Which denominations (churches) have the highest attendance of young adults (say ~16 to ~32) as a percentage of the congregation?
If statistics aren't available, then in your experience, what are some churches with high young adult attendance?
Note: any insight from any country would help, but I'm mainly interested in the "next generation's" adoption of Christianity in the U.S. and Western Europe. This is for research.
By experience in my area (Ohio), it appears that non-denominational (Baptist with a little 'B' generally) contemporary services tend to draw in young adults. I'd feel safer to say that if your age group is 18 to 32. 16 year old are still under control of their parents. At 18 they can choose where to go and more parents do not object since at least they're attending some church.
Catholic churches also have a good crowd, but those are usually people who were raised Catholic and attending service is a tradition. Unchurched people are more inclined to join a church as mentioned above.
Anecdotally, it entirely depends on your locality. There are some very powerful young adults groups in several denominations and it is my experience that those are definitively on the rise among Catholic parishes in Northern NJ and the NYC metro area. But it completely varies on a church to church basis. I know of one Evangelical Free Church in the Princeton area and the majority of their congregants are young adults. Of course, the different campus ministries are almost 100% young adult.
Actually, I think I'll leave my answer at that. "College campuses" is the denomination with the highest percentage of young adults.
