like they’re part of an algorithmic program. They can smell being treated like a number, not a name, a mile away. They do want belonging and honest connection that goes past Sunday. So small groups are still the win. Good news there. But specifically small groups who are led by mentors. So our college pastor, probably the best thing that he’s done, and he’s done an excellent job of this, of recruiting what he calls spiritual parents. And those spiritual parents lead these young adult small groups. And there have been countless stories, Amy, from these groups where they will extend late into the night. And these leaders are in their forties, fifties, sixties, you know, and they’re like, okay.
Amy:
Time to go home.
Chris:
It’s time to go to bed. The study is done. And I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard of these leaders who are just gracious, generous, next generation people who have said, “Go ahead and keep going. Last one out, lock the door, turn off the lights.” And they go late into the night. You know, it’s these moments in the book of Acts almost that are happening right now. Stories of groups that then go, well, that’s not even enough. Let’s meet later this week in a coffee shop. They’ll push through the semester, we’ll have the break end for the holidays or the summer, and they’ll keep going. And so I don’t wanna say that older generations aren’t authentic. But Gen Z definitely has zero tolerance for anything but authentic. And if they’re in, it’s not marginal. They’re all in.
Amy:
Wow. All right. We like to be practical on the podcast. So you’ve hinted at some of this.
Chris:
I love practical.
Amy:
But what are some of the things you found do not work with Gen Z?
Chris:
There’s a lot starting to get published about the end of the attractional or the seeker friendly strategies. And I would agree that those aren’t working anymore, but I would propose it’s not, I don’t think it’s because one trend is ending and another is beginning. It’s like skinny jeans are no longer in, and now you have to wear baggy again. I wish we all kept our jeans from 2001. I don’t think that’s what’s going on. I would suggest it’s more that the motives have changed. So instead of churches having to answer the question, are you relevant? Gen Z wants to know, are you real? And they don’t want to be a project or, you know, reached, they want real. And so it might be a mistake to trade, you know, one set of trendy strategies that were just really culturally heavy relevance for another set of trendy strategies. That are just disguised as deeper teaching or longer worship. I think Gen Z is gonna see through that if it’s another algorithm that you’re just adopting from another church with a hoped outcome.
And so rather, they’re seeking sincerity, authenticity, transparency, and the thing, Amy, about those traits, you can’t fake them. You can’t copy paste them, you can only be real. So I think it’s less about abandoning things like topic based sermons. You know, we’ve talked about a lot of some of the elements that came from the attractional church, like using props or even stories and illustrations from the stage, or culturally relevant worship, even excellence, I feel like was a byproduct of that culture. I don’t think we necessarily have to abandon those. It’s just those approaches or values need to be secondary to authentic sacred encounters with Jesus as the priority.
And you know what I’ve seen that happen with churches that are still singing the newest, latest, greatest Elevation single that came out last Thursday. And no one’s even heard it yet. And they’re fresh off the press. And I’ve seen it from churches where you could step into it, it almost feels like you went back in time a decade. Quick example of this. This last summer we were traveling in Northern California. I was just south of the Bay Area. I went to this church in Santa Cruz, shout out to Vintage Faith Church down there, filled with college kids, another college town. And I step into this worship service, Amy. And first of all, the building is probably from 1940. You know, the only thing that they’ve really done is gutted the pews. They’ve got some AV updates on the stage, but they have a stage set that looks like it’s from 2010, 2015. Not bad, like excellent and well done. But kind of back to that attractional movement a little bit. They’re singing songs from 2015. And they have a five minute meet and greet. Who does that? Gen Z does. And it worked. Why? Because it was them. It was intentional. It wasn’t haphazard, it was them. And so there’s kind of two examples. You know, you’ve got the latest greatest, you’ve got something 10 years old, but it’s them and Gen Z will embrace both. Why? Because it’s authentic. It’s a real encounter. It’s a real moment.So yeah, I think, you know, authenticity has to lead more than anything. And our priority shifts away from impressing people and instead it shifts to authentic encounters.
Amy:
How does a church know when they’re being inauthentic, Chris? Because there’s a lot of tension in this communication. I mean, what we’re talking about, because it’s funny, whenever someone says it’s the end of the attractional church, I’m like, well, it depends on what you think that is. Because the opposite of attractional would be like, you wanna turn people away, which we don’t wanna do. Right?
Chris:
Right. We don’t.
Amy:
That’s such bad branding in my mind. I mean, I think we need to do things well enough that we can bring the focus where we want the focus. Because when things aren’t done well, they catch your eye and they distract you and all of that. So I love that you’re disclaiming. We’re not throwing everything out with this, but I think for churches to dig at what is authentic, how do you do the filter? Do you have any thoughts on that? How do you evaluate what’s authentic?
Chris:
Well, an easy, you know, an easy don’t do is, hey, I visited this church in North Carolina last week, and boy, I loved the songs they sang and their approach to this, this, and this. Let’s copy paste it. It doesn’t mean you can’t go get good ideas. That’s okay. In fact, I feel like that’s what makes the capital C Church a beautiful thing, is that we collaborate. But at the same time, if we’re not paying the most attention to the people that we have supernaturally and strategically been planted amongst and asking the question, Lord, what do they need? That’s where we start.
And too often, I think maybe that attractional church at its worst, and there’s a lot of bests too, by the way, but at its worst, a lot of churches will kind of just go and grab, all right, if we just take this workflow, this approach, we’ll get those results. Well, that’s not why you were planted to be there. You might be planted to be a church of a couple hundred. Not every church is gonna be a mega mega church. And that’s okay. We’re not all gonna look the same. So it’s probably as much a check of the heart, why are you doing what you’re doing? Is it because of the people you’ve been planted amongst? God has you there for a reason.
Amy:
Yeah. I often say, I must say it weekly, we need all kinds of churches ’cause there’s all kinds of people, you know. Let me try this one and see. When I was leading the weekend services at my church, the win that I gave them as they planned and designed the weekend service was, I said, create a come and see experience that engages people, builds trust, and points them to God. Like for me, that was kind of the goal. I wanted anyone who came to our church to be like, it was just a come and see, come and see. And they’re glad they did. Right? That it builds trust. There’s something about are we doing the things we need to do to build trust with people when they’re there? Because they’re wondering, especially Gen Z according to what you’re saying is they’re like, are you real? Is this a show? Is this a gimmick? What is this?
And then, engages me, and it’s interesting in the worship space, right? Worship is for the believer. But I would often just tell our teams we need to do it in a relevant and engaging way so that it intrigues the heart of a seeker. Right? The foot starts to tap, or you get caught up in the music or the teaching, whatnot. But at the end of it that everything we’re doing is not pointing to us. It’s pointing people to God. So in other words, we capture the light at the beginning while they’re assessing who are you? Do I trust you? Do I believe you? Is this relevant to my life? Is it engaging? Is it real? But then we want to reflect the light and point them to God. Does that work?
Chris:
Great example of this, we had a greeter a couple weeks ago that brought this story to our attention. She had spoken with a group of three girls, young girls, 20, 21, 22, something like that. And they were coming out of the service and she asked them, how was it today? And they expressed their opinions. They were clearly new. And they’d been coming for about two or three weeks. And she asked them, hey, can I just be honest? You know, what was the hardest thing? This was kind of like a beautiful secret shopper experience that this greeter gave us. What was the hardest thing the first week you walked in? And they all three unanimously said, oh, the worship. It was just, it was really good, but we didn’t know what we were walking into.
And granted, Amy, our context is unique, you know, for our listeners, we’re planted in northern Utah. We are in a demographic that is 80 to 90% members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So the worship between that church and people who come into ours is wildly different. You go from pews with hymnals to a band on stage, having these long moments, people raising their hands. We’re not Pentecostal. But it’s expressive enough that it would still be daunting. And so they all three answered, oh, the worship. Like, we just were confused. We didn’t know what was going on, but we were drawn in. And then the greeter asked them this question, why are you still here? And they all said, the worship. They said, it’s inspiring. We keep coming back because these moments and these encounters, that’s kind of the buzzword a little bit. These moments and encounters just seem authentic and real. So to your point, you know, you were being, what was the first one?
Amy:
Come and see.
Chris:
Come and see. Okay. So there’s a little bit of curiosity in the come and see, and you’re right. There should be some excellence there. People should be looking around. We should answer as many questions as we can. But there should at least be some inspiration in that come and see.
Amy:
That’s right.
Chris:
And then your second one was?
Amy:
Build trust.
Chris:
Okay. So there you go.
Amy:
Yep. Yep. Engage and then point to God. All right. Let’s wrap it up with this. I just kind of asked you like what’s not working, but you’ve sprinkled some of this throughout, but just to kind of land our conversation, what is working from your perspective with Gen Zs?
Chris:
Standout trend that we’re seeing, and I already hinted at it, is that Gen Z values the multi-generational connection. So they’re looking for spiritual parents. They want sages who will walk with them, not just talk at them. And Amy, honestly, it’s one of my favorite things about this generation. They’re not pretending to have it altogether. They’re open; they ask for help. They want it from those who’ve lived more life. And so, you know, how is that working on Sundays? Well, they’re coming in droves to worship and serve alongside every generation at the main Sunday service. They don’t want a separate lane. They want to be a part of the main thing. And in groups, it’s, again, it’s working through the mentorship. They want older believers to lead them, to guide, to share wisdom. So Gen X, boomers out there, you’re not done. This is your moment to invest because they’re asking for you.
Amy:
I love that. What would you say, Chris, just in closing, you just opened this up for me. I talked to a lot of churches about their college age, and you know, some churches have college pastors, they have separate college services, but that kind of works against what you just said. Can you share your perspective on that?
Chris:
I, you know, a few years back we anticipated the demographic, not necessarily the spiritual fervor that we’re seeing, but the volume just of that age of Gen Z in our community. And so we invested relatively heavily for the limited resources we have. We hired a talented full-time college pastor. We hired a part-time worship leader, and then we launched a Monday night service. And that service was not a duplicate of Sunday. Different message, different worship, different content. Different approach, really.
And Amy, you know this, in the consulting world, if this were a campus, if we were to show up to a church and there was a campus doing that, we would say to the lead pastor, hey, that campus is behaving more like a church plant than a campus. They have a different identity, a different approach, a siloed demographic. And that’s essentially what we’ve done. And we’re still trying to figure out what to do with that because it has strong leadership from a very gifted leader and communicator. It has staffing from our weekend teams. And that service still only draws about a quarter of the participation that we see on Sundays. So it’s not for lack of quality or intentionality.
But meanwhile, Gen Z small groups are thriving, which we’ve clarified as the win. So we kind of have this almost this like chicken and egg scenario. You know, if Monday night service didn’t exist, would there be the success of groups? Would they still come on Sunday morning? And I think the answer is yes. The truth is Gen Z does not want a separate lane. They want to belong to the full church. Yet we’re creating this standalone service for them. And so we’re not sure what to do with it. We love our team. We love the high intentionality of our investment. But it seems like it might not just be a redundancy, it might also perhaps be counterproductive to that multi-generational win that I’m talking about.
Amy:
Well, I love this. I mean, we all have to figure this out in our own context. I’ve shared with churches, the churches that I see that have the most young adults at and engaged in their church are the ones who draw them to their weekend service. But it could be different when you live right next to a college; it could be different in different contexts.
Chris:
That’s right.
Amy:
But what I loved about what you just shared is you aren’t holding tightly to your methods and you’re very clear on the mission of what you’re called to do. And that’s what we have to do as we approach these things. Not make the way we do church unchangeable, but to hold loosely to how we do it so that we can fulfill the great commission in the communities that God’s put us in. So, well, thank you again, Chris, for being a part of the podcast and sharing your story. I’m sure there’s lots of church leaders out there wrestling through what to do with Gen Z, and you gave us some very practical handles to hang on to today.
Chris:
You bet, Amy. Thanks for having me. I genuinely hope it’s helpful for folks out there.
Sean:
Well, thanks for tuning into this week’s episode and every episode in 2025. Your engagement and feedback in our podcast means the world to us. If you’ve been thinking about taking your church through one of our consulting processes, whether it’s The Unstuck Process or our Staffing and Structure Review Process, or maybe our Multisite Process, now is a good time to reach out. We’re already booking consulting engagements into the second quarter of 2026. So if you’d like to get on our calendar, don’t wait. You can head over to theunstuckgroup.com and start a conversation about how we can help your church have greater health and impact in 2026. Again, thanks for listening to our final episode of 2025. Can’t believe I’m saying that. And we’ll be back next week with our first episode of the year 2026.
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