After decades of decline, American Christianity is surging, and young people are leading the way. David Kinnaman says it's happening in the most technology-saturated generation in history.
David is president and CEO of Barna Group, where he has tracked American faith for 30 years. Barna has documented Christianity's move off the cultural main stage, the rise of the "nones" and young adults leaving the church. Now its research is revealing something unexpected.
We sat down with David at Missional AI 2025 in Dallas, just hours after his mainstage keynote. We talked about what's driving the surge, why AI has become a new place people go looking for truth, and what the church must do to form people who can follow Jesus for a lifetime.
Barna's mission is to help Christian leaders understand a fast-changing world and know what to do about it, even when the data is uncomfortable.
Founded by George Barna in 1984, Barna is a social research company. David joined in 1995, straight out of Biola University. It studies what people believe and how they order their lives, mainly through a religious lens, and turns the findings into recommendations for Christian leaders. George Barna once joked that the team has the spiritual gift of discouragement. "We don't have to like the data," David says, "but we do have to deal with them."
Their model is the tribe of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32. When David became king over all Israel, Issachar, among the smallest tribes, had one special role: they understood the times and knew what to do.
That calling has always included technology. As a youth volunteer in the early internet days, David watched a young woman ask what the Bible said about selling her eggs to a fertility clinic she'd found online. Human nature and God's nature don't change, he says, but the technology and context around us do.
Technology is creating a shared global youth culture, and AI is becoming a place people go to form beliefs, while making every idea feel equally valid.
Barna's global studies of young adults, The Connected Generation and Open Generation, found that young people are more alike across language differences than they are to older generations in their own cultures. Shared technology and content are producing something like a common global culture among the young, which has never happened before. Even remote workers on a Honduran coffee farm keep finding the internet password so they can stream content from around the world.
David points out that TED originally stood for technology, entertainment and design, and sees those three as the persuasive forces of our time. For the first time in history, anyone curious about Jesus can ask an AI. But the internet makes every piece of information seem equally valuable, and an AI conversation tends to follow wherever you steer it. David calls it "the gospel according to YouTube" or "according to ChatGPT."
People do remain somewhat skeptical of AI. But because it feels neutral, they believe they're forming their own opinions, when in reality they're shaped by how an algorithm assembles ideas. Ironically, young people who resist being preached at may be more open to being persuaded by a chatbot.
Barna's latest research shows a sharp rise in Christian commitment, led by young people and especially young men.
David summarizes three findings:
There's a flip side. Young women are increasingly describing themselves as religiously unaffiliated and are less likely to volunteer or give at church than a decade ago. Speaking on behalf of his daughters, David says the church has real work to do to make sure women are seen, known and called into the greatness God has for them. The growing interest among men, fueled partly by long-form podcasts and figures like Jordan Peterson, is good news, but it can't come at the cost of women finding their place.
Instead of worrying about missing the wave, David urges the church to equip every believer to live out their unique calling, in a church where everyone participates.
Asked how the church can avoid being late to AI as it was with search and social media, David points to God's sovereignty. Like Gandalf, God is never late; He arrives precisely when He means to. Christians don't miss the wave. But there are faithful steps we can take, and the church already has some of the best communicators on the planet, the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers of Ephesians 4.
Barna's new Masterpiece Project starts from Ephesians 2:10: each of us is God's workmanship, created for good works. Every person has a unique genetic makeup, family, time, place, language and calling, and the church is meant to unlock it.
That may require new models. The way we "do church" in Dallas today differs from China, or from the desert fathers centuries ago, and David suspects younger generations may resonate with something closer to a monastic rhythm than a weekly TED talk and worship concert. He firmly believes in preaching, but nobody learns piano just by watching YouTube videos of pianists. Skills are learned hands-on, from a master, as an apprentice.
"The church is meant to be a symphony of us as individual masterpieces coming together to play in the great symphony of faith," David says. It's meant to be a participation sport, not a spectator one: discipling geeks, unlocking creatives, equipping entrepreneurs.
To form durable faith, the church needs to recover deep learning, so people are converted in heart, mind, body and soul, not just moved in a moment.
David's friend, historian John Dickson, estimates that early Christians studied a catechism for about 150 hours before baptism, which Dickson likens to a thousand hours today. Early churches, he suggests, felt more like a philosophical school than a modern congregation. By contrast, when David recently asked about the preparation behind a family baptism, the answer was essentially none.
That gap matters. Years later, some who deconstruct their faith say they were emotionally manipulated: the chord progression was just right, the fog machine was on, they raised a hand. "Taste and see that the Lord is good" can't rest on a great band. The church needs "boot camp" learning for geeks, creatives, entrepreneurs and young believers, alongside preaching and worship.
David's charge: don't lose hope, and equip every believer to do the work of ministry.
First, don't give up hope. God is sovereign and at work in people's hearts. Our job is to keep praying, trusting and watering the seeds He has planted.
Second, help people be seen, known and developed. Many young people, even deeply committed ones, feel like volunteers helping build someone else's ministry. Serving matters, David says, but the calling of every minister is to equip people for the work of ministry. They'll reach people you never will: at work, on social media, in their families and networks. We need Christians who participate, not just consume.
That reframes the AI question. Perhaps it isn't just "How can AI find more people looking for Jesus?" but "How can AI help ordinary believers do what God made them to do?" David shares a friend's colleague who, after a DISC personality workshop, asked ChatGPT to point out their blind spots. Use AI to see what you're missing, he says, then partner with the Holy Spirit to apply it in your work, life and ministry.
David first shared these findings on the main stage at Missional AI 2025 in his keynote, "Barna Research 2025: Gen Z Faith Trends & AI Discipleship." You can find it in the Missional AI Video Library under Dallas 2025 Keynotes.
The keynote walks through the data behind the surge in more detail, while this conversation explores what it means for the church and for AI. Watch it alongside this episode for the full picture.
Listen to the full episode with David Kinnaman on the Missional AI Podcast, and subscribe so you don't miss future conversations.
Stay connected with the Missional AI community at missional.ai.
This episode was made possible in partnership with Gloo, the technology platform connecting the faith ecosystem.