The TikTok revolution is here, and the church cannot afford to ignore it. As the most downloaded app on the iOS App Store, TikTok is taking Gen Z by storm. While many leaders are just now discovering the platform, several innovative churches have already begun successfully transitioning aspects of their ministry to this short-form video space.
Jessica Spivey, social media director at Bay Hope Church in Tampa, Florida, is at the forefront of this movement. In a recent episode of The Church Digital Podcast, she and online pastor Andy Mage discussed their strategic experiments on the platform. Their insights offer a roadmap for others looking to navigate this digital frontier effectively.
Following that phenomenal conversation, Jessica shared additional resources to help ministries succeed. These updates include practical tips for church TikTok engagement and emphasize the unique opportunities for connecting with Gen Z on TikTok.
1. What Is TikTok?
Deriving its roots from Musically, TikTok is a social media app that allows users to create 15–60 second videos with either original audio or existing audio as a lip-sync style video. With 1.2 billion downloads and 500 million active users, it is a platform that can’t be ignored. While not all churches will choose to jump on the TikTok bandwagon, those that do will increase the reach of the gospel into a generation that is looking for answers, but will likely not enter the doors of a traditional church.
2. Who Is on TikTok?
Teenagers. Forty-one percent of the users are between 16 and 24. While there is a growing adoption by an older generation of the app, the majority still remains younger. Even more important than that, the average user spends 52 minutes per day on the app—that is almost one hour of their day!
3. What They Want to View?
There is a variety of content on TikTok: funny videos, dancing videos, rant videos and lip-sync videos. But there is a growing amount of Christian content. This content can range from someone sharing an encouraging word or Scripture to creative Christ-centered rewrites of popular secular songs. Most videos are in the 15–30 second range, with the maximum being 60 seconds that TikTok will allow you to upload.
4. How Can You Connect With People?
You can connect by watching other people’s videos (bonus points for liking and commenting) and interacting with people who are connecting to your content. Once on TikTok, I would recommend that a church set up their account as a Pro account so that you have access to outbound messaging. On your profile you also have access to connect your church’s Instagram and YouTube channel; however, no other links can be added to the profile or to any posts. TikTok wants to keep people within TikTok and doesn’t currently allow outside links.
5. What Types of Content Could I Upload for My Church?
Many churches may be looking at their resources and staffing and wonder how they would be able to create content for TikTok. The good news is that you don’t have to initially come up with original content. Repurposing content from weekend messages is a great way to get started with TikTok (assuming that you stream your weekend services and can easily get your hands on the video files). Beyond that, a few other easy content ideas are a short devotion or Scripture reading, video to ask how you can be praying for people, or clips from worship songs.
6. Why Would a Church Choose to Be on TikTok?
If social media had been around during Jesus’ time I believe that he would have been all over social media. I often dream of a Jesus in the digital age and imagine him creating videos, blog posts, TikTok videos and any other kind of content that could potentially reach those who need to hear the good news of the gospel.
Stats pulled from: Oberlo.com/blog/tiktok-statistics
This article originally appeared on TheChurch.digital and is reposted here by permission.