Over the last year, American Christianity has been buzzing with reports of renewed growth, especially among Gen Z. But the real question is where that growth is actually happening.
New data suggests the most consistent momentum is coming from two places: nondenominational churches and Spirit-filled Pentecostal movements. Both have been gaining ground through the post-pandemic era, and both point to a broader shift toward less institutional, more experiential expressions of faith.
Nondenominational churches are one of the clearest examples. According to Ryan Burge’s analysis of General Social Survey data, nondenominational Christians made up about 5% of U.S. Protestants in 1972. Today, they make up roughly 30%.
Pew’s 2025 Religious Landscape Study puts the number lower, at 18% of Protestants, largely because it uses a stricter definition. Either way, nondenominational churches now make up a major share of American Protestantism.
Pentecostal churches are seeing similar momentum. The Assemblies of God, one of the largest Christian denominations in the U.S., reported growth in attendance, adherents, membership, conversions, baptisms and new churches in its latest annual report. Major worship service attendance rose 6.2% from 2023, while adherents increased 2.5% to 3.06 million.
The denomination also reported more than 529,000 conversions and more than 168,000 water baptisms.
Lifeway Research’s 2025 congregational survey pointed in the same direction. Holiness and Pentecostal churches were among the Protestant traditions most likely to report at least 4% growth, outperforming many Methodist and Lutheran congregations.
The overlap between these two worlds may be the most interesting part of the story.
Many of the country’s fastest-growing nondenominational churches are functionally charismatic or continuationist, even when they don’t use Pentecostal labels. They may not formally belong to the Assemblies of God, Church of God in Christ or Foursquare, but their worship styles and theology often emphasize expressive worship, spiritual gifts and direct encounters with God.
In other words, nondenominational growth and Pentecostal growth may be two expressions of the same broader shift toward experiential, Spirit-filled Christianity operating both inside and outside denominational structures.
The demographic trends help explain why these churches continue gaining ground. According to Burge’s analysis, younger nondenominational churchgoers are significantly more diverse than many historic Protestant denominations. Only 59% of young nondenominational attendees are white, compared with 85% of United Methodists and 78% of Southern Baptists.
Researchers have also found that the pipeline into nondenominational churches increasingly comes from Catholics and formerly denominational evangelicals rather than traditional mainline Protestants.
Tracking all of this precisely remains difficult because nondenominational churches don’t have a centralized reporting structure. The closest equivalent is the U.S. Religion Census, which found 44,319 nondenominational congregations in 2020, up from 35,496 in 2010, with an estimated 21 million adherents.
Meanwhile, the Southern Baptist Convention continues moving in the opposite direction. Lifeway Research reported that SBC membership fell 3% to 12.3 million, the denomination’s lowest level since 1973 and its 19th straight year of decline. The SBC did report growth in weekly worship attendance, which rose nearly 4% to 4.5 million, along with a 5% increase in baptisms.
The SBC remains the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. But the broader center of gravity inside American Protestantism appears to be shifting toward churches that are less institutional, less tied to denominational identity and more centered on experiential, Spirit-filled expressions of faith.
