TIKTOK, the video-sharing platform, is rarely out of the headlines these days. Besides being a political football in a new Cold War between America and China (where TikTok was created), the app is accused of many things: ruining the mental health of teenagers everywhere, cyber-bullying, encouraging dangerous stunts, extremism, and Chinese Communist Party propaganda, with the distraction of catchy dance memes. But it is also the best place to share faith with young people. At least, that’s what a new generation of Christian TikTokers believe.
TikTok is, in essence, a continuous stream of short videos, ranging from seconds to minutes in length — between 90 and 120 seconds long are the most popular — made and uploaded by millions of people around the world. Which of the billions of videos on the platform each user is shown is governed by algorithm.
While the exact size of the app’s global user base is not known, most estimates are in the billions. It is particularly popular with teenagers and twenty-somethings: Generation Z. One study from 2023 found that more than half of British under-18s were on TikTok, making it the most popular social-media platform for that age group.
Christian content-creators range in age, but share the view that TikTok offers an opportunity to engage new audiences. Through videos with original and adapted elements, they explain, discuss, and parody Christianity for viewers waiting for their attention to be caught.
AS THE short video starts, the Revd Pippa White angrily stamps through her front door, shaking her head with visible exasperation. The camera snaps to her point of view, showing her flicking through the Church Times and landing on the jobs page. For a second, her finger lingers on one vacancy in the diocese of Lichfield. Overlaid on the five-second TikTok video is audio taken from a Champions League football match, in which the commentator Steve McManaman exclaims, “Oh, my word! We’ll have a look. . . Of course we’ll have a look.” The caption reads: “When your parishioners start to get on your nerves . . . & the job adverts are right there.”
A screenshot of the Revd Pippa White’s TikTok video
It is hard to get the essence of a TikTok across in text. The video-sharing app has developed over the years its own argot and style: it is riddled with in-jokes and viral memes that do not really translate off-screen. But the “We’ll have a look” audio — which originally referred to the review of a disputed goal — has been used thousands of times on other TikTok videos, on everything from browsing home décor stores to ordering dessert in a restaurant.
Ms White’s feed is mostly an ecclesiastical take on whatever is trending on TikTok. The 29-year-old curate from Shropshire uploads videos approximately once a week, always wearing her clerical collar, freely mocking herself, the Church of England, ecumenical relations, churchgoers, the liturgical calendar, and her own vestments. Even her username on TikTok is tongue-in-cheek: she posts under the handle @not_a_priestess.
Her freewheeling sardonic style has gained her almost 20,000 followers on TikTok, and her most popular videos have view counts in the hundreds of thousands, but she insists that she is not putting anything on. “My TikTok is my ministry amplified, to be honest with you,” she insists. She favours “sarky comments” to get conversation flowing rather than “an earnest talk about why you need Jesus”.
Are her videos a form of evangelism? Ms White says that, for her, it is something closer to “rebuilding trust” and raising the visibility of “ordained liberal young women” like her; demystifying the fuddy-duddy old C of E so that it would no longer be dismissed out of hand by younger generations.
THE Revd David Sims (posting under the handle @tiktok_vicar) embraces full-blown evangelism. The priest’s videos attempt to piggyback on existing viral TikTok trends, too, but also apologetics (with titles such as “Did Jesus claim to be God?”), miniature homilies and Bible studies, and offers to pray.
Mr Sims says that he has made his peace with never being as trendy as the 20-something influencers who dominate the platform: “I’m a 37-year-old vicar on TikTok. That’s never going to be cool.” Instead, he consciously adopts the persona of a slightly naff if earnest vicar, replete with dad jokes, acoustic guitar, and nostalgia posts about 1990s-era school-assembly worship songs.
He joined TikTok during lockdown mostly out of boredom, but, to his surprise, found it a fruitful place to interest people in the gospel. His initial attempts to “be a bit of an idiot — silly trends, trying to be cool, dances” went nowhere; so he began posting more explicitly Christian content, and, to his surprise, things started to take off.
Today, he posts short videos, sometimes just seconds long, three or four times a week. He receives 30 or more messages a week from people around the world asking how they can join a church or get hold of a Bible (his church buys them in bulk for him to post them, free, to anyone who asks). Each Sunday evening, he live-streams a TikTok service, which typically draws another 30 viewers online.
IN SOUTH LONDON, the Revd Andrew Mumby is used to catching people’s eyes as he strolls through his diverse urban parish, long black cassock billowing behind him under his greying bun. But today he’s just as likely to be identified as “Fr Andrew from TikTok”.
Joy Moughtin-MumbyThe Revd Andrew Mumby
Fr Mumby first downloaded the app to keep an eye on what his teenage daughters were doing, but began posting himself as a Lenten experiment three years ago. He assumed that his videos would drift out into the global ether, but, instead, they have become a topic of conversation in his congregation and parish. Many of his videos are the ubiquitous dance trends and lip-syncing parodies, but he also sees it, like Mr Sims, as a chance to share Christian faith.
He consciously tries to open up going to church. Many of his videos are posted from inside St Peter’s, Walworth, explaining in ordinary terms what services might involve, and that, yes, anyone can just turn up. He also tries to demystify the priesthood, posting videos that answer questions from other TikTokers about how much he is paid, whether he wants to be a bishop, and how he felt called to ordination.
THE logistics of being a TikTok influencer seem daunting, but Alanzo Paul — a Canadian apologist for Christianity working and studying in Oxford — insists that anyone could pick up the nuances of the video-sharing app. Describing himself as a tech Luddite before he joined TikTok a few years ago, he was drawn by the huge numbers of young people on the platform rather than a love of social media.
Research suggests that Generation Z is increasingly using TikTok not just for fun, but as a replacement for the wider internet: if they don’t know something, they don’t Google it, but search for a video explainer on TikTok. “This is not only a place of meeting: it’s a place of knowledge,” Mr Paul says. Teenagers were a key demographic for mission, so he felt that, as an evangelist, he could not avoid stepping into the world of TikTok.
Unlike the TikTok priests, Mr Paul is not inviting his audience into his home life, or trying to demystify his own ministry. Instead, his videos leap straight into the classic questions — “Why would God allow such a messed-up world” — as well as fresher queries such as “Can Christians take supplements?”, “Is it sinful to wear crystals?”, and “Did anyone in the Bible get depressed?”
Mr Paul hopes to get into conversation with non-believers in the app, even hashtagging his videos “#atheism” to draw their attention. The frenetic pace of TikTok forced him to “hone his craft” and work out how to convince someone that God exists in just 60 seconds or a 100-character text comment.
COMPARED with the frenetic lip-synching meme videos produced by some TikTok priests and Christian influencers, Streams Studio’s account is a place of calm reflection. Every video is a two- or three-minute clip from an interview with a Christian sitting in a chair against a neutral-coloured background. But the reach of the account, started in 2022, is enormous: it has 240,000 followers, and recently hit 100 million cumulative views (across platforms, not just on TikTok).
David Lochhead, who started the channel with some friends at his church in central London, said they were focused not on converting atheists, enticing agnostics, or normalising the clergy. They existed to “close the back door of the Church” and targeted young adult Christians struggling in their faith and considering walking away from God for good.
The themes covered in the interviews include infertility, supernatural healing, forgiveness, building community, and finding satisfaction in singleness. The speakers — from the UK, the United States, Australia, South Africa, and increasingly further afield — tell anecdotes about what God has done in their lives, or reflect on decades in ministry. Mr Lochhead said he hoped that the short videos acted as a “shot in the arm” to lift weary Christians’ eyes back to God.
THE Way is another ministry that has grown quickly. Begun as a YouTube channel in 2018, it now has 544,000 TikTok followers, and its most popular videos have view counts in the millions. Michael Yelland-Brown, who oversees the account, says that he recently estimated that an astonishing one per cent of all British 14- to 24-year-olds now followed its posts.
A screenshot from The Way’s TikTok account
What do they see? Vox-pop-style interviews on the streets, short conversations between their presenters on living as a Christian in the 2020s, and even brief scripted narratives set on the top deck of a London bus. One post seen almost 150,000 times shows a presenter musing on a video of a rare bottom-dwelling “devilfish” unusually spotted near the surface, suggesting that it could be a metaphor for God’s bringing our repressed ugly sins into the light.
It may not resemble ministry from the 2010s, let alone the 20th century, but Mr Yelland-Brown says that his team is still doing evangelism: “The whole point of us doing it is that we want to reach every young person online with the good news of Jesus. It’s also fun, because there’s an endless creativity of ‘How are we going to make the next viral video?’”
Christianity is, therefore, alive and well on TikTok. But who is listening to this faith-focused content? What kind of response do Christian TikTokers get? Does short-form meme-video evangelism actually work?
All those interviewed reported that the general response to their videos was positive. Clerical-collared priests on a thoroughly secular app do not have to spend every minute apologising for the Church of England: the millions scrolling TikTok every day seem to be more curious than repulsed.
In addition to people asking him for a Bible, or a church recommendation, Mr Sims also regularly enters into conversations about faith n the comments. Some are “angry atheists” looking for a fight, but others are genuinely searching, he says. At least two people have started attending his church because of his TikTok videos. One is now baptised, and the other is doing an Alpha course. He was aware of at least eight others who now attended other churches because of his TikTok Sunday services.
Fr Mumby reports a similar response, and had also gained worshippers at his church solely through TikTok. A community has begun to form around his channel, he says. Often, viewers write in prayer requests or questions about God, and, before he can respond, another Christian who follows him will reply.
Even the more polished and less personal content can bear fruit: one of The Way’s presenters recently bumped into someone whom they had interviewed for a TikTok video on the street a year earlier, and was told that that encounter and brief conversation had got so stuck in the interviewee’s head that they had ended up going to church and ultimately finding faith.
Mr Paul has even met someone effectively converted by the infamous TikTok algorithm. A lapsed Roman Catholic, the man had lingered for just a few seconds on a Christian video randomly suggested as he scrolled. Although he quickly moved on, the app took his fleeting interest as a sign to continue to drop more Christian posts into his feed, eventually wearing down his hostility and piquing his interest. This led to buying a Bible, joining a church, attending an Alpha course, and, ultimately, a new commitment. “The algorithm was my evangelist,” Mr Paul recalls the man saying. “And so, I’m like ‘I need to help contribute to that in some way’.”
A RECENT spate of media coverage about Gen Z spirituality has found that surveys suggest that that generation are half as likely as either their middle-aged parents or baby-boomer grandparents to identify as atheists. Almost two-thirds described themselves as “spiritual”, while one third said that they believed in God (up from one quarter as recently as 2021). New research from the Bible Society indicates a rise in Gen Z churchgoing (News, 11 April).
The idea of a youth-led resurgence of interest in faith is received enthusiastically. Mr Paul perceives a frustration with the “bankruptcy of Western secularism” and a corresponding desire to search out more meaning to life than the arid naturalism of New Atheism. “Most people that aren’t spiritual in some sense are agnostic and very open,” he says (and are terrified of coming across as intolerant, the greatest sin of all for the young, he adds, wryly). “I’m seeing this vacuum that secularism has left, and young people are hungry for spirituality.”
Similarly, Mr Sims says that the young people he engages with through TikTok are growing tired of the post-modern idea of “your truth and my truth”, and are now looking for something more concrete to build their lives on.
Mr Yelland-Brown says that his experience is that most non-churchgoers on TikTok have gone beyond agnosticism, even if they continue to question institutional forms of religion. “A lot of young people are really hoping that there’s a God, and that it’s a good God as well,” he says. “So, when we start channelling to them about who Jesus is and what we believe, they seem a lot more open to it, because it gives them hope.” One self-described “borderline atheist” sent Streams Studio a message of thanks for bringing “grace and humanity back into religious teachings — I really enjoy listening to the love, peace, and connection you encourage”.
AMID this encouragement and positivity, it remains true that TikTok has been involved in controversies, and there are the persistent concerns about its links to the Chinese state and the handling of user data.
It has a reputation for fostering intensely unhealthy subcultures, worsening mental health and self-image, and facilitating cyber-bullying among teenagers. And the flipside of Gen Z’s curiosity about Christianity is a growth in alternative spirituality, such as Ouija boards or tarot cards, under the influence of communities such as “WitchTok” (8.1 million posts and counting).
A screenshot of the Revd David Sims’s TikTok video and comments from his @tiktok_vicar account
But, strikingly, almost every Christian TikToker used the same metaphor to justify persevering with the platform: bringing “light”. Mr Paul says that he is shocked by the “darkness” that he has found on TikTok, but says that his personal motto (from The Lord of the Rings) remains: “I will follow you into the darkness.” Christ went into dark spaces to bring light, and so would he.
Beauty and darkness coexist side by side, Mr Lochhead says. “I think technology will always exacerbate the difficulties in the darkness, but what we’re trying to do is be a light in a difficult space.” And again, from Mr Yelland-Brown: “Our vision for The Way was that we’d be light in the dark place.”
The risks are not just for the teen users of TikTok, Ms White says. She was sent into her own spiral of anxiety, she says, after she was bombarded by tens of thousands of hateful comments on her first viral post. Human brains are not wired to cope with the scale of social media, whether it is aggressive hostility or overwhelming affirmation, she says. “We would be fools to not think it’s a dangerous place.” But Christ did not sit in “safe places” waiting for folk to come to him, she concludes. “The whole point is that he went out and he met people where they were, and that’s what keeps fuelling me.”
Mr Paul says: “I think every Christian should be on TikTok, representing for Jesus Christ, because I think it has a bigger effect than one can imagine.” God called his people to go where the Kingdom was most needed, and he could think of nowhere more in need of mission than TikTok.
“Don’t overthink it, just do it,” Fr Mumby says. He understands that many clergy might find the nuances of the app baffling, but believes that they would find it “more affirming and easier” than they assumed.
For others, the message is more nuanced. The diocese of Bristol has a TikTok account, but its communications department advises clergy only to follow suit if they have some indigenous Gen Z-ers in the congregation to make a channel come to life.
Ms White agrees. She says that she tends not to evangelise about TikTok to others. Those who would not enjoy getting stuck into the world of lip-synching memes and viral dance trends should probably avoid it rather than join out of any sense of duty. Mr Sims says that he does encourage other ministers to follow the trail he has blazed, but only those with a strong personality and thick enough skin to withstand the haters.
FUNDING can be a challenge for TikTok accounts with big plans. Streams Studios were initially financially supported by “friends and family” but, its co-founder David Lochhead says, “now 25-30 per cent each month comes from the audience in small one-off donations or through our monthly giving group that we call The Current, which has over 100 members.” The rest comes from “various family trusts and foundations” and “a number of churches” that are starting to offer support as part of their missions budget.
Churches, he says, are increasingly taking Streams’ videos offline to use “as part of discipleship or counselling follow-up and also during services, when they’re looking for short pieces of content to help illustrate a point”. Support appears to be growing. The most recent accounts (from 2023) on the Charity Commission website show £183,839 income and £183,892 expenditure.
The Way, by far the biggest British Christian TikTok ministry so far in terms of reach, exists only because the C of E has helped to fund it every single year, Mr Yelland-Brown says. More than 60 per cent of its income, in fact, comes from this grant. But he sees the Church, often described as out of touch and out of date, as one of very few Christian organisations far-sighted enough to see the necessity of investing on TikTok.
“They’re taking seriously the fact that, actually, there’s millions of young people online spending six-plus hours each day,” he says. Few other Churches that have talked about reaching young people have followed this up with the investment needed to build a ministry that works on TikTok, he says, and laments the Christian money still being poured into the “dying” medium of TV, or into hiring a token Gen Z staffer to run social media.
His team has often remarked that, if there was a red button that you could press to turn off social media for good, they would happily push it. “But that’s not going to happen,” Mr Yelland-Brown concedes. “So, our response is that we’re going to try and be a light in that place.”
TikTok is not going away; and so it is incumbent on the Church to jump in with both feet and reach its growing user base with the gospel, he argues. “The hope we have is that we’re able to help these young people. They might be scrolling for ages, and they see one of our videos, even if it is only 60 seconds, and it just gives them that little bit of hope.”