WEST SPRINGFIELD, MA (WGGB/WSHM) -- Young people are filling religious spaces again in a reversal of a decades-long trend.

In an October 2025 report, the Pew Research Center showed that about 80 percent of adults ages 61 to 70 identified with a religion, but only 57% of young adults, ages 18 to 30, said they do.

Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, said that while Gen Z is participating in religion at higher levels than before, the manner in which they participate is different than previous generations. “They’re not doing it like their parents or grandparents or the previous generational groups. They’re also most likely to have increased their involvement in the last five years. They are the most likely to have come after never having attended or that they had fallen away and they’re kind of returning back to our faith community,” he explained.

Kaitlin Miller of West Springfield is one example of that return. The 24-year-old grew up in the Catholic church, but she eventually drifted away from its traditional structure. “I had one friend at the time, who was Christian, and she was following Christ for about a year and so I was like, I don’t know. I was questioning myself. I was like, what’s the difference between being Christian and Catholic?” she said.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed Miller to look inward and back toward her faith. “So I was like, can I maybe go to a church service with you just to like see what it’s like? And I went and I don’t know what it was. Like I can’t pinpoint what this feeling was, but it was just like I felt seen and immediately just started crying at this service,” Miller explained.

Church attendance is still common, but Thumma said Gen Z is also turning to journaling, art, music, nature, and online communities to feed their faith. “So, it ends up being, in some ways, directed more about the individual trying to find a sense of meaning and purpose than it is working through the group because that’s what the group is doing,” he noted.

Miller said she is not alone, adding that it is in the nature of younger generations to think deeper and ask questions. “I don’t think I stand alone. I think there are definitely a lot of questions that are coming up. I think we do start to question, like, why is this happening? And there’s, like, a deeper, like, it’s just deeply rooted in us to yearn for, like, unity with one another and just love in general,” she noted.

Even with more young people asking those questions and trying new practices, Thumma said it is too soon to know if this is a lasting shift. “Maybe they are forging a path that, um, is going to be of their own making and…won’t follow some of the same, the same typical patterns that the previous generations have done,” Thumma said.

For now, researchers are watching to see whether that new path becomes a permanent change in how Americans practice their faith.

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