When a pastor looks out over the congregation each Sunday morning, he sees concrete evidence marriage commitments and family dynamics have changed drastically from a generation ago.
RELATED: See other stories in Felt Needs series.
These current trends may be confusing to church leadership and often spark late night conversations about how to update ministry outreach and counseling programs. But they also offer new opportunities to reach out — keeping a finger on the pulse of changing congregations and providing preaching, teaching and discipleship that ministers to both current and future generations. Scripture remains the church’s one foundation despite cultural and generational shifts.
Barna study
A 2025 study by the Barna Group says 46% of U.S. adults are married, compared with two-thirds in 1950. Young adults are waiting significantly longer to commit to marriage, choosing to spend much of their 20s as single adults. Men now enter marriage at about age 30, and women at about age 29. This means churches must prepare to minister to larger and more diverse groups of never-married single adults. These are young people who need long-term discipleship, community and pastoral care.
The study also shows married couples are divorcing at steady rates. In 2023, over 1.8 million Americans divorced, and about one-third of adults who have ever been married have also experienced divorce. Four in 10 divorces occur within the first decade of marriage and nearly a quarter after 25 years.
Christians now divorce at rates similar to the general population (around 18%). This means churches will continue to minister to those walking through the pain of broken marriages and seeking healing.
More than half of divorced adults eventually remarry (55%). Therefore, churches must expand outreach to divorced adults who are blending families in complex and often difficult new structures. Divorce and remarriage also affect Protestant pastors: while 91% of pastors are currently married, 18% have been divorced, and 73% of those have remarried.
While only about 8% of adults cohabit, more than half of all adults (58%) now commend cohabitation as a wise living arrangement, even many practicing Christians. Cohabitation no longer carries the stigma it once did. Churches must find ways to minister to couples who already share a home, finances and often children outside of traditional marriage.
Marriage remains a valued institution, however, and 81% of Gen Z say they hope to marry someday. But they disagree with older generations about the necessity of marriage for raising children. Gen Z believes that marriage is good, but not essential.
Southern Baptists have long affirmed marriage is a covenant designed by God as a one-flesh union for life, based on Genesis 2:18–25 and Matthew 19:1–9. The teaching is that what “God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mark 10:9), affirming the sanctity and permanence of marriage. Yet divorce among churchgoing Christians still mirrors those outside the Church.
In many cases, churchgoing couples who divorce leave their church or move to another congregation. About 6 in 10 end up in a different church. Divorce not only fractures a home but also disrupts the family’s connection to their church family.
How churches can respond
More diverse family structures mean that church leadership must find new and creative ways to reach out to their changing congregation.
Here are some suggestions:
- Singleness: Staying single can be a meaningful calling, not merely a waiting room for marriage. Churches must offer robust ministry to young single adults who may delay marriage for a decade or more. Teaching should address not only dating and marriage, but Bible study, identity in Christ, vocational goals, spiritual growth and Christian fellowship. Intergenerational fellowship strengthens the entire body.
- Delayed marriage: Because young adults now wait a decade longer to marry, the church must update premarital and pre-engagement counseling. Many couples will already share housing, finances, career demands or lifestyle patterns that are difficult to change. Premarital preparation must be deeper, longer and more relationship focused.
- Divorce and remarriage: Divorced members still need strong recovery ministries. But the rise in remarriage means churches must also minister intentionally to blended families, now one of the fastest-growing household types in the nation. Blended families face unique challenges such as different parenting styles, loyalty conflicts, boundaries with former spouses and financial and legal complexities. Churches can provide remarriage-focused counseling, support groups for stepparents and discipleship for children living in two households.
- Cohabitation: With acceptance of cohabitation rising among Christians, churches will increasingly counsel couples who already share a home, finances and children. To keep these families connected to the church, pastors must offer counseling that provides hope, direction and step-by-step guidance toward a Christ-centered, covenant marriage.
- Gen Z’s beliefs: Gen Z has grown up in the midst of unstable relationships, high divorce rates and cultural messages that redefine family. Churches must address their questions with clarity and compassion. Teaching should include the meaning of covenant marriage, God’s design for family and why children thrive best with married parents. Gen Z also needs healthy, God-centered married couples in the church who can serve as living examples and mentors.
Open door for ministry
Current marriage and family trends may be unsettling to pastors, church leadership and congregations, but they also open a remarkable door for ministry: a renewed opportunity to teach biblical truth, grace and healing to the broken, guidance and support to blended families, and discipleship and mentoring programs for young adults.
We can know with certainty that God’s Word never changes, even as marriage and family structures do (Isa. 40:8; Ps. 119:89; Matt. 24:35; 1 Pet. 1:24–25). Current trends do not weaken the church’s mission (Matt. 28:19–20; Mark 16:15; Eph. 4:11–12; John 13:34–35; Gal. 6:10; 2 Tim. 4:2; 1 Pet. 2:9) but provide greater shepherding opportunities that expand it.
Share with others: