If they attend nondenominational church in the U.S. today, mom, dad, grandpa and grandma are probably sitting in a black box worship space on Sunday, much as they did 15-20 years ago. Or they may be watching the service on a screen at home. Particularly post-pandemic.
Either way, they’re Boomers, Gen X and Millennials – a three-generational tranche of content consumers and worshipers born, in this instance, between 1946 and 1996.
But what about Gen Z – with birthdates in the years 1997-2012 – currently between the ages of 11-26. There are some 68 million of them and they’ve had a digital device in their hands almost since the day they were born.
Do these authentic digital natives want to worship in a black box, watching a band perform on a stage with a light show and a giant video screen as a backdrop? A quick review of available studies by sources from Carey Nieuwhof (author, blogger, former attorney and founding pastor of Connexus Church in Ontario, Canada, with nearly 11,000 LinkedIn followers, many of them nondenominational church leaders) to Barna Group (a well-known research organization that looks at patterns in faith and culture) indicates “no.”
Gen Z worshipers and seekers want presence over presentation, Nieuwhof reports, in a 2023 blog on careynieuwhof.com entitled “A Sneak Peek into 5 Characteristics of Gen Z Church.” And it’s a worship-environment shift that Barna may have seen coming too, gauging by its November 2014 report entitled “Designing Worship Spaces with Millennials in Mind,” written when that generational segment was in the 18 to 24-year-old range.
“Generation Z is the first genuinely digital-native generation. They have grown up with smartphones, social media, and on-demand entertainment. They are more diverse, socially aware, and skeptical than any previous generation. And they’re also less likely to attend church than their parents or grandparents.”
—Carey Nieuwhof, carynieuwhof.com
A quick recap of the findings Barna reported are this: 78% of Millennials surveyed preferred community over privacy in worship; 77% preferred a sanctuary as opposed to an auditorium; 67% reporting being drawn to “classy” vs. “trendy” settings; 65% said they wanted quiet over loud when they worship; and yet, 64% said they were drawn to “casual” over “dignified.” And right here, it appears that semantics made a difference in the responses that were generated. For example, the Barna study also noted that despite their responses, more than half of the Millennial participants in the 2014 study preferred the word “modern” over “traditional” when describing the worship experience they seek.
For Barna, that was telling. As the researchers put it in the study, “herein lies a cognitive dissonance common to the young adults interviewed in this survey. Many of them aspire to a more traditional church experience, in a beautiful building steeped in history and religious symbolism.” And yet, Barna notes, perhaps they are more at ease in modern spaces.
“Generation Z is the first genuinely digital-native generation. They have grown up with smartphones, social media, and on-demand entertainment. They are more diverse, socially aware, and skeptical than any previous generation. And they’re also less likely to attend church than their parents or grandparents.”
Clint Jenkin, Ph.D., vice president of research at Barna Group and the study’s lead designer, assessed the dissonance like this: “the reality, like so much about this generation, is more complicated – refreshingly so. Most Millennials don’t look for a church facility that caters to the whims of pop culture. They want a community that calls them to deeper meaning.”
When it comes to today’s assessments of the worship preferences of Gen Z, Nieuwhof summed up the findings in his “Sneak Peek” blog by saying, “Generation Z is the first genuinely digital-native generation. They have grown up with smartphones, social media, and on-demand entertainment. They are more diverse, socially aware, and skeptical than any previous generation. And they’re also less likely to attend church than their parents or grandparents.”
The church leader and author also notes, choosing to emphasize with italics, “What we’ve seen at Asbury and beyond hints that Gen Z is looking for presence, not just presentation, for an experience of God, not just more information about God. They’re longing for a touch, for something real.”
The Asbury Nieuwhof refers to is an event at private Christian college Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, in February 2023, when an ordinary Wednesday morning chapel service turned into a weeks-long student revival. By Wednesday night of the day it started, college students from hundreds of other schools had joined in.
Of note: Asbury’s chapel is inside the university’s historic Greek revival-style Hughes Memorial Auditorium built in 1929 with a seating capacity of just 1,489 – and a history of housing student revivals.
As the spiritual journey of Gen Z unfolds to tell the story of the worship settings and styles that speak best to this generation -- in their quest to experience God’s presence in corporate worship – Church.Design shares images from its past editor’s recent travels to Ireland. Fittingly, the Irish embrace time-honored presence … community, authenticity and personal expression. Components that beckon to a Gen Z worshiper in 2023.
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Cliffs of Moher tower over Ireland's West Clare coast. Photos courtesy Carol Badaracco Padgett.
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St Colman's Cathedral in Cobh overlooking Cork Harbour.
A WALK THROUGH IRELAND'S CHURCHES
St Colman’s Cathedral in Cobh, County Cork, Ireland, was opened in 1879 and completed in 1919, and it literally rings with presence. It features a 49-bell carillon that beckons from the Gothic Revival masterpiece’s 300-foot-tall spire standing above Cork Harbour and the Atlanta Ocean.
This harbor was the last port of call for the RMS Titanic on April 11, 1912, before departing for New York City. And St Colman’s will forever be an associated fixture for prayer and refuge.
Another catastrophe, the sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915, off Old Kinsale between Cobh and the Irish port of Baltimore, is associated with the site of St Colman’s and the surrounding township.
Today, according to its website, St Colman’s holds mass daily at 10 a.m., welcomes countless tours, runs a gift shop in its parish hall behind the cathedral, and streams its services.
Its magnificence is nearly indescribable on the site above the harbor -- rich in history and exuding a spirit of transcendence – St Colman’s gives visitors a fortress for prayer, retrospect and an incomparable environment in which to experience the presence of God.
Simply put, St Colman’s is a dream prayer space for Gen Z worshipers.
Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, originally called The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth, was created in 1592. Trinity houses the world famous Old Library, its campus’ oldest library space, that took 20 years to build.
Inside the main chamber of the Old Library is a space called the Long Room, which houses 200,000 of the university’s oldest books. One of the books housed at Old Library is The Book of Kells.
The Book of Kells is a 19th-century Latin manuscript written on calfskin pages (vellum) that contains the complete gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and part of John -- including incredibly detailed illustrations and ornamentation glorifying the life of Christ.
The crafting of the Book of Kells was completed by three unknown scribes, known only as Hand A, Hand B and Hand C.
Equally stunning and stately – the Chapel at Trinity College is a living, breathing space for worship and prayer which sits off a courtyard called the Front Square. It is a space bustling with digital natives, visitors and tourists from all over the world. The chapel was designed in 1798 by Swedish-Scottish architect Sir William Chambers and has been in constant use ever since, its website notes.
A quick exchange with the worship space’s engaging Irish chaplain confirms that Trinity Chapel is a magnet for Gen Z worship.
The intimate chapel holds just 300 in tiered seating that runs on either side of a center aisle, facing inward. And according to the chapel’s glass-encased display board outside the entryway just off the busy Front Square, morning prayer happens each day, Monday-Friday, at 9:30 a.m., with a divine service held each day during term for students.
An email contact is provided for the “Dean of Residence and Chaplain,” with a note of encouragement for students to reach out.
For scholars and researchers, Trinity Chapel would make an excellent case study into Gen Z worship.
Photo courtesy of Carol Badaracco Padgett.
St Andrew’s Church in the City Centre of downtown Dublin is a historic Neo-Gothic protestant church experiencing a modern-day phenomenon – an architectural conversion-renovation to another use. Built on a prime downtown site, The Irish Independent newspaper notes that it will now become a community food hall in Dublin’s heart.
A testament to the numbers of people who will enter its new hall once renovation is complete, workers, area residents, travelers and vendors collide in conversation outside; scaffolding climbs the ancient structure in a nod to its next phase of life. Blending into the mix, a Gen Z-era musician with an acoustic guitar sets up to serenade humanity near the awe-inspiring structure’s base.
In one form or another, Gen Z will relish the presence and authenticity of St Andrew’s spiritual grounds as time moves on.
Or, as Nieuwhof wrote in his exploration into the five characteristics of Gen Z church, “The authenticity that fueled Asbury – the heartbroken confession, the sincere worship, the heartfelt prayer, the brokenness before God – may be exactly what the next generation is longing for.”
