For decades, American churches wrestled with a familiar problem: Where are the men?
Women filled the pews, volunteered in ministries, brought the children and often carried much of the spiritual life of the family. Men consistently lagged behind in church attendance and religious participation.
Something remarkable is now happening.
The gender gap is reversing — and it may be starting much earlier than anyone expected.
New research from Barna Group and Christ In Youth found that 57 percent of self-identified Christian teenagers attended a youth group within the previous three months. But buried inside that number is the real surprise.
Among teenage boys, attendance was 63 percent.
Among teenage girls, it was just 52 percent.
That is an 11-point gender gap in favor of boys.
And when those teenagers become young adults, the pattern doesn’t disappear. Other research suggests it may become even more pronounced.
Young Men Are Moving Toward Faith
Gallup recently discovered an extraordinary change among men ages 18 to 29.
In 2022-2023, only 28 percent of young men told Gallup that religion was “very important” in their lives.
By 2024-2025, that number had surged to 42 percent.
Their religious attendance is climbing as well. Forty percent of young men now report attending religious services at least monthly, up seven percentage points from 2022-2023 and the highest level Gallup has recorded for young men since 2012-2013.
Barna is seeing a similar reversal across the wider population.
As recently as 2025, 43 percent of men reported attending church weekly compared with 36 percent of women — the largest gender gap Barna had recorded in 25 years of tracking.
Think about how unusual that is.
Church leaders spent decades asking how Christianity could reconnect with men. Now teenage boys are out-attending teenage girls in youth groups, young men’s religious interest is rising sharply, and adult men are attending church at higher rates than women.
But there is another side to this story.
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Where Are The Girls Going?
The male numbers are encouraging.
The female numbers should concern the Church.
Gallup found that while 42 percent of young men now describe religion as very important, only 29 percent of women ages 18 to 29 say the same. Young women are now the least religious group of women Gallup measures by age.
Barna likewise reports that Gen Z women are increasingly churchless, religiously unaffiliated and disengaged.
So perhaps the question facing churches has changed.
