When it comes to church, today’s young people aren’t looking for a show—they’re looking for a home. For Gen Z, cold and institutional is out; real and relational is in.
That’s good news for smaller churches. Since 2000, national median worship attendance has dropped from 137 people to 65 by 2023, and 70 percent of churches now report fewer than 100 regular members. The trend is undeniable—but so is the opportunity. Smaller churches are often better at feeling like family. And that sense of family comes with crucial benefits when it comes to attracting and keeping teenagers and twentysomethings.
Thanks to the Fuller Youth Institute’s research with ethnically and ecumenically diverse congregations, we’ve seen these advantages show up most clearly in some smaller churches—particular those my colleagues and I describe “Future-Focused Churches.”
We define a Future-Focused Church as a “group of people that seek God’s direction together—especially in relationally discipling young people, modeling kingdom diversity, and tangibly loving our neighbors.”
After all, a church—of any size—isn’t a building. It’s a body of people. And those bodies are at their absolute best when they are wholeheartedly following God’s lead.
The definition names three priorities we’ve consistently seen in healthy, growing congregations. Grounded in what we see in Scripture, shaped by current cultural dynamics, and confirmed by ongoing research with over 1,000 churches intentionally connecting with young people, these three “checkpoints” consistently show up in congregations that are bearing fruit, especially with Gen Z: relational youth formation, kingdom diversity, and tangible love of neighbors.
Churches that share these priorities don’t just grow younger—they grow healthier. And while a church of any size can become future-focused, our research reveals that smaller congregations have three surprising advantages when it comes to reaching and discipling Gen Z.
People support what they create
When Dustin interviewed to pastor Port Orchard Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington, one of the elders voiced a sobering concern: “If we don’t get more young people, the church is going to die.”
So Dustin got to work. Leading a church of 90 people, he made it his mission to personally connect with every young adult who visited. Soon, he and his wife launched a young adult Bible study that regularly discussed this key question: What would we like to see God do through us?
Together, the young adult group felt called to offer practical health services to their neighborhood. Their vision mobilized the rest of the congregation to host a free one-day medical clinic. It made a meaningful impact.
Later, when Dustin and some of those same young adults felt called to plant a new church 30 minutes away in Tacoma, they brought that same desire to serve the practical health needs of their city. Over the last four years, LifeBridge Church—their church plant of 50–80 members—has rallied to host 12 free health clinics, mobilize 1,000 volunteers, serve 2,000 patients, and provide over $1 million in dental, vision, and medical care.
Through both churches, Dustin saw the same truth confirmed: all generations—but especially young people—aren’t so eager to get on board with a pastor’s pre-written program. They want to help write it. They want to play a part in developing something meaningful together.
Put simply, people support what they help create. In many cases, the smaller the church, the easier it is to be part of that creation process.
Wise pastors in smaller churches recognize they have a unique part to play in mobilizing the community through preaching, mentoring, and leading. But all that work functions less like a central pipeline and more like tributary streams feeding into a larger river—one that sees the gifts of the entire community mobilized. As Dustin learned, that river grows stronger when young adults are asked to imagine how God might want to work through them—and are then coached in how to make that dream a reality.
Leadership begins with listening
On the first day of many of his leadership classes, my friend and Fuller Seminary colleague, Scott Cormode, highlights a simple phrase to his students: “Leadership begins with listening.”
When leaders take that seriously, remarkable shifts can follow.
At one Southern California church of 200 members, leaders recognized they needed to better listen to their young people. So a pastor and board member started asking teenagers direct questions:
When do you feel like you really belong in our church?
How can we see and support you better?
Their responses included a common theme: “Show up for our events outside of church.”
So they did. The church created a tradition of announcing student events every week during the worship service. Whether it’s one person or a dozen, someone now shows up to a game or concert in support of the younger congregants. By listening well, this church has become a place where young people feel seen, celebrated, and supported every week.
To practice that type of listening across generations, we recommend a listening strategy called Appreciative Inquiry. As the name suggests, it focuses on strengths—and not deficits—through questions like:
- What do you love most about this church? If there’s a particular story or example that comes to mind, please share it.
- Tell us about a moment when you really experienced God or felt God’s presence. What was that like, and why was it meaningful?
- What is it like to be a teenager today? What do you really enjoy about this stage of life, and what is important for others in our church to know about your perspective?
- What do you hope or dream for the future of our church?
When pastors in smaller churches ask these sorts of questions, they better appreciate, and can respond to, this anxious and creative generation’s pain and potential.
Experiment from the edges
Experiment. It’s a beautiful word. (Admittedly, as a researcher, I am positively biased toward the term.)
Part of its appeal lies in its implication that as we try something new, we will evaluate our progress along the way. What we’re doing is not set in stone.
Every Future-Focused Church we studied had to experiment—often wisely labeling it as such—during the pandemic. In many cases, those short-term shifts became a new part of the long-term normal.
For instance, one 75-person congregation in Scotland sought to add greater relational connection to their online worship services during the pandemic. So they opened their Zoom gatherings twenty minutes early for discussion and casual worship singing. The congregation, starved for community, embraced it immediately. When they could resume meeting in-person again, they translated that tradition to their worship services. Now, twenty minutes prior to the 10:30 a.m. service, the worship team leads “casual worship” for anyone who wants to come early.
Reflecting on this shift, one elder told us, “Before COVID, if I had suggested that we would start the services with a few casual worship songs, the shutters would have gone up. But experiments…allowed us to get around what had previously seemed as insurmountable obstacles.”
This is a powerful feature of smaller churches. When leaders make a practice of listening to congregants and involving others in change, their nimble size makes it easier to tweak current gatherings or offer something altogether new. And as leaders learn from and leverage these small wins, they can become bigger wins that change church culture and increase church impact.
Of course, God can work—and has worked—through churches of every size. But for a generation starving for authenticity and empathy, smaller churches often offer what Gen Z is looking for: belonging, purpose, and a sense of family.
Kara Powell, PhD, is chief of leadership formation at Fuller Seminary, executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute, and a co-author of Future-Focused Church.
