Korean churches are breaking from traditions to bring back youth
Christianity Today
October 23, 2026
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Anthony Wallace / Contributor / Getty / Edits by CT
On a narrow street in Seoul’s Yeongdeungpo District sits a glass-fronted building that looks like an ordinary café. A neon-lit staircase descends to a dim performance space where lyrics flash across a large screen as driving music fills the room. Young ministers and attendees move freely between the stage and the seats—jumping, dancing, and singing. The boundary between performer and congregant all but disappears.
A pastor in a T-shirt stands at the front, making eye contact with the audience members as he speaks. His message on the importance of community in a Christian’s life unfolds more like a conversation than a monologue. When he asks questions, the audience responds immediately. There are no visible crosses or church signage. This is a Sunday service at Knock Church.
Park Jiwon, 30, said she liked that she had mentors at Knock Church to follow. At her previous church, the congregation was so large that pastors couldn’t provide individualized care and instead divided people by age groups. This meant that she had no chance to build meaningful relationships with older believers.
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Knock Church’s service stands in sharp contrast to those of traditional Korean churches, where a service leader guides the liturgy from the pulpit and a formally dressed pastor delivers a sermon to a seated audience. Recitations of the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer follow a fixed order. This structure, long established during Korea’s period of rapid church growth, has functioned efficiently for decades. But for today’s younger generations, who value personal experience and relationships, it often feels distant and unfamiliar.
Over the past 50 years, Korean Christianity has experienced unprecedented expansion. Christians expanded from 18 percent of the population in 1970 to 30 percent in 2000. South Korea became the second largest missionary-sending country after the United States (it later lost that title to Brazil) and has the world’s largest megachurch, Yoido Full Gospel Church. Yet recent surveys point to challenges in passing on the faith to younger generations.
A 2026 report by the Pastoral Data Research Institute found that 26 percent of university students identified as believers but do not attend church. Among teenagers who still attend, 41 percent have considered leaving. Meanwhile, 74 percent of those who have already left said they had no one with whom to share struggles at church. The most cited reason for leaving was that “worship services and sermons are boring and meaningless.”
Park Chan-yeol, pastor of Knock Church (no relation to Park Jiwon), believes the youth exodus is not due to a lack of personal faith. Having grown up in a large Pentecostal church, he has repeatedly observed young people struggling to adapt to traditional structures. He identifies a “prohibition-centered faith” as a key issue: Churches, he argues, have focused too heavily on what not to do, while failing to explain why belief matters in the first place.
“The church should help young people discover and develop a faith of their own,” Park said.
In Seoul’s nightlife district of Hongdae, Newsong Church began in a basement club. Founded in 2013, church leaders rented the space and transformed it into a place of worship. By holding services among bars and entertainment venues, the church sends a message to young people that the faith can exist in the heart of secular culture, said Newsong pastor Nam Bin. Earlier this year, Newsong moved into a larger facility near its original location to fit its growing congregation.
Nam believes the youth exodus is not merely a decline in numbers but a failure of generational transmission—the faith of parents has not become the personal faith of their children. As a result, many young people leave the church upon reaching adulthood.
One reason for this is the societal pressures placed on young Koreans. In a highly competitive environment, young people invest most of their energy into academic achievement, job preparation, and career advancement. They spend years preparing for exams or finding a job. (Youth unemployment rates remain higher than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s global average, according to a recent report.)
As responsibilities increase, it becomes difficult for students to continue participating in church communities. Park Jiwon felt this firsthand. She found it difficult to sustain meaningful relationships at the church amid her rigorous school demands. “When you’re struggling just to get through everyday life, it’s hard to make time to share your faith and build relationship with others,” she said.
Nam and other pastors are forming new churches to meet a growing need that young people are expressing. Many of these churches share similar origins: Young pastors who once served within traditional churches are stepping out to build communities centered on relationships and the core message of the gospel. “[We] want to restore connection to keep young people in the faith,” Nam said.
One practical shift has been lowering barriers to entry. In Korea, Christian culture often discourages worldly practices such as drinking alcohol, creating distance for many young people. In response, Newsong Church welcomes individuals regardless of their lifestyle. The emphasis, Nam said, is on helping people first encounter the gospel.
“It’s important to create a structure where young people can ask their own questions and find answers for themselves,” he said. Then, as people come to understand the gospel and grow in their relationship with Christ, they can begin to understand for themselves why they may need to change certain habits.
Both Knock and Newsong have also adapted their ministry formats in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sunday services are held both in person and via livestreams, and they extend this approach to early morning prayer meetings and small group gatherings. Nam believes this is important for a generation accustomed to digital environments, as it makes the church more accessible.
Nam doesn’t view the higher rates of online church engagement among young people as a problem but as a natural development. For those balancing studies, job preparation, and work schedules, online participation can offer a practical way to stay connected to church life.
The connection extends beyond worship services. Newsong places small groups and discipleship at the center of its ministry. Rather than relying on a staff, the church empowers lay leaders to care for members.
At Knock Church, small groups are referred to as “crews.” While Bible study and prayer remain central, members also participate in activities such as running groups and soccer teams throughout the week. Park Chan-yeol emphasizes that a faith confined to Sunday attendance alone is unsustainable. Instead, he encourages frequent interaction, sharing life together, and offering every aspect of one’s life to God.
Park Jiwon, who participates in several of these groups, said, she “found a stronger sense of belonging and emotional stability within the community.”
Through the relationships she’s built with fellow church members, she’s found believers in various life stages who show her how to stay firm in her faith through different experiences, including marriage and raising a family. Park Chan-yeol explained that while young people in traditional churches often remain “attendees,” Knock Church enables them to become active members through ongoing relationships that extend into daily life.
Notably, this shift is not limited to individual churches. Nam sees growing interest among younger Christians in gathering across church boundaries.
One example is the youth gathering G2A (Go To All), a 10-hour worship event that brought together roughly 14,500 young people at KINTEX, a convention center just outside Seoul, in October. At its inaugural gathering last year, participants came from roughly 3,000 churches nationwide, and approximately 80 percent were in their teens or 20s—an unprecedented figure in the Korean context.
“The spark is already there,” Nam said. “Now it needs to grow—into a river, and eventually into the sea.”
Nam believes the movement is rooted in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19–20), where Jesus calls his followers to “make disciples of all nations.” This, Nam suggested, is not just about increasing numbers but helping faith become a living reality in each person’s life. When the church recovers that role, he said, young people will not simply return to church—they will come to understand their lives anew through it.
“It’s not about form, but essence; not structure, but relationship; not rules, but the gospel,” Nam said.
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