Something is off. You feel it. Your friends feel it. The pastor might feel it but won’t say it out loud. Church just feels… weird.
It’s not that we don’t care. Gen Z and millennials aren’t anti-church. If anything, we’re desperate for meaning, community and something deeper than the algorithm-fed noise we scroll through every day. But somewhere between sermon series that sound like TED Talks, worship leaders dressed like indie influencers and the existential dread of another mind-numbing “At the Movies” sermon series, church just isn’t hitting the way it used to.
So, what happened? And is there any way to fix it?
Maybe it’s the post-pandemic energy shift, the endless scandals or the rise of exvangelicals sharing their unfiltered church trauma online. Maybe it’s just the way institutions in general—government, media, even organized religion—are struggling to earn trust from our generation.
“I don’t think young people are leaving church because they don’t care,” says pastor John Mark Comer. “I think they’re leaving because they care too much to settle for a version of faith that doesn’t feel real.”
The problem arises for a lot of us when church feels more like a well-produced brand than a sacred space. There’s a creeping sense that the modern American church is more interested in vibes than transformation. And honestly? We’re not buying it.
A decade ago, it was all about making church “cool.” Pastors in $1,000 sneakers. LED walls that made Sunday morning feel like a music festival. Sermon titles that could double as clickbait.
At first, it worked. Churches grew. Instagram followers climbed. But eventually, the shiny branding started to feel… hollow. The same churches preaching about authenticity were the ones covering up abuse scandals. The ones claiming to be “welcoming” were only welcoming as long as you didn’t ask the wrong questions.
Lecrae, who’s spoken openly about wrestling with the institutional church, knows that feeling all too well.
“When I talk about being hurt by the church, it wasn’t so much one particular gathering or congregation,” he explains. “It was the American evangelical church who I felt hurt by. These people that I was doing events with and who invited me on stage to speak turned their backs on me when I became more vocal about the racial tensions going on in America.”
But as it turns out, people aren’t looking for another polished experience. We’re looking for something real—and if we don’t find it in church, we’ll go searching for it elsewhere.
Enter deconstruction. If you haven’t been through it, you definitely know someone who has. It’s the process of untangling what you really believe from what you were just told to believe.
But here’s the thing no one tells you—most people aren’t deconstructing their faith because they want to ditch Jesus. They’re deconstructing because they love Jesus but feel like the church doesn’t look anything like Him.
“You have to demolish a building that is mold invested and then build something else on that foundation,” Lecrae said. “We’re not getting rid of the foundation, which is Christ. But we’re building on that foundation and tearing down some things that were unnecessary, some traditions or religious rules God never intended in the first place.”
Pastor and author Rich Villodas put it bluntly: “People are longing for depth, mystery and spiritual practices that go beyond ‘three points and a closing prayer.’ They want something that doesn’t just entertain them for an hour but transforms them for a lifetime.”
And that might be the biggest wake-up call for the church in 2025. So can we fix it?
The short answer is yes, but not with more branding strategies and rebranded sermon series.
Church doesn’t need more fog machines or better coffee. It needs honesty. It needs depth. It needs leaders who aren’t afraid to say, “We don’t have all the answers, but we’re willing to wrestle with the questions.”
We want church to feel sacred again, not like a startup trying to sell us on a “vision.” We want pastors who care more about discipleship than engagement metrics. We want a place where we don’t have to check our doubts at the door, where faith is more than a performance and where Jesus—not a curated aesthetic—is at the center.
Can we fix church? Absolutely. But first, we have to admit that something’s broken.
