What's the 'Reel' deal about instagram?

In the second of Elim’s digital masterclass series, Jason Ham asked three churches how they use Instagram Reels.

Nathan Jorden, One Church, Gloucester
We saw lots of people using Reels and decided to give it a go.

We try to answer questions people might be asking, so made Reels on “What does the Bible say about...?

We went on Google to see what came up when we typed this, then our first Reel was “What does the Bible say about hair loss?” We also did them on Pancake Day and Valentine’s Day.

Actually, the Bible doesn’t say anything about these things, but you explain them then bring in some encouragement and the gospel.

Our Instagram has about 500 followers, but seeing our Reels extend our reach to 5,000 views has been really positive. It’s affirming to see the message getting out.

We’re trying to be creative and have polished some Reels to make them look good, but some are just me on a phone. There doesn’t seem to be a formula for success.

If the thumbnail seems engaging and you’re presenting in an engaging manner that seems to capture people.

There’s a world of people who don’t know the good news of Jesus and who aren’t connected with a faith-based community. What are we doing to connect with them?

Jack Skett, Dewsbury Elim Church
A few weeks back we were approaching three days of prayer and fasting and I thought I should put out some content for people who don’t know how to fast or have never tried fasting before.

I’d been looking at YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels and thought maybe this is an opportunity to speak some practical stuff relating to discipleship into that online space.

It’d be helpful for my church, but it might also be helpful for people more widely.

So I made videos asking how and why we fast, then followed that up with videos on different ways you can engage with fasting.

I put the first one on YouTube and it did virtually nothing, but on Instagram Reels it got more than 1,500 views within an hour and several comments as people were engaging. That same Reel now is close to 5,000 views.

You’ve got 60 seconds to make a point so it does require a bit of forethought – the greatest challenge is planning the content because the actual nuts and bolts of making it are baked into the Instagram app.

Instagram has a library of music and automatically generates captions. You can add subtitles, overlay text and be creative or just upload it as it is.

You want it to be eye-catching though, so I put a title on the top so when someone’s scrolling they can see this video is called “What is fasting?”

Matt Clayton, St Matts Church, Exeter
At first, we thought making Reels would be loads more work – who’s going to watch videos of us at church, how’s it going to work? But we learned early on that people love it.

Reels are important because they show people what’s happening.

I wouldn’t drop my kids off somewhere unless I was dead set on who they will be with, what they do and how it happens; the beautiful thing about Reels is we get to show people the inside of the church and how it works.

Also, people’s attention spans are seconds rather than minutes. We aim for three-minute services online, with a prayer, a two-minute sermon and a bit of worship so people have a snippet of what church is like.

Whenever we get speakers I always ask, “What is your one thing you want people to take home?” That’s what we build these little mini talks off.

I love it because people who would never normally be able to access our material are suddenly picking up these mini services, and I pray that blesses them and leads them in a journey of faith.

• You can watch the full masterclass on YouTube here: