New research commissioned by the Church of England has identified how growing spiritual curiosity among young adults has led to a range of unexpected routes by which they are discovering Christian faith.
‘Understanding Young Adult Journeys to Faith in the Church of England’ draws on in-depth interviews with 30 young adults aged 18 to 30 who began attending Church of England churches for the first time within the five years following the Covid-19 pandemic. The participants had little or no connection to Christianity, including periods of atheism, alternative spirituality or indifference to religion.
The research was conducted by Theos think tank and research explores how Generation Z is engaging with Christianity in new ways amongst a changing cultural context.
It found that social media often served as an initial point of contact, introducing young adults to Christian ideas through podcasts, testimonies, debates, influencers and online content.
For many, this led to deeper exploration through reading the Bible, engaging with theology and asking wider questions about meaning, purpose and truth, often before attending church for the first time.
Personal relationships were consistently found to play a significant role, with encouragement, invitations or stories from teachers, chaplains, friends, partners, clergy and church members often helping young people move from curiosity to attending church.
Community and a sense of belonging also emerged as a common experience of church, with many participants citing this as one of the reasons they continued attending and became more involved.  
Ryan, 28, a young professional living in a shared house, said: “The church very clearly gave me that in terms of a home, an identity, a community, an ability to think about issues on a deeper level than I had before.”
Young people interviewed as part of the research were drawn to a wide range of Anglican traditions, including cathedrals, Anglo-Catholic and contemporary evangelical churches.
Across traditions, they reported being engaged by the “authenticity” and “seriousness” of worship, and valuing “confidence, consistency and depth” in the churches they had chosen to attend.
Dr Nick Shepherd, Head of Insights and Engagement in the Vision and Strategy team
told Premier “the idea that people are getting increasingly secular, seems to be breaking down. People are much more curious about general spiritual questions, but now intriguingly are seeing that not just in alternative spiritualities or in a mix of different forms of belief, but actually in engaging with authentic historic faith.
“Society is in a bit of a turbulent state at the moment as well, so there's lots of questions that people are bringing. But I think the really good news for the church in this is that actually that's provoked a sense of interest and inquiry into faith that's been around for millennia”.