Minyan Kochav defies that tendency. The group meets in various people’s houses on Friday nights for Kabbalat Shabbat, the songs and prayers that formally welcome in the Sabbath. It’s a lay-led, egalitarian group, meaning there’s no rabbi, women and men sit together, and women are allowed to lead the prayers. Nevertheless, the environment is designed for people who keep a strict Shabbat observance: No instruments are played, and cellphones stay hidden and turned off. On a Friday night in March, the Furman-Klapholz family hosted about a dozen adults and a few joyful children in their tiny apartment. Women lit candles, cutting arcs in the air with their hands as they moved to cover their eyes. Fresh-baked challah laid waiting on the counter for dinner, next to rows of casserole dishes filled with kosher food. Men and women belted the Hebrew of the psalms, with melodies alternately mournful and full of rhythmic, sing-song patterns. No one used English, and everyone followed along from a different book; Klapholz called it “varsity-level davening,” a Yiddish word for praying.

Lay-led, independent minyans are increasingly common in big cities like New York; Furman and Klapholz said they intentionally modeled their new group on communities they had been part of when they lived in D.C. This isn’t to say they’ve given up on institutional Jewish life in Houston. Most Saturdays, they attend services at two different synagogues near their apartment—when they first started dating, it was modern Orthodox for her, Conservative for him, but now they often go together. “We didn’t create Minyan Kochav because we thought the Jewish community is moribund,” said Furman, who is 34. They were seeking to create a certain kind of spiritual prayer experience: something smaller, more communal, and more personal than a synagogue, with a focus on singing. “The fact that this has come together so quickly speaks to the health of the Jewish community here,” said Klapholz, who is 35.

There are a lot of synagogues in Houston. Unsurprisingly, some of them are facing the same problems that are troubling Jewish communities across the country: aging congregations, costly infrastructure, and an upcoming generation that’s making far less money than their parents did. But while independent minyans don’t carry the costs of a staff or a building, they aren’t a true replacement for synagogue affiliation. “The older model is that the couple has kids and then they need the synagogue to send the kids to get a Jewish education, to get Bar or Bat Mitzvah, or whatever,” Furman said. “We have no designs to turn Minyan Kochav into that kind of institution.”

A number of the young Jews I met in Houston regularly attend a modern Orthodox shul, United Orthodox Synagogues. One 26-year-old woman who grew up going to a Conservative congregation in Austin and not keeping kosher at home told me that when she moved to Houston after college, she decided to take on a more traditional practice and kept doing so once she got married. The feel of the communities is different, she said: At Orthodox and modern Orthodox synagogues, people don’t dress up as much, and there’s more talking and mild chaos, like babies running around. After all, when every day is shaped by Jewish ritual observance, Saturday morning services don’t carry the burden of being people’s sole weekly experience of Jewish life. Daily rituals and greater involvement in Jewish life also mean that the difficulties facing some Jewish institutions don’t necessarily affect Orthodox communities in the same way.

Whether someone grew up Orthodox or is new to it, choosing to maintain a strict Jewish ritual observance represents some degree of inconvenience—from leaving work early on Fridays to get home in time for Shabbat or not being able to eat in the homes of friends who don’t keep kosher. While strictly observant Jews often follow Jewish law uniformly, other Jews decide which laws and traditions they’re going to embrace, concerning everything from diet to sex to clothing. “My parents said they would give me a traditional education and share the traditions they do,” said Sophie Lee Landau, a 22-year-old chemical engineer who grew up in Manhattan and moved to Houston to work in the oil-and-gas industry. But, they said, “‘Once you’re out of the house, you’re on your own, and free to pick and choose what you like.’”