Pastor Mike Todd is one of the world's most influential pastors.

• He's a New York Times best-selling author

• He's the lead pastor of a fast-growing and thriving church in Tusla, Oklahoma - Transformation Church

• He's also relatively young, only in his mid-30s

He’s also reaching millions on social media.

At the time of this writing:

• Mike Todd has more than 2,000,000 followers on Instagram

• More than 1,00,000 followers on Facebook

• More than 1,00,000 followers on TikTok

• And more than 2,000,000 subscribers are tuning in to Transformation's YouTube channel

Those are staggering numbers.

And frankly, it's common when you see numbers, reach, and influence like this to be skeptical - right?

Some people will chalk it up to “watering down the Gospel” while others are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Such is life when you have the public profile Pastor Mike has.

I wanted to go directly to the source.

Which is why on a recent episode of The Pro Church Tools Show, we sat down with Rohn Starling, who held the title of Content Creator To The Lead Pastor at Transformation for over three years.

What does that job title actually mean?

It’s simply a fun way of saying that it was Rohn who was working 1-on-1 with Pastor Mike Todd helping to direct social strategy.

And when you look at this graph showing the growth of Pastor Mike's social accounts online, Rohn was behind the scenes recommending post ideas and giving Pastor Mike feedback and advice on what to try next.

And the conversation with Rohn was so revealing that I needed to talk about it beyond the podcast.

So, let's start with one of the most important takeaways I gleaned from talking with Rohn:

Despite the church's size, budget, available gear, and expertise, Mike and Transformation consistently opt *not* to use professional cameras when making content for social but instead just use their phones.

Three massive takeaways from that one-minute clip from Rohn that you cannot miss:

Takeaway #1: Choosing to create with phones rather than pro cameras

Pastor Mike was choosing to create content with his phone rather than the cameras the church already owned and that Mike already knew how to use.

Why? Because using that gear in the context they're discussing wouldn't have been genuine.

People would have been able to see through it.

To that end, here's a rule for making timeless videos:

What you're shooting and how you're shooting need to tell the same story.

So, what does this look like in practice?

Well, if Pastor Mike is making content showing off his family and his fitness journey - his day-to-day life as a human being - it makes sense for that to be shot through the lens of him holding up his phone in selfie mode.

Because it's supposed to be in the moment and off-the-cuff.

Inversely, if you watch one of my YouTube videos you'll see that it’s the synthesis of a ton of information.

It’ll include overlays and b-roll emphasizing what I'm saying aloud visually.

A video like that should not be in the moment; it should not be off the cuff because it wouldn't serve its purpose that way.

It's about the right tool for the job.

That's takeaway number one.

Takeaway #2: The Stacking Effect

It's not just one post - it's multiple. You get a stacking effect where one post's momentum bleeds into the next, which bleeds into the next, and they begin to compound.

This is why the foundation of every single church's social media strategy needs to be #NoWeeksOff.

If you don't have that, you forfeit even the potential of the magic that Rohn is describing.

Let me show this to you visually…

What you're looking at above is my real-time notifications on Instagram.

See that first notification of a few new likes on a Reel?

That Reel is from 12 weeks ago and those are the first notifications.

The following two notifications are from a post today; it's got some new comments and likes.

After that, there are more likes and views from a Reel that's 5 weeks old.

Then, there’s engagement from a carousel from 2 weeks ago.

And engagement on a Reel that's 1 week old and is still getting new likes.

This is what is truly remarkable about discovery algorithms on social right now.

It used to be that you would get engagement on a post for about 48 hours, then distribution would stop, and the post would disappear forever.

But today, I've got posts from months ago, literally last year, still reaching new people, and when you combine that with #NoWeeksOff you start to have multiple posts doing that, and they stack.

And they compound.

And THAT’S where the magic happens.

Takeaway #3: Don’t Be One-Dimensional Online

Rohn talks about Pastor Mike posting about his family and date night - did that sound strange to anyone?

It's not common for pastors to post about that stuff.

And Rohn expands on this idea a bit more here:

Fitness. Family. Fatherhood.

Plus, the preaching clips.

Plus, what's going on at church.

If you asked me, “Brady, what do you think of when you think of Pastor Mike?” I would say I think of his commitment to his family and his commitment to his health - those things probably come before what he preaches about and what he's doing at Transformation.

That’s at least my observation. For me.

Because a big chunk of what Mike posts about is his dedication to those things.

But also because of the pillars - to use Rohn's word - of content that Pastor Mike has.

It's the fitness and family stuff that interests me the most.

And getting really practical here, this is why not being one-dimensional online as a church or a pastor or a human, in general, is crucial if you care about reaching more people.

For example, if it's just preaching clips he posted, but you don't resonate with Pastor Mike's preaching style or his theology, you're out on him.

But if he also has a pillar for fatherhood, being a husband, and caring about his health - well, now he's hitting on more topics you can relate to.

Maybe his preaching style doesn't resonate with you, but you might be inspired to be a better dad because of how transparent he is with what he's working through.

So now he’s expanded the pool of people he can reach because he’s talking about more things.

The key? And this is so important.

Each of the pillars has to be authentic to what you value.

You can't just pick it out of the air because you know it's popular or what people want to hear.

The key is finding the intersection between what the world cares about and what you care about.

Rohn describes it in the context of jumping on trends and how he and Mike would decide on "Is this us? or are we just jumping on a trend because it's popular?"

How often on this blog have we discussed the imperative of making decisions in your church based on your stated values?

"Should we do this trend or not?"

Answering that question shouldn't come down to the pastor pulling rank or a power struggle between two staff members with their personal preferences.

It should always be about being faithful to the mission.

Mike and the senior leadership team of Transformation have done such an excellent job at casting vision with memorable language:

RE-present. Not "represent." But RE-presenting God to the world.

The church's senior leaders have done such a good job at casting that vision that Rohn's first instinct when evaluating something as small as a single social media post is to ask himself, "Does this align with the values of our church?"

What are those values? He's got them memorized.

That's how you get everyone pulling in the same direction.

That's how you minimize conflict between people's personal preferences.

Because it's not about that.

It's about the mission we're all meant to buy into.

And this doesn't just apply to values, AKA "the what," but also your church's DNA, AKA "the how."

Rohn straight up acknowledges that you don't want to pretend to be someone you're not.

Just because Mike Todd presents himself one way that's true to him doesn't mean you should do it that way also because that may be disingenuous.

Now, there's one final clip I want to share with you from Rohn. And it's crucial to listen extra closely to this one because there are two unmissable pearls of wisdom within:

Did you pick up on the two big takeaways there?

Maybe you have different ones than me, but this is what stands out when I watch that clip:

Takeaway #4: The Power Of Trusting A Younger Leader

Even when the stakes are high.

Trusting in a younger leader can forever shape that' person's trajectory in life.

And really, this cannot be understated.

When you have an online following of millions, and you are a pastor, the stakes are incredibly high.

One misstep. One error. And your reputation can be dissolved in an instant.

So that's one very real thing you need to balance.

But to be a good leader, you must also trust the people around you.

And you can hear in Rohn's voice in the clip above how much it meant to him when Pastor Mike believed in his idea and ran with it.

For my part, when I was 21, my pastor put a camera in my hand at our new church plant and said, "Go and make the vision video we will show at Vision Sunday."

And that singular moment of trust when he permitted me to do that forever affected the trajectory of my own life.

This blog that you're reading, my YouTube channel, my professional career, and the 20 full-time employees my company has on staff would not exist without that moment of trust.

Takeaway #5: Jump On Trends ASAP

Rohn also put a significant emphasis on taking advantage of social media changes as soon as they happen.

"Reels are the future? Okay. We're going all-in on them right now, then."

And to be clear, when that was happening as Rohn described it, Transformation and Mike's social accounts already had hundreds of thousands of followers.

They did not need to jump on any new trends.

They could have kept doing what they were already doing and been OK with the audience they had built.

And yet, despite that, they were still hungry to reach more people with the Gospel and affect life change in more people.

It's a great takeaway for all of us.

Because what I see is a lot of prominent, more affluent churches skating by on their existing influence.

They're not good models for your church because they're not following the best practices of social media.

They're already a big church with an affluent pastor, and if you have that level of celebrity, you don't need to be savvy online; you can just fall back on your public profile.

But imagine if you had that affluence already and combined it with best practices.

That's what Transformation Church has done and continues to do, and that is to their credit because it would be comfortable to take your foot off the gas - but they have not.

Conclusion

There's so much more to my interview with Rohn:

• How to decide what goes on a pastor's account and what goes on a church account when you're making content

• How he manages to post five times per day on Instagram

• And the big question, we ask him straight up - why is he no longer at Transformation Church?

He's incredibly candid.

The interview is linked here. here

If you prefer listening, you'll find The Pro Church Tools Show on your podcast app of choice.

And thanks as always for your time, attention, and trust. We'll talk soon.

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