Can Bringing Older and Younger People Together Renew Religious Communities?
YouGov survey shows that intergenerational connection and collaboration may increase engagement in faith spaces
Table of Contents
About this Study
Five Key Insights
Opportunities and Challenges
Reflection and Discussion Questions
Appendix: The Survey Data
About this Study
In fall 2024, CoGenerate worked with YouGov to conduct a national survey of 1,500 adults (ages 18 and older) in the U.S. about their religious / spiritual communities, their interaction with older and younger people, and their views on building connections across different age groups. The survey was nationally representative by gender, age, race, education and political affiliation.
Our findings reveal considerable age segregation in people’s lives and a strong appetite for intergenerational connection and collaboration – or “cogeneration” – to counter it. They also identify challenges and opportunities for harnessing cogeneration to support spiritual growth and transform religious life.
We have been reaching out to a group of religious leaders, practitioners, innovators and influencers to discuss the insights in this report and will synthesize what we learn, producing a report later this year on the potential of cogeneration within faith communities.
We hope this work will inspire and equip faith leaders to help generations join forces in new ways – to solve shared problems, combat isolation and polarization, strengthen congregations, and provide a vision for thriving in our new era of age diversity.
If you have thoughts or feedback on this project, please reach out to Eddie Gonzalez, CoGen Impact Fellow, at [email protected].
We thank the Templeton Religion Trust for generously supporting this work and Cal Halvorsen, Senior Research Fellow at CoGenerate and Associate Professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, for serving as the research advisor for this study. We are also grateful for input from a group of advisors, including Serena Bian, Jeremy Fricke, Laura Geller, Danielle Gladstone, Lofton Holder, Raymond Jetson, Daniel Pryfogle, and Ruth Wooden.
Five Key Insights
Faith communities can be powerful spaces for intergenerational engagement, but there are challenges to address and, with them, new opportunities. This survey shows that:
1. Religiously engaged respondents value cogeneration – and are doing it in all aspects of life.
2. Cogeneration is an incentive for religiously engaged adults to participate in their faith communities.
3. Most religiously engaged adults think their communities need to do more to bring generations together but struggle to envision new approaches to connecting the generations.
4. Cross-generational mentoring is an appealing approach but often falls short in execution.
5. Cogenerational opportunities are unlikely to draw non-religious people into faith spaces, but they could draw religiously engaged people out to the wider community as a force for good.
Opportunities and Challenges
Each key insight is discussed below. More complete survey data can be found here.
1. Religiously engaged respondents value cogeneration – and are doing it in all aspects of life.
Creating opportunities to connect across generations is a top priority for religiously engaged respondents, along with helping others, creating a welcoming community, and deepening their spiritual practice.
Compared to non-religiously engaged adults, religiously engaged adults are significantly more likely in a given week to interact with different age groups outside of the family, including considerably older or younger people in their volunteer activities, work, exercise, hobbies, time with friends and family, and educational pursuits.
A large majority of religiously engaged adults have had positive experiences working within their religious communities with people from other generations. Both older and younger generations report that those activities are improved by the presence of younger and older people.
Religiously engaged adults strongly agree on the benefits of cogenerational relationship-building, mentorship and community engagement. These benefits include shared learning and growth, collaboration, understanding, connection, and respect.
Top priorities for religiously engaged respondents
- Helping others or improving your community 82%
- Creating a welcoming and inclusive community 81%
- Deepening your spiritual practice 79%
- Creating opportunities for older and younger members to connect 78%
- Increasing community participation 71%
- Supporting community outreach or missions 71%
- Increasing the membership of your community 64%
- Improving the physical facilities of your community (e.g. meeting places) 62%
- Some other issue 44%
Source: YouGov survey, slide 26. Percentage of religiously engaged respondents who replied “one of the most important priorities” or “an important priority.”
Presence of olders and youngers improves experience
- Say the presence of younger people improves their experience in religious activities 60%
- Say the presence of older people improves their experience in religious activities 65%
Source: YouGov survey, slide 10. Percentages are averages of responses from religiously engaged adults who reported experiences with people considerably younger, or considerably older, than themselves across 11 activities.
Religiously engaged respondents rate experience with cogeneration highly
- Rate the collaboration with someone younger as positive 80%
- Rate the collaboration with someone older as positive 90%
Source: YouGov survey, slides 11-12
Intergenerational friendships are often what keep people connected to faith communities – not just doctrine or tradition, but real relationships that ground them.
— Katie Gordon
2. Cogeneration is an incentive for religiously engaged adults to participate in their faith communities.
Nearly half of the religiously engaged adults surveyed say that cogenerational opportunities would increase their interest in participation in their faith community. They are drawn to these opportunities as a way to enrich perspectives, build community, and pursue personal growth and goals.
Asked which intergenerational activities they are most interested in, respondents list social gatherings, spiritual activities, and community engagement.
Cogenerational opportunities are an incentive to engage
- More likely to participate if offered chance to build relationships with olders/youngers 45%
- More likely to participate if offered chance to join forces with olders/youngers to address community problems 44%
Source: YouGov survey, slide 23. Replies from religiously engaged respondents.
One of the only places where you actually run into people who are younger or older is in a faith community. We used to have more third spaces – libraries, community centers – but now, religious spaces are one of the last places where generations naturally mix.
— Rabbi Laura Geller
3. Most religiously engaged adults think their communities need to do more to bring generations together but struggle to envision new approaches to connecting the generations.
Survey results reveal a disconnect between the potential of cogeneration in faith spaces and the outreach efforts that make it possible.
Religiously engaged respondents varied significantly in their assessment of their faith community’s effectiveness in bringing generations together. Those ages 30-49 are the most likely, and those ages 50-69 were the least likely, to say their religious or spiritual communities are effective at connecting older and younger people. The most frequently cited obstacles to connecting across age are differences in lifestyle, divisive generational perspectives, and intergenerational tensions.
More than one third of religiously engaged respondents say their communities make no effort to connect older and younger members. A majority say that greater outreach is needed but are unable to come up with specific ideas for ways to improve their religious community’s approach to making intergenerational connections.
Does your religious community make efforts to connect older and younger members?
- Yes 64%
- No 36%
Source: YouGov survey, slide 15. Replies from religiously engaged adults.
4. Cross-generational mentoring is an appealing approach but often falls short in execution.
The survey results reveal clear areas of opportunity for faith communities to innovate and improve upon their cross-generational approaches and offerings. Respondents identify mentoring and knowledge-sharing, for example, as promising activities for cross-generational engagement.
But most respondents do not believe their religious or spiritual communities do a good job connecting generations. Just a quarter of respondents say their communities do a good job with intergenerational social gatherings, spiritual activities, and community engagement. Even fewer say their communities do a good job with mentoring programs.
Benefits of cogeneration for YOUNGER people
- Unique knowledge from working with someone older/younger 62%
- Increase their appreciation for other generations 60%
- Lifelong spiritual values and practices 59%
- Change views about issues affecting other generations 59%
- Show that generations can produce better solutions together 58%
- Relate to people who are older/younger 57%
- Share what they know with older/younger others 48%
- Can help them feel more optimistic 43%
- Can take them out of their comfort zone 43%
- Don’t believe people benefit from such connection 2%
Source: YouGov survey, slide 27. Replies from religiously engaged respondents.
Benefits of cogeneration for OLDER people
- Share what they know with older/younger others 64%
- Lifelong spiritual values and practices 59%
- Show that generations can produce better solutions together 56%
- Relate to people who are older/younger 55%
- Increase their appreciation for other generations 55%
- Change views about issues affecting other generations 54%
- Unique knowledge from working with someone older/younger 52%
- Can help them feel more optimistic 43%
- Can take them out of their comfort zone 38%
- Don’t believe people benefit from such connection 3%
Source: YouGov survey, slide 27. Replies from religiously engaged adults.
Cogenerational activities religious communities are doing well
- Social gatherings 22%
- Spiritual activities 18%
- Community engagement 14%
- Experiences and activities 13%
- Inclusivity 8%
- Mentorship 8%
- Other 14%
- None/don’t know/no answer 21%
Source: YouGov survey, slide 18.
Mentorship seems like an obvious solution, but it’s not just about placing an elder with a younger person. It’s about mutual engagement, shared learning – not just ‘let me give you advice’ but ‘let’s walk through this together.’
— Ben Katt
5. Cogenerational opportunities are unlikely to draw non-religious people into faith spaces, but they could draw religiously engaged people out to the wider community as a force for good.
Nonreligious adults overwhelmingly say the chance to connect or collaborate with older and younger people would not change their level of interest in participating in religious or spiritual communities. Many say a distrust of organized religion keeps them away.
But cogenerational volunteerism and social activities could encourage religiously engaged people to become more deeply involved in their broader community. Religiously engaged respondents cite community service projects, mentoring opportunities, and programs that reduce social isolation and loneliness as particularly effective at building or strengthening connections between older and younger people. Music and activities that bring people together across differences are also top answers. Each of these activities has the potential to create a pathway for religiously engaged people to bridge divides and harness cogeneration as a force for good in the wider community.
Cogenerational opportunities do not increase interest in participation for non-religious adults.
- More likely to participate 8%
- Makes no difference in decision to participate 77%
- Less likely to participate 15%
Source: YouGov survey, slide 21. Replies from non-religiously engaged respondents. Percentages represent the average of two questions asking respondents if they would be more, less, or equally likely to participate in religious or spiritual communities that offer opportunities to connect with people significantly older or younger than themselves, or to address community problems together.
Effective ways for religiously engaged adults to strengthen connections across generations
- Community service projects 90%
- Mentoring opportunities 87%
- Programs that reduce social isolation 83%
- Music or worship 82%
- Interfaith or other activities that bring people together across difference 81%
- Faith-based classes 75%
- Co-living 65%
- Rituals or rites of passage 60%
Source: YouGov survey, slide 29. Percentage of religiously engaged respondents who rated these activities as “very effective” or “somewhat effective.”
On the institutional front, I don’t know what makes people think it’s too hard to integrate intergenerational dynamics. Maybe it’s just that you’re dealing with individuals – real people, not abstract ideas. You have to work with the actual relationships in the building.
— Lucas Johnson
Reflection and Discussion Questions
Whether you are a faith leader, a spiritual innovator, a member of a religious community, or simply interested in the implications of these findings, we invite you to reflect on the following questions.
About the survey
- Does anything in the survey findings resonate with your own experiences?
- Does anything surprise you?
- Is there one insight from the data that you’re eager to share with your community? Why?
- What else do you wish this survey had explored or uncovered? What’s missing?
In your spiritual community
- How does your spiritual community foster relationships between older and younger members? Where do you see success, and where do you see gaps or challenges?
- What kind of outreach has been successful in attracting cross-generational engagement?
- What obstacles prevent deeper intergenerational connection?
- How might younger and older members support each other’s spiritual development?
- Is there a gap between people’s interest in intergenerational mentorship and their experience of it in your community? If so, why? How might mentoring be strengthened or reimagined cogenerationally, from one-directional to mutually beneficial?
- How might initiatives that foster intergenerational connection and collaboration help lower distrust of organized religion or religion in general and strengthen your impact in the wider community?
Looking forward
- What might get in the way of making those possibilities real?
- What support or resources might you need to make progress?
Share Your Reflections
We would love to hear your reflections on this data and on any of the questions above, along with suggestions for individuals (or organizations) we should connect with, including media professionals. Please provide your insights here.
For any direct inquiries, further questions, or to simply reach a member of our team directly as this project moves forward, please reach out to Eddie Gonzalez, CoGen Impact Fellow, at [email protected].
Appendix: The Survey Data
For a printable version of the complete report: