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About

In this timely episode of the Resilient Pastor Podcast, hosts Rich, Glenn, and Sharon discuss Barna’s groundbreaking new research revealing a historic gender reversal in church attendance. For the first time in 25 years of tracking, men (43%) now outpace women (36%) in weekly church attendance. The conversation explores why young men and married dads are re-engaging while younger women, single moms, and especially millennials are disengaging. The hosts examine cultural, political, and spiritual factors—including the fallout of purity culture, shifting politics, the anxious Gen Z generation, and the church’s emphasis on nuclear families—while offering practical pastoral insights for fostering genuine kingdom partnership between men and women.

Key Takeaways

• Men, particularly young men and married dads, are showing up to church at higher rates than women for the first time in Barna’s history.
• Only 24% of single moms attend church weekly, significantly lower than married parents.
• Younger Gen Z shows spiritual openness driven by a search for meaning after the pandemic, while older Gen Z and millennials (especially women) are often disillusioned by past church hurt and purity culture.
• Political polarization is influencing engagement: young men are trending more conservative and toward church, while young women are trending more liberal.
• Churches must move beyond political or cultural motivations to deep discipleship that produces rooted followers of Jesus.
• Practical care for single moms and honoring women’s gifts are essential for mutual flourishing of men and women in the church.

Highlights

• “The evil one knew that effective partnership between men and women would be very powerful… and wasted no time in attempting to undermine it.” — Ruth Haley Barton
• “The thing you were handed was good. It was the handles themselves that were broken.” — Sharon Miller on learning from evangelical mistakes without discarding biblical truth.
• Married dads are now the most consistent church attenders, while single moms face both practical exhaustion and cultural stigma.
• “We are living in a spiritually open moment… 30 million more Americans have made a commitment to Jesus compared to five years ago.” — David Kinnaman
• Churches must ask: Are we creating spaces where both single people and families, men and women, can truly flourish and use their gifts?
• David Kinnaman and Ashley Lalonde emphasize the need to disciple new attendees beyond political or cultural entry points into genuine transformation at the cross.

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