REACHRIGHT Podcast

Every year, Outreach Magazine publishes a list of the fastest-growing churches in America, and buried in that data are clear patterns most pastors never notice. This episode is for pastors and church leaders who want to know what growing churches are actually doing differently. 

We break down why they invest heavily in kids and students, how they mobilize volunteers instead of only hiring staff, and why home groups and a clear discipleship pathway matter so much. We also wrestle honestly with what's correlation and what's causation, and which strategies fit every church versus only some. 

AI has changed the rules of church marketing again, and this time the shift is moving faster than most churches can keep up with. This episode is for pastors and church leaders who know AI matters but aren't sure what it actually changes for their church. We talk through why content creation is no longer the bottleneck and how small churches can now personalize communication at scale. 

We also cover how AI search is changing the way people find a church, and why the bar for authenticity went up, not down. AI didn't change what good church marketing looks like; it changed who can afford to do it. 

Most churches are active on social media, but almost none of them are reaching anyone beyond their own congregation, because 95% of the people who see their content don't attend their church. In this episode, we break down the single biggest mistake churches make online, creating content for members instead of strangers, and run through the rest of the list, from broadcasting instead of engaging to avoiding video to spreading thin across too many platforms. 

This episode is for pastors and church leaders who want their social media to actually reach new people instead of just reinforcing what current members already know. We also unpack why chasing followers is the wrong goal, why consistency between Sundays matters, and why even a small amount of paid promotion can change everything about who sees your content. 

Most churches pour nearly all their energy into attracting new visitors while ignoring the fact that only 10 to 20 percent of first-time guests ever come back a second time. In this episode, we make the case that retention, not acquisition, is the fastest and cheapest path to a growing church, and we break down what a real connection sequence looks like in the critical first 30 days after someone visits. 

This episode is for pastors and church leaders who want to grow but feel like they're constantly refilling a leaky bucket instead of building something lasting. We also dig into why much of today's church growth is really just redistribution between churches rather than new conversions, and why small churches often have a quiet advantage when it comes to relational depth and follow-through. 

https://www.chmeetings.com/ 

With 93% of pastors now using or exploring AI, the question for churches is no longer whether to use it, but where the line actually is. In this episode, Thomas goes through a long list of real AI use cases happening in churches right now, from sermon research and discipleship chatbots to pasting giving records into ChatGPT and posting AI-generated prayers without disclosure, and calls each one in bounds or out of bounds. 

This episode is for pastors and church leaders who know AI is already showing up in their ministry, whether or not they've officially addressed it. Along the way, Thomas and the team unpack why intent and transparency matter more than the tool itself, and why only 5% of churches currently have a written AI policy even though most leaders say they need one.

Every pastor has been handed a book, framework, or five-step plan promising to fix their church's growth problem, and most of the time it wasn't built for their context. In this episode, we rank the most common church growth advice out there, from genuinely effective to advice that should probably be retired for good. We look at real numbers behind kids and student ministry investment, home-based small groups, the attractional preaching model, multi-site campuses, and whether strong leadership is really the deciding factor in growth.

This episode is for pastors and church leaders who are tired of copying what worked somewhere else and want to figure out what actually fits their own church and community. Along the way we talk honestly about the strategies that get oversold, the ones that quietly work, and the mindset shift that matters more than any single tactic.

Most church teams know AI is supposed to help but have no idea what a real workflow actually looks like in practice. 

In this episode Thomas and Shiloh walk through the specific AI-assisted workflow that is saving church staff teams real hours every single week, starting with the Sunday sermon as the content engine and working through every repeatable task that follows. From generating a full week of social captions, email copy, bulletin recaps, and short-form video clips in under an hour, to using Claude Code for deep multi-step sermon research that compiles commentary insights, cross-references, historical background, and congregation-specific preaching prompts into a single PDF in about seven minutes, every piece of this workflow is concrete, practical, and ready to implement starting Monday. 

This is not a conversation about whether churches should use AI. It is a step by step picture of how the ones saving the most time are actually doing it. 

Your church website is the first impression for thousands of people who will never tell you they visited it. Seventy-five percent of people judge a church's credibility based on its website alone and 61 percent leave within five seconds if they cannot find what they need. 

In this episode Thomas and Shiloh break down the specific patterns that separate high-performing church websites from the ones quietly losing visitors every single week. From answering visitor questions immediately and designing mobile-first to serving two audiences without confusing either, repeating one clear call to action, and making the site actually feel like the church behind it, every pattern comes with a practical and honest take on what most churches are still getting wrong and what to fix first. 

TikTok is stable, it has 1.5 billion monthly active users, and it is now functioning as a real search engine where people are looking for churches and spiritual content every single day. The question for most churches in 2026 is no longer whether TikTok is worth paying attention to. It is whether their specific church should be on it, what a realistic strategy actually looks like, and how to use it as a genuine ministry tool rather than just another platform to feel behind on. 

In this episode Thomas and Shiloh address the TikTok ban drama honestly, break down how the algorithm shifted in 2026 toward value-first watch time and authentic short-form content, lay out what a realistic church TikTok strategy looks like in practice, and give a clear framework for which churches should treat TikTok as a serious growth tool and which ones will see better return investing that energy elsewhere. The closing challenge is one every church leader can do in under two minutes and what they find might be the most important thing that happens before their next content meeting. 

Sixty percent of Protestant churches are plateaued or declining and most of the conversations about fixing that focus on what churches should add. This episode flips that conversation entirely. 

Thomas and Shiloh walk through five specific things that growing churches have intentionally stopped doing and the shifts they made instead that actually moved the needle on growth, discipleship, and community connection. From walking away from the copy-paste attractional model and cutting programs that exist out of tradition rather than impact, to building multi-door digital strategies, investing in intergenerational ministry, and replacing passive hope with real follow-up systems, every shift in this episode is practical, honest, and immediately applicable. 

The closing question is one every pastor and church board needs to sit with seriously before they plan their next season of ministry.