Once upon a time, the ideal church had stadium seating, LED walls, and a worship set indistinguishable from Coldplay. But something is shifting. Slowly, quietly, almost counterintuitively, young Christians are trading smoke machines for incense, TED Talk sermons for creeds, and hype music for hymns. This isn’t a rejection of Christianity. It’s a rejection of thin Christianity—marketed, manufactured, and sometimes, morally bankrupt.

The End of the Attractional Model

The numbers are impossible to ignore:

• 57% of young adults (18–35) say they’re disillusioned with the performance culture of modern church services (Barna, 2023).
• Churches built on production value but lacking doctrinal depth are losing young adults rapidly, especially post-COVID (Lifeway Research, 2022).
• Meanwhile, traditions like Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and confessional Lutheranism are quietly growing, with Millennials and Gen Zs citing “stability,” “sacramentality,” and “the ancient faith” as primary draws (Pew Research, 2021).

Howesver, the crisis isn’t just about style—it’s about substance.

The Failure of Celebrity Christianity

The attractional, platform-driven model of church is imploding. Ravi Zacharias. Carl Lentz. James MacDonald. Bill Hybels. Houston. Chicago. Seattle. Hillsong. Willow Creek. Each moral failure left not just broken institutions, but disillusioned congregants—many of them young. These churches often slipped into an error which blurred the line between spiritual leadership and brand management.

For Millennials and Gen Z, many of whom were raised in or around these churches, the damage is personal. Their pastors were brands. Their churches were empires. And when it all fell apart, it felt like betrayal. The result? Not always atheism—not always deconstruction–but often exile. They didn’t leave Jesus; they left a system that packaged Him like a product.

A Rejection of Postmodern Drift

But there’s more than just disappointment. There’s also a deeper shift at play: a philosophical revolt against postmodernism itself. Behind all of this lies a long-coming cultural exhaustion. For decades, postmodernism told us:

• Truth is personal.
• Morality is relative.
• Institutions are oppressive.
• Everything should be fluid.

Gen Z (those born 1997-2012) has grown up inside this cultural logic—and it has failed them too. They’re drowning in freedom without form; choice without meaning. What began as liberation now feels like disintegration. They want boundaries. They want permanence which, closely tied to this, means they want assurance. “Give us something real.”

And so, paradoxically, they are running not toward novelty—but toward tradition. Toward structure. Toward the truth-with-borders that creeds and liturgies provide. They want truth that doesn’t flex with public opinion. Democracy is great, but we do not want truth to be democratic.

“The modern self wants autonomy without limits. But meaning requires boundaries.”
—Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

The return to liturgial worship, then, becomes not just church preference—but cultural resistance. It rebells against religious weightlessness and demands gravitas.

The Hunger for Rootedness

In place of celebrity pastors and curated sermons, young Christians are seeking:

• Churches where Scripture is central.
• The sacraments are serious.
• Songs with strong theology, not just emotional vibes.
• Worship that doesn’t depend on charisma but is shaped by ancient rhythms of grace.

“Liturgy roots us in something enduring when everything else feels like sand.”
—Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary

The Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, sacraments, the church calendar—these aren’t just words and deeds. They’re instruments of formation, drawing weary modern souls into a faith that doesn’t collapse under pressure of individualism. These people are not chasing novelty. They’re chasing rootedness—a way to tie their lives to something older, deeper, and durable.

Ancient Form, Living Faith

It is important to emphasize: this isn’t nostalgia. This isn’t your hair-style from the 80s coming back into vogue. This is much more formative, much more impactful, much more lasting: it’s discipleship.

“We are not just brains on a stick. We are lovers, shaped by rituals more than arguments.”
—James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

In this light:

• Confession becomes countercultural honesty.
• Creeds become resistance to relativism.
• Communion becomes a protest against consumerism.
• The church calendar becomes a reorientation of time itself.

Liturgy grounds the rhythms of life into something real.

In a culture trained to deconstruct everything, liturgical worship reconstructs the soul’s purpose. It insists that we are part of something greater than ourselves. It binds us to the body of Christ throughout the ages. As such, liturgy doesn’t just express who we are—it forms our identity.

You Don’t Need a Cathedral

Here’s the good news: You don’t have to be Roman Catholic, Orthodox or Anglican to lean into liturgy. You don’t need incense, robes, or a Gothic sanctuary. You simply need intentionality and the willingness to hold the line against patterns and designs that highlight hype over holiness. A simple, liturgucal service has:

• Call and response.
• Communion.
• Psalm and hymn singing.
• Preaching of the Word.
• Historic creeds and prayers.
• A church calendar that teaches Christ’s story, season by season.

Even low-church Protestants can—and should—recover these rhythms. Because in a world of distraction, these are repetitive and necessary tools of spiritual formation. In a culture of postmodern instability, they become anchors of grace for weary souls.

Conclusion: A Church With Memory

Many young adults aren’t leaving the church because they are done with Jesus–they’re leaving because the church forgot how to be the Church. But the way forward isn’t innovation: its recovery. Young adults are daily bombarded with the new, but what they need is the old.

Gen Z want to be part of something bigger than themselves–something tested and true, something that feels enduring. Creeds and confessions and established church liturgy unite the Church through the ages–the Church catholic(lower-case “c”!)–in a way that fog machines and celebrity pastors cannot. Instead of being of Apollos of Paul, young adults desire to be of Christ and his Church. It’s about being a part of something bigger, not being the biggest part of something.

So, in an age of curated identities, collapsing platforms, and theological drift, the most radical thing a Christian can do…

…is confess, and say together:

“I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.”

Barna Group. The Open Generation: United States, 2023.

Lifeway Research. Worship Attendance Trends Post-Pandemic, 2022.

Pew Research Center. America’s Changing Religious Landscape, 2021.

Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, 2020.

Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary, 2016.

James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit, 2016.