The Black Church Has a Gen-Z Issue: ‘They Don’t Come Into the Building Anymore’ The Black Church Has a Gen-Z Issue: ‘They Don’t Come Into the Building Anymore’
The New York Times
These congregations are struggling to attract younger members. That has consequences for social cohesion and Black political power writ large.
On a Sunday morning, about 100 worshipers gathered for services at Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
The choir filled the room with verses from “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior.” The kick drum thumped. The high hat ticked. And the audience punctuated the hymn with the syncopated double clapping often heard in Black churches. Some of the congregants sang with masks over their faces. But as the crowd nodded along to the testimony and sermon that day, the church is facing a challenge: The congregation is getting older, with few young people in the pews.
Mother Bethel is the birthplace of the A.M.E. church, a major denomination of the Black Protestant tradition.
Its pews were once packed.. During the Great Migration in the 1920s, Mother Bethel’s membership peaked at about 4,000, according to the Rev. Mark Tyler, 58, who has led the church for the last 16 years. The decline has been slow but devastating: Today, it has about 700 members, with about 300 regular in-person churchgoers.
Black churches across the country are struggling to get younger congregants through their doors. Church membership has plunged among Black adults by almost 20 percentage points in the last two decades, according to Gallup. And among the Black Millennials and members of Generation Z who do attend religious services, about half do so at majority Black churches, compared with two-thirds of Black baby boomers and members of the Silent Generation, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
Though many houses of worship across America are struggling with falling membership, the singular standing of the Black church means that its declining numbers have far-reaching consequences for social cohesion and Black political power writ large.
Lawyers asked a federal judge to move his trial to 2027, to give them time to prepare for a separate state case. Prosecutors are expected to oppose the request.
As a lawsuit by the former staff drags on, the fight highlights President Trump’s upending of traditional peace-building and the lasting effects of his administration’s cost-cutting blitz.
An unusual heat wave is pushing temperatures in San Francisco into the 80s this week, and Los Angeles hit 98 on Tuesday.
Selling marijuana is strictly prohibited in the military. What that means for soldiers who own businesses is unclear.
As a lawsuit by the former staff drags on, the fight highlights President Trump’s upending of traditional peace-building and the lasting effects of his administration’s cost-cutting blitz.
President Trump’s decision not to weigh in before the deadline means both John Cornyn and Ken Paxton remain on the ballot, extending their costly and increasingly personal battle into a May runoff.
The officer, whom police did not identify but who works at Gracie Mansion and City Hall, is now under investigation. The man who was shot, a 30-year-old, is in critical condition.
New York City has been representing former Mayor Eric Adams in a civil lawsuit concerning an alleged sexual assault in the 1990s.
The purported sighting in March 2006, covered by a local TV news station, made a lasting impression on the internet — and on Mobile, Ala.
New York transit officials are seeking nearly $60 million in overdue federal funding to extend the subway line to East Harlem. The administration’s rationale for the freeze has been inconsistent.
Oil had not flowed through the pipeline since a 2015 rupture caused an environmental disaster on California’s Central Coast. It sets up a new fight between the Trump administration and state officials.
Leqaa Kordia, 33, had been held in a Texas facility, where she said her health had declined. She was arrested during a 2024 protest and then detained by ICE in March 2025.
Most groups defended their support for medical intervention. But the Society for Plastic Surgeons broke with the consensus.