Influencers: yay or nay?

When someone says ‘social media influencer’ do you think of a teenager dancing and taking selfies in front of the Eiffel Tower? Picturing this, it can be easy to write influencers off as immature or vain. But is this the whole story?

An influencer is a normal person, like you or me, who has ‘built a large social media following typically due to their expertise on specific topics’ (Influencer Marketing Hub). They share videos and photos about subjects like parenting, food or travel, and can have millions of people listening in. They have, surprise surprise, influence.

And a lot more than we think. 50% of millennials and 77% of Gen Z follow a social media influencer^[1]. Brands pay them large sums to promote products, and even politicians make use of them – Biden’s White House team meets regularly with a group. The reality is that influencers are increasingly shaping the spending habits, trends and values of our wider society.

Hearing this, you may feel encouraged when I tell you that ‘Christians appear to be accruing the largest fanbases’^[2] out of all religious influencers in both the UK and America. Or maybe this worries you: is this really a space for Christians?

Big opportunities

The biggest argument in favour of Christian influencers is definitely evangelism.

American pastor Paul Tripp has posted about the gospel three times a day for 12 years and has built a following of over 100,000. In a blog, he says, ‘I can honestly say my entire ministry has been changed by those social media platforms… It’s been a tool of enormous good. I think we ought to plunder the Egyptians, take what the world has created and use it for the kingdom of God.’

But they don’t just grow our reach. Christian influencers enable an effective type of evangelism: storytelling. At the end of the day, an influencer is a person who is sharing their life with you. Watching them daily live out their Christianity can break down barriers that a ten-minute talk just can’t.

John Reynolds (@johnejreynolds) exemplifies this for me. A youth worker at St Luke’s Blackburn, he went from 100 followers in April to now having 432,000. He posts mainly about parenthood rather than his faith, but it runs unashamedly in the background and occasionally in the foreground. He does this always by telling personal stories. Writing for Premier Christianity, he said:

‘People may reject a theory or a belief we hold… but they can’t reject our story; it’s ours.’ He continued: ‘We’ve been humbled by how God has used our simple videos. We’ve had countless opportunities to share our testimonies with total strangers… We’ve even had a wonderful family join our church because of TikTok!’

But what about the dangers?

Some objections that I’ve heard to Christian influencers include: ‘The only person we should follow is Jesus!’ and, ‘Influencers will fall into sin and we’ll be crushed’.

In part, these cautions we should listen to – influencers don’t have to pass a test to be on the platform, and they have complete control over what we do or don’t see. We need wisdom choosing who to engage with, as we’ve been reminded in the sobering case of parenting influencer, Ruby Franke, who was recently charged with child abuse.

And do you remember Christian comedian John Crist? He had 500,000 social media followers when sexual misconduct allegations were made against him in 2019. At the time, I was shocked. Simply because of his large following, I’d presumed moral character. I had let him influence me.

Why had I done that?

Made for a King

Perhaps the reason influencers are popular, is that we were created to be influenced.

God didn’t design us to be our own rulers, but to submit to His authority (Gen.2:17). But when we rejected that relationship we became sheep without our Shepherd, subjects without our leader. Lost. And we began looking in all the wrong places for a new one – do you remember Israel insisting they have a king, rather than be ruled by God?

Still today we seek mini-kings to serve, and influencers fit the bill perfectly. With their entertaining personalities and edited content, they’re exactly who our wandering hearts are ready and primed for.

Where does this leave us? Are Christian influencers a poisoned apple? Looking great, but dangerous to touch?

Perhaps eating this fruit is only possible when we’re settled back under our True King. Perhaps our weak hearts can only resist being charmed by influencers when we’re charmed most by Him. By the One who became lost, so we could be found. Perhaps that will free us to enjoy Christian influencers, without being enslaved by them.

What do you think? Yay or nay?

^{[1] According to KS&R’s Entercom Landscape Tracker
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/ e940a06d-ea0a-4f5d-b8ac-6b3111934f9d}