House churches and youth nights: How worship is changing in SLO County

Rows of padded, black chairs replace traditional wooden pews. Dark walls draw attention to purple and green light filtering through stained-glass windows, mingling with stage lights that illuminate the band. Guitars, a keyboard and singers belt out worship music that shakes the room, as lyrics flash in a bold sans-serif font on the screen behind the stage.

Soon, the lyrics fade to display a message: “Welcome to Active Church.”

Meanwhile, five miles away at the Octagon Barn, Antioch Church’s pastor is perched on a stool in front of a simple cross painting, asking for volunteers to recite a closing prayer. A volunteer guitarist strums one final song as kids sprawled on a worn carpet finish sketching the day’s lessons in their notebooks.

When the song ends, attendees head to enjoy their weekly potluck, this Sunday featuring baked potatoes, cartons of strawberries and homemade salads. The chatter of greetings fills the barn as families relax at long tables and kids play tag in the courtyard.

These two San Luis Obispo County churches — just miles apart — embody very different strategies to building their congregations in an era of waning religious affiliation and an urgent search for community.

Active’s polished production and Antioch’s intimate gatherings are part of a broader shift across SLO County to try to meet young people where they are.

“The younger Gen Z do not like institutions, but they want to find some sort of community,” Cal Poly religious studies professor Stephen R. Lloyd-Moffett said. “They are willing to go to a Catholic or evangelical service to find that community.”

In 2020, less than 40% of SLO County’s residents adhered to a religion, down from over 50% a decade prior, according to the U.S. Religion Census.

Although Catholicism has remained the county’s largest faith, it has also shrunk in size, dropping from around one-third of the population to roughly 20% since 2010, according to the Religion Census. This reflects broader national trends of declining institutional religion.

In San Luis Obispo, students and retirees are among the most predominant populations, Lloyd-Moffett said.

This can leave churches in the difficult spot of trying to cater to two oftentimes polar opposite demographics — ones with very different religious needs, he said.

So what do they do? Adapt and specialize.

The Tribune reached out to more than 25 Christian churches to learn about the challenges they face and the strategies they’re taking during a time in declining religious participation.

SLO ‘house churches’ represent return to Christianity’s roots

One way some local congregations are adapting is the return of the “house church.”

When Christianity was founded, there were no institutions, Lloyd-Moffett said.

“It was always connected with houses, and in some sense, the house church is a return to the earliest style of worship,” he said.

Antioch’s founding reflects that.

When Elsie Munoz moved to San Luis Obispo, she and her husband wanted to find a church that was small enough to gather in a house.

“We were hungry for a church with no ability to put on a show,” Munoz said.

She soon struck up a conversation with her new neighbor — a pastor. After a few families around the neighborhood expressed interest in joining a Bible study, they had their first gathering.

They now plan Sunday lunches over Signal group chats and trade babysitting help midweek, even as the congregation has grown to include nearly 70 members. In the group chats, they ask for members to sign up to help provide meals for those going through a difficult time and share life updates.

That small, homey atmosphere may be what drew members like Munoz in, but another part of the draw might also be in the church’s focus on children’s religious journey — and not just that of their parents or grandparents.

Pastor Ben Collins sees Antioch as unconventional from many traditional churches because it prioritizes helping kids interact with others beyond their age and gender.

“They don’t know how to be a part of the church, so we are trying to do that differently,” Collins said.

During Sunday service, kids over 7 join the adults in the main service in the Octagon Barn’s milking parlor. They are offered journals and encouraged to draw pictures and ask questions. Younger kids sit for the first half of the service and then have age-specific lessons with teachers in the neighboring building.

Collins believes lack of connection is one reason younger generations move away from church as they age.

Now with dozens of attendees to keep track of, Collins is working to keep the church feeling intimate.

“I see some people who are drawn to house church settings because in some ways they see it as not a big corporate thing,” Collins said.

Antioch has gained members primarily by word-of-mouth, intentionally avoiding social media, despite having a website.

Furthering the “house church” feel, Antioch also offers small worship group gatherings during the week in members’ houses.

One group has eight people, but the other has 25. So Collins is now looking to divide the larger group to keep that small-gathering feeling.

“Once you go above a certain size, it changes the ability to really be present,” Collins said.

For many members, Antioch’s small scale is the point, after all.

“I am not aiming to be different,” Collins said. “I am aiming to be genuine.”

SLO church hosts young adult nights to help find community

Active Church, meanwhile, has taken a different path to attract younger members.

Active’s interim young adult pastor, Nick Medrano, said growing up along the Central Coast — with its scattered small towns — can make it difficult for young adults to find community.

So Active aims to provide a high-energy gathering place for up to hundreds of young adults per week.

Medrano helps run the church’s Wednesday Young Adult Nights, where attendance can range between 75 and 200 people, depending on when Cal Poly and Cuesta College students return to the area.

“It’s not like your old traditional type of church where you just show up for a message and you just kind of sneak out,” Medrano said. “There’s community here.”

The evening mirrors a Sunday service but starts with dinner and ends with small-group discussions of eight to 10 people, he said. The lessons and conversations are geared more toward the concerns young adults face, along with discussions about their goals are for the future.

“People are hungry for community, so consistently showing up each week, you’re going to naturally grow closer to them,” children’s ministry director Kilee Horner said. “There is a sense of emotional connection as well because we are discussing deep topics.”

Active has also been taking advantage of social media to appeal to younger generations. Active has over 4,500 followers on Instagram, an account that features both videos of Sunday service and church events.

Active member Allie Kenp drives 30 minutes to attend Active’s Sunday services. Kenp believes more traditional churches are missing the mark by not connecting with younger generations on social media.

“They haven’t realized yet that they’re not going to reach everyone,” Kenp said.

Active also runs life groups of five to 20 people, tailored to women, men, married couples or young adults, mirroring the house-church intimacy, but within a larger framework.

Other large SLO County churches like Grace Central Coast and SLO City Church also have active young adult ministries, underscoring how important this demographic has become.

“There’s this confidence in this next generation of ‘I know what I want, and I’m going to search for it and then plant,’ but they also know they want community,” Active worship pastor Sarah Hemphill said.

Mainline denominations under pressure to adapt

As new, small churches spring up, larger legacy congregations are finding ways to adapt and reach new members.

Sometimes that can be as simple as a new name.

Renovate Church was originally known as the First Baptist Church of SLO, until seven years ago, when it chose to change the name to better reflect its mission, Renovate’s youth and young adult pastor Alex Crook said.

“We’re going to see a lot of churches now with that name change,” Crook said. “Congregations like Baptist move to a different name because maybe the connotation of the Baptist name leaves a sour taste in people’s mouth.”

Crook described that sour taste as “church hurts,” meaning an individual had a “traumatic experience” at a church, so they decide to take a step back from religion.

“Rather than what you experienced in the past, we’re trying to build a new relationship with God,” Crook said.

The church is now nondenominational. It has around 120 members, with around one-third of whom are Gen Z, Crook said. With SLO being a college town, that number has remained stable as college students move in and out.

“With so much going on on social media, it is easy to be in a silo, to be alone,” Crook said. “They’re craving community, relationships and authenticity.”

The move is part of a wider trend.

“The mainline denominations seem to be dying,” Lloyd-Moffett said. “Lutheran, Presbyterians — anyone under 60, they have had a difficulty connecting.”

Mainline denominations are known for mainstream theological stances, including American Baptist, Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ and United Methodist Church.

But rebranding? It can be a helpful step toward gaining and keeping younger members.

“You give up denominational connection to appeal to millennials and Gen Z,” Lloyd-Moffett said.

One such church is the Estero Bay United Methodist Church in Morro Bay.

The church has 57 official members, predominantly in their 70s and 80s, Pastor Steve Poteete-Marshall told The Tribune. Because some members are only in town for the summer or have moved away, Sunday sessions generally only have around 35 attendees.

Poteete-Marshall has witnessed a growing number of people disconnect with churches across all denominations, including Methodist.

“We’re seeing it happen not just in our denomination, but with conservatives and liberals there’s just a disconnect when they come to church,” Poteete-Marshall said.

Around 6% of the U.S. adult population identified as Methodist in 2007, which dropped to 3.5% in 2023-24, according to Pew Research.

Pew found that younger generations were always a small share of Methodists — and with only around 6% of those between 18 and 29 who identify as members of the United Methodist Church, their numbers have continued to shrink.

Despite working to connect through community outreach, the church meanwhile continues to struggle to attract new members.

“It’s a little hard for people with families to live in Morro Bay because it’s getting more expensive,” Poteete-Marshall said. “It’s a challenge for families, for the church to keep reaching out to the group like that.”

The former priest at St. James Episcopal Church, Barbara Miller, has been concerned for years about younger generations pulling away from religion.

With how many commitments families have to juggle each week, Miller recognizes the church needs to adapt.

“We need to adjust to younger generations and families,” Miller told the Tribune.

St. James has an average of around 60 attendees on Sundays, most of whom are retired. While the church has been reaching out to families about attending services, they are not the best at marketing, Miller said.

“Small churches do not mean bad or dying churches,” Miller said. “Small churches can be very vital and an important part of their community.”

Still, some other local churches do not see a need to adapt.

“We are not as concerned about us changing to meet someone else,” Karl Beck, a brother at the SLO Christadelphian Ecclesia in Arroyo Grande, said. “We let them see who we are, and hopefully they change to be part of us.”

The Christadelphian church is a Christian group with around 50,000 members worldwide. With under 15 local members, Beck said they are meant to observe the world moving by, not push for growth.

“It is not our job to fill this building,” Beck said.