A church in Washington, D.C., is reporting 2,000% growth over the last seven years, attributing the explosive expansion in membership to Generation Z and Millennials — young American cohorts increasingly turning to faith amid a chaotic culture.
Ben Palka, one of the preachers at the King’s Church DC, told The Christian Post about the growth inside his church, which has swelled to more than 600 attendees.
He said the church grew during COVID-19, a time of true chaos and consternation, and that has only continued. And, in fact, it’s expanding fast.
Looking back at 2018, the church usually had around 30 people in its pews, but, by 2023, it was around 450, with 650 routinely attending last year. The pattern of growth simply keeps continuing, but the roots were most certainly set during the pandemic.
“We saw an influx of young people, particularly in 2020, and that was like a snowball effect,” Palka told The Christian Post. “And we saw a lot of people who previously were not very serious about their faith get really serious about their faith.”
He continued, “And we saw dozens and dozens of people — we see it every year — coming to faith in Christ.”
The murder of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk in September 2025 once again catapulted the number of people in the pews. Palka said young men began coming to the house of worship “looking for answers” and trying to make sense of what happened to Kirk.
These patterns mirror what others are seeing nationwide. Daniel Davis, another pastor at King’s Church DC, said young people have grown up in a world in which meaning is withheld and truth is squashed.
“They’ve been fed the idea that you have to make your own identity, your own meaning, to become your own source of significance, and that’s a burden that no one can carry,” he said. “They live in the ruins of Christianity, Christian institutions and ideas that have just been trashed to a certain degree and torn down. They have very strong intuitions, but they’re not able to ground them in anything transcendent or eternal.”
It seems that might now be changing, with other pastors and churches reporting similar patterns.
The American Bible Society recently reported a 29% increase in Bible use among Millennials between 2024 and 2025, with Scripture engagement among Gen Z rising from 11% to 15%. Read more here.
Please sign up for Faithwire’s daily newsletter and download the CBN News app to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.
