Return to faith: Attendance increasing for first time in decades, one church leader says

Religious leaders say Gen Z is reversing a trend of religious decline that’s been happening across the west for decades. What’s driving this?

For the first time in decades, some Canadian church leaders say religious attendance is creeping back up, but the driving force comes down to one demographic: Generation Z.

“Across Canada we are seeing a movement of young people who are stepping into a building and worshipping. It is an overwhelming sense,” says Calissa Ngozi, a Toronto-based mental health educator and award-winning speaker.

St. Paul’s Bloor Street, an Anglican Church located in downtown Toronto, has seen its members of young adults ages 15 to 29 grow exponentially since the pandemic.

“We opened the doors the first few Sundays and I would say the single biggest demographic was gen Z,” Bishop Jenny Andison, rector of St. Paul’s Bloor Street told CTV Your Morning.

Andison says the number of young adults at St. Paul’s Bloor Street has grown from 45 to just under 500 over the last few years.

“I think COVID-19 gave people a lot of time for introspection and I think gen Z is looking around and they are realizing how anxious, lonely, isolated and fearful they are aboutthe future and that secularism, its promises of progress and freedom, simply have not delivered.”

Why Gen Z is Leading a Religious Resurgence | Your Morning - YouTube

According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada’s 2022 General Social Survey, 22 per cent of Canadians ages 15-24 attended religious services at least once a month. This marked a significant increase compared to Canadians ages 25 to 64 whose monthly religious service rates varied between 15 per cent and 17 per cent.

Data collected by the Angus Reid Institute, between 2023 to 2025, found the overall view on religion by Generation Z adults grew from 35 to 40 per cent, however views from every other generation significantly decreased.

Ngozi attributes this sudden interest in faith and organized religion to a desire for authenticity.

“Gen Z is craving something real in a world that often feels filtered, performative, and transactional,” she says. “They’re growing up in a time when ‘community’ can mean group chats and comment sections — so organized religion offers something screens can’t: shared values, physical presence, and deeper purpose.”

Alpha Canada, a program designed to help Canadians explore Christianity, says 72 per cent of Canadian church leaders are seeing growing spiritual curiosity from generation Z and generation Alpha, Canadians born between 2010-2024, in their communities.

Nathan Michel, a 22-year-old member of St. Paul’s Bloor Street, says, “People are looking for more in-person activities now, things that are more historical, more rooted and the church is a wonderful place to find those activities.”

Between 2024 and 2023 Alpha courses offered in schools, institutions and churches across Canada grew by 13 per cent to a record 1,907 courses.

This year, the number has more than doubled to 6,500 courses representing the highest number of courses ever offered across Canada. According to Joanna Le Fleur, media relations and strategic projects manager of Alpha Canada, the rise in courses reflects the sudden interest in religion and Christianity across the country.

Do young men outpace young women?

One of the most surprising religious attendance trends lies in the reported gender gap particularly in the U.S. A recent study by the Barna Group, a U.S. religious research organization with a focus on Christianity found young men are outpacing young women by 7 percentage points when it comes to church attendance. This marks a significant reversal since historically women, particularly Christians are considered more religious than men.

Michel believes this in large part due to a crisis of masculinity.

“We don’t have a culture that provides young men with positive male role models. There’s very much a vacuum of positive, healthy talk of masculinity,” he says. “But you go to a church and you’re part of a community that has wonderful church leaders. You have older men that are really able to model what it means to be just a virtuous person or a virtuous man.”

Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington, D.C. suggests the shift between men and women is more likely due to young women leaving religion at a faster rate in the U.S.

A recent survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute found that the proportion of young American women aged eighteen to twenty-nine who did not consider themselves religiously affiliated grew from 29 per cent in 2013 to 40 per cent in 2024. In comparison, the percentage of men within the same age group increased by one percentage point between 2013 and 2024.

Deckman says her research finds more gen Z women identify as progressive and have expressed concerns over the treatment of LGBTQ2S+ individuals in some Christian denominations, citing that as a main reason for leaving.

“I think they’ve (young women) just become disillusioned with, not just the treatment of many LGBTQ2S+ individuals in churches but the patriarchal vision of many conservative churches,” says Deckman.

Sarah Wilkins-LaFlamme, associate professor of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo, says the narrowing of the gender gap has also been felt in Canada though the shift is not as large.

“For more and more women, some find religion meaningful but some have left or they’ve become a bit less religious and haven’t necessarily raised their kids as religiously as maybe you’ve seen in the past.”

Life-cycle effect

Wilkins-LaFlamme is also cautious to assume the increase in religious attendance will continue to grow and says the trend could be attributed to a life-cycle effect.

“When a new generation arrived on the scene, back in the day, gen X or millennials, when they were younger, their rates of religious attendance were also a bit higher because they looked a lot like their parents since they were still living at home,” says Wilkins-LaFlamme.

“Most of gen z hasn’t left their original parental household yet and what we have seen with prior generations is once they leave that parental household either to go for higher education, or to start a career or to just move and create their new household, we’ve then seen the religiosity levels drop a bit.”

Ngozi however, points out that many generation Z adults are choosing religion despite their parental beliefs and traditions.

“We are seeing a lot more free will, people are leaning into it, even if their families don’t believe in it,” she says.

“Faith, at its best, gives language to hope — something many young people are desperate for. Religion can offer rhythm, community, and comfort when the world feels chaotic.”