Young adults are waiting in line to worship at this fast-growing Atlanta church

ATLANTA (AP) — After Atlanta pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell stopped dwelling on growing his congregation about three years ago, its attendance surged. Now, lines packed with young adults snake outside 2819 Church, some arriving as early as 5:30 a.m. to secure a spot for Sunday worship.

Christian rap and contemporary music blast like a block party as volunteers cheer into megaphones for around 6,000 weekly churchgoers — up from less than 200 in 2023, the church reports. Inside the sanctuary, the atmosphere turns serious. Many drawn to 2819's riveting worship are hungry for Mitchell’s animated intensity and signature preaching: No sugarcoating the Bible.

After spirited prayers and songs leave many crying, Mitchell ambles onstage in his all-black uniform, sometimes in quiet contemplation or tears, before launching into a fiery sermon. His messages, unpolished and laden with challenges to revere God and live better, often spread quickly online. A recent prayer event drew far more people than State Farm Arena could handle, with many flying in.

Crying, shouting, storming across the platform and punching the air, Mitchell preaches with his whole body — and an urgency to bring people to faith before they die or what he calls Jesus’ impending return to Earth.

“It is life or death for me,” Mitchell told The Associated Press, comparing preaching to the front lines of war. “There are souls that are hanging in the balance. … I think about the fact that in that room somebody might hear the Gospel, and that might be their last opportunity.”

The church — whose name references Matthew 28:19, a Bible verse commanding believers to go “make disciples of all the nations" — is nondenominational and theologically conservative, with beliefs opposing abortion and in support of marriage only between a man and a woman.

The congregation’s growth has attracted people of many races and ages, but it’s predominantly young Black adults. Their youth is notable since Americans ages 18 to 24 are less likely than older adults to identify as Christian or attend religious services regularly, according to Pew Research Center.

Warren Bird, an expert on fast-growing churches, believes the right leader is key to a church's growth — along with God's help — and described Mitchell as “speaking a language” that connects with young people who other pastors haven’t reached.

Churchgoers say Mitchell’s message resonates because he carefully walks them through scripture and talks candidly about his spiritual transformation, including his past dealing drugs, paying for abortions and attempting suicide.

“I’m still a little rough around the edges, right? I still got a little hood in me,” said Mitchell, who still speaks with a regional New York accent.

Many at 2819 want more than motivational speeches and say Mitchell’s sermons are counterweights to the feel-good American preaching he criticizes.

“I’m preaching without watering that down, without filtering out things that we think might be too controversial,” said Mitchell, who wants people to mature spiritually and insists they can’t deal with sin and its consequences without Jesus.

“I think that there is a generation that is gravitating towards that authenticity and truth,” he said. “As a result of that, we are seeing lives being radically transformed.”

Christian podcaster Megan Ashley said she brought a friend to 2819 who had stepped away from her faith, and Mitchell had an impact. The friend told Ashley, “When he speaks, I believe him.”

The tougher messages might hurt some people’s feelings, said Donovan Logan, 23.

“But that’s what it’s supposed to do. If you don’t come to church and want to change, then that’s not the church you’re supposed to be going to,” Logan said.

Elijah McCord, 22, said Mitchell’s sermons about sin touch on what’s happening around him in Atlanta, and Mitchell's story shows that “there’s life in what God has commanded.” He also values Mitchell’s pleadings to wait until marriage to have sex.

“He biblically talks about sin and repentance and how there’s actually hope in the Gospel,” McCord said.

Churchgoers say 2819’s draw goes beyond Mitchell. It’s the entire worship experience.

Passing the dancing greeters, the Sunday crowd enters the dark auditorium. It's permeated with prayer and bold instrumental music before the service, which 2819 calls a gathering, officially begins, with hands already lifted amid shouts of praise. Tissue boxes sit at the end of aisles, ready to aid those moved to tears.

“The worship is crazy. The Holy Spirit is just there. Like, tangible presence. You feel it!” said Desirae Dominguez, 24.

Mitchell spent 10 years preaching, racking up unfruitful notes from church growth conferences, and eventually started struggling with depression. During that time, he took a transformative trip to Israel where he said encounters with God and other Christians changed him. Then, in 2023, he changed the church’s name to 2819.

Mitchell, who has spent three years preaching just from the Book of Matthew alone, said God told him to preach without bringing prepared notes onstage. Although he attended Bible college, he sometimes doubts himself because of his past.

“I shed a lot of tears because I feel often ill-equipped, undeserving,” said Mitchell. “I would not have called me if I was God to steward something like this, and sometimes I don’t know why my preaching is reaching (people). … I’m still shocked myself.”

When preparing to preach, “I’m thinking about the brokenness of the people in the room, the troubled marriages, the one who is suicidal. I’m thinking about the young lady who’s battling crippling insecurities and don’t know that she has a father up there that loves her more than any man she’s going to find down here.”

When not preaching, Mitchell’s demeanor is quieter. He and his staff are “here to serve,” he often says.

His large online platform exposes him and sometimes his family to public critique, pushback, and even threats. Some accuse him of self-righteousness or say he’s too harsh. He also issued a public apology earlier this year for comments in a sermon about obeying authority that were seen as dismissive of police brutality.

At times, he says he is deeply affected by criticism and said he repents for some of what critics decried. But Mitchell also finds solace in better understanding Jesus by enduring it.

The church recently moved into its own building, having outgrown the charter school where they held the services, and added a third one. On the first two Sundays at the new location, they added an impromptu fourth gathering because so many people came.

The staff faced similar conundrums at Access, the church’s October prayer event that drew an estimated 40,000 people. State Farm Arena was filled to capacity, as was an overflow space in a nearby convention center, leaving thousands outside, the church reported.

“We’re constantly tinkering. We’re constantly fixing things,” said Tatjuana Phillips, 2819’s ministries director.

Logistical challenges, such as packed parking lots and swamped staff, are common at fast-growing churches, said Bird, the church growth expert.

Despite its size, the church encourages community through its small groups, called “squads,” that give about 1,700 people a place to discuss sermons and support each other’s personal growth. Staff also engage with about 75,000 people weekly who watch gatherings online.

The long lines also yield friendships. Ashley Grimes, 35, said that’s where she’s “met so many brothers and sisters in Christ that I now get to do life with.”

Many of those new friends can be found shuffling into the church's auditorium on Sundays while volunteers, called servant leaders, pray over each seat before Mitchell preaches.

On a recent Sunday, Mitchell told the crowd that they can turn to Jesus regardless of what they’ve done. It worked for him. God, he said, “used failure to transform my life.”

This story corrects that the school where gatherings were held was a charter school.

Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Churchgoers worship at 2819 Church on Nov. 16, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

Members of the 2819 welcome team wave streamers and shake tambourines while singing popular Christian worship songs as guests enter 2819 Church on Nov. 16, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

Nyriyah Hullman, center, and Brooklyn Marshall, right, hold hands to pray with fellow members of 2819 Church on Nov. 16, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

People wait in line before the 8:30 am church service at 2819 Church on Nov. 16, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

A churchgoer lifts her arm in worship at 2819 Church on Nov. 16, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

Brandi Porter, left, and Kennedy Onley, right, engage in a call and response with churchgoers as they wait in line on Nov. 16, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell preaches at 2819 Church on Nov. 16, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

DETROIT (AP) — When Mayor Mike Duggan announced his plan to run for Michigan governor, he did so from a tower in the iconic but aging Renaissance Center overlooking Detroit.

It's not the same city that Duggan inherited in January 2014.

No longer defined by blocks of vacant houses, empty downtown storefronts, rampant crime and scores of broken streetlights, many believe Detroit is finally experiencing its renaissance.

“I wish he would stay,” 40-year-old plumber Thomas Millender said of Duggan, who will step down in January after serving three terms as mayor.

“Duggan did a good job from what the city was to how it has been revamped," Millender said from his father's porch in a neighborhood where many homes are dilapidated. Private renovation crews buzzed in and out of once-vacant houses, preparing them for sale.

“There is not any neighborhood in this city that hasn’t had blight reduced, that hasn’t had street lights on, that hasn’t had parks renovated,” Duggan told The Associated Press.

“We have it going in the right direction, but the next mayor’s gonna have to go build on what I do and the following mayor is gonna have to build on that mayor,” Duggan said. “It’s going to take decades to bring the city all the way back.”

Duggan, a former prosecutor and health center chief, ran for mayor in 2013, when Detroit was broke and saddled with billions of dollars in long-term debt.

It was tough to keep basic services running. City employees were forced to work fewer hours and take pay cuts. More than a third of Detroit residents lived in poverty.

“We’ve hit bottom,” then-Mayor Dave Bing said flatly.

Bing, a successful business owner and basketball Hall of Famer, was elected in 2009 after a scandal involving once-popular Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick roiled City Hall and forced Detroit's financial straits into the spotlight.

By early 2013, the state had taken over city finances and installed an emergency manager who filed for bankruptcy that summer. Because of the depths of the city's debt, there was no way “to get any relief on that without bankruptcy,” Bing said.

He didn't seek reelection and the city, looking for new leadership, found it in Duggan.

Detroit exited bankruptcy in December 2014, after wiping away $7 billion in long-term debt. For several years after, a state review team monitored the city's finances and made sure its bills were paid.

Detroit has since recorded more than a decade of consecutive balanced budgets.

Violent crime, including murders, is trending down.

There were more than 40,000 vacant houses and other empty buildings in Detroit when Duggan took office. Using mostly federal funds, his administration spearheaded the demolition of more than 24,000. Thousands of others that were teetering and unlivable have been saved.

“Some neighborhoods are in better shape than others,” said Wayne State University Urban Studies and Planning Professor Jeff Horner. “There are still blocks of terrible destitution and poverty.”

But the biggest hurdle overcome during Duggan's tenure is the city's massive population loss. Detroit’s population reached 1.8 million people in the 1950s. By 2010, it had plunged below 700,000.

“The city lost a million people since 1957,” Duggan said. “That is a lot of years of decline. It’s going to take decades of growth to get all the way back.”

A census estimate placed Detroit's population at 645,705 in 2024, showing an increase of about 12,000 people since 2021, according to the city.

“When he ran in 2012-13, he said, ‘Judge me by one thing and one thing only: whether Detroit can gain population,’” Horner said of Duggan. “He kept that promise.”

Jay Williams, 36, acknowledges there is less blight, but he would like to see alternatives to tearing down houses and leaving lots vacant.

“There is a lot of open space,” he said. “You can do new developments. A majority of the money is focused downtown.”

Detroit megachurch pastor the Rev. Solomon Kinloch argued during his unsuccessful mayoral campaign this year that every neighborhood should share in Detroit's revival.

“You can’t make all of the investments downtown,” Kinloch said. “It has to reach the whole town.”

City Council President Mary Sheffield, who was elected this month to succeed Duggan and will take office in January, says she will build on his success and ensure “Detroit’s progress reaches every block and every family.”

Any mayor's first responsibility is to attend to the “entirety of the civic fabric,” said Rip Rapson, chief executive of the private Kresge Foundation, which provides grants and invests in cities nationwide.

“It’s not like you can just fix roads or improve police response time or build 25 units of affordable housing,” Rapson said. “As mayor, you have to attend to the need for complete vitality of neighborhoods ... making sure neighborhoods have adequate housing, safe housing stock, small business cultures, educational opportunities that anchor a neighborhood.”

“People will have quarrels with bits and pieces, but he’s done all of those things,” Rapson said of Duggan. “He leaves quite a powerful and positive legacy.”

FILE - Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan comes outside after a news conference to announce a new Detroit home mortgage program in Detroit, Mich., Feb. 18, 2016. (David Guralnick/Detroit News via AP, File)

FILE - Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is applauded by City Council members before delivering his first State of the City address, Feb. 26, 2014, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)

FILE - Mayoral candidate Mike Duggan speaks at his election night celebration in Detroit, Nov. 5, 2013. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

FILE - Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan speaks to city employees in Detroit, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)