Christian Content Creators Schnackys Changing Social Media Landscape

Allie Schnacky understands you may not buy it when she says Jesus Christ is real. She’d feel the same if God hadn’t transformed her life: if He hadn’t planted dreams and visions in her mind; if those visions hadn’t then come true; if He hadn’t worked miracles for her and her family.

She knows you might be skeptical. But before you turn away, heathen reader, allow her to explain.

Or at least she wants to explain it to me. Allie is perched across the table from me on the porch at her family home, which is nestled along Lake Minnehaha in Clermont, Florida, a city 20 miles west of Orlando. Her bright blond hair is pulled into a slicked-back bun. Her maroon nails and gold Oura ring gleam in the dappled sunlight. “Ever since I was young, I’ve had such a fire for the Lord,” she says.

Today is the first time I’ve met Allie, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard her testimony. Until now, the 25-year-old has existed only in the palm of my hand, just as she does for her 4 million TikTok followers, 1.68 million YouTube subscribers and 875,000 Instagram followers. I’ve watched her lead virtual Bible studies from her favorite coffee shops; I’ve watched her preach as part of Chosen and Free, her Christian young women’s ministry; I’ve watched her encourage women to find godly love like hers with fellow content creator Austin Armstrong, her childhood best friend turned first boyfriend of two years. I’ve watched her explain how to know if you’re under spiritual attack, how her faith cures her anxiety, and how important it is to meet people, not just in the church, but “in the broken places they’re at.”

***

On her own, Allie is a prominent faith-based influencer, part of a burgeoning sect of the creator economy. But she is also one piece of a larger and increasingly powerful family business: JWLKRS Worship, a collective of Christian content creators, musicians and speakers helmed by Allie’s family, including her father, Lance; her younger sisters, Ella and Noelle; and her older brothers, Noah and Colby, the latter of whom was adopted by the family, and an evolving group of other creators, among them Armstrong, Mickala Williams, Tiffany Hope and Kristin Marino, Noah’s fiancée. Together, the collective has a combined following of more than 30 million.

But it’s not just on social media that JWLKRS Worship (pronounced “J Walkers,” and you can guess who “J” is) and the Schnackys wield influence. On and offline, the family is a full-service entertainment firm for Jesus — the D’Amelios or even the Kardashians in a Christian alternate universe. They hold conferences attended by thousands. They host a podcast. They dominate on TikTok — including the app’s livestreaming platform — as well as on YouTube and Instagram. In 2023, they began releasing music under the name JWLKRS Worship, and this year they attended the Grammys as first-time nominees for best contemporary Christian music performance/song. Last fall, in support of the popular worship brand Maverick City, they embarked on a 24-date arena tour that included stops at Barclays Center in Brooklyn and Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. They’re now developing a reality show with L.A.-based production-management firm Propagate Content. And they live in three neighboring houses in the same gated community in Clermont, where Allie and I sit now.

“God has changed my life,” Allie continues, across from me. Her face lights up, and her brown eyes widen. Her leather-bound Bible sits on the table between us. “I want to share it to the ends of the earth.”

***

JWLKRS Worship took off, as things did for many content creators, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the Schnackys had hunkered down to quarantine together at home in Clermont. It was Noah and Colby who doubled down on TikTok first. In the beginning, their content didn’t focus on faith — it was mostly pranks and glimpses of their daily life. “They just started making videos for fun because there was nothing else to do,” Allie says.

At the time, she was at a crossroads. She’d graduated from her public high school and was considering her next steps but had no interest in pursuing a career in social media. Instead, she thought of it as a dark place, where one’s worth was determined by one’s follower count. “[Social media] led me to spiral in so many different ways,” she says. “My brother was heavily involved in it, and people would always compare me to him even though he was my biggest supporter — as if my value was lesser than his because of a number on a screen.”

Indeed, it was Noah who had the running start. The eldest Schnacky sibling began his entertainment career as a child actor and singer who built a modest following long before his time with JWLKRS Worship. As a preteen, he signed with the now-defunct A3 Artists Agency, began homeschooling and relocated to L.A. with Lance; his siblings and their mother, Kim, who worked as a pharmacist, stayed in Florida. (Noah and Lance made a fitting father-son team; Lance caught the entertainment bug early, too. After spending his childhood in Minnesota, his family relocated to Orlando. His mom — Noah’s grandmother — got him started in acting in seventh grade, and as a high schooler, he watched Universal Studios being built. He applied for a job and worked at the park’s grand opening. “Anything to be a part of it,” he told me over the phone.)

Over the years, Noah landed a slew of minor small-screen roles, one on an episode of How I Met Your Mother, but his breakthrough came in 2018 when he independently released “Hello Beautiful,” a country-pop single that went viral; its success led to a Teen Choice Awards nomination that year, followed by a 2019 record deal with Nashville’s Big Machine Records, the country label best known for signing Taylor Swift as a teenager. (Noah left Big Machine in 2022 but plans to release solo music under Recapture Records, the family’s label that also issues JWLKRS Worship’s music.)

But it wouldn’t take long for Allie to follow in her brother’s footsteps. During the early days of the pandemic, God intervened at a particularly low moment. “I was in my bed, crying, just feeling worthless,” she says. “I felt so lonely … and He hit me so hard in my bed that night. He told me, ‘Allie, you are chosen by me.’ She says the moment freed her from her fear of rejection. “I was able to share with others that they were known by God, as fully worthy.”

And so, emboldened, Allie and her best friend from high school, Carol Wilber, joined their brothers and began livestreaming on TikTok, too. Soon, about 2,000 people joined to watch the group for hours each night. “We’d encourage them in their faith, to find peace and joy in that hard time [through] God,” she says, “because that’s where we got it from.

“We started to realize there was such a big need for people to be encouraged,” she adds, “for people to feel like they belong to a family.” And so the JWLKRS Worship collective was born.

Its core members — including the Schnacky siblings and Armstrong — had met nearly a decade earlier at church. In 2015, they founded an affiliated youth group, also called JWLKRS. Content creation was simply a natural evolution. But once they began collaborating, their followings exploded.

The family stepped into the spotlight at the right time. The past five years have ushered in a new generation of massively popular faith-based entertainment ventures, including 2025’s House of David, a biblical scripted series on Prime Video that was watched by 22 million people worldwide in the 17 days after its premiere, according to Amazon. There are also films including Sound of Freedom; with more than $250 million at the global box office, it was one of 2023’s biggest theatrical success stories.

Other content creators have risen to meet the moment, too. There’s Sadie Robertson Huff, a podcast host and castmember of the A&E reality show Duck Dynasty; the actresses Angela Halili and Arielle Reitsma, who co-host the top-ranked faith podcast Girls Gone Bible; the hip-hop and spoken-word artist Jackie Hill Perry, who also wrote a memoir about renouncing homosexuality after converting to Christianity; Reece Weaver, a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader who uses her platform — which was bolstered by a prominent appearance in America’s Sweethearts, Greg Whiteley’s Netflix docuseries about the squad — to discuss her Christian faith; and Jeanine Amapola Ward, an author and podcast host who serves up traditional lifestyle content with a glossy New Testament twist.

There’s also Madison Prewett Troutt, a Christian author, podcast host and onetime finalist on The Bachelor. Prewett Troutt and her family, in particular, have parallels with the Schnackys; in 2023, her mother, Tonya Prewett, co-founded UniteUS, an organization that brings large worship music shows to American college campuses and baptizes hundreds of students on-site. (After praying about it, Prewett Troutt declined through her assistant to be interviewed for this story.)

Still, the Schnacky family and JWLKRS Worship loom large because of the scale and scope of their business. Each member’s faith may be personal, but as a unit, they make a clear and savvy play for universal influence. That play also happens to come at a pivotal time in American politics and culture, in which Christianity has landed, with ever firmer footing, in the mainstream.

***

Lance Schnacky, the paterfamilias, doesn’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, he tells me.

It is my second day in Clermont. The Schnackys have just wrapped recording the first episode of a new season of The JWLKRS Podcast, slated to launch in August. After the recording, I sit down with Lance for the first time. The king of the Schnacky clan is a youthful 51, with an athletic build and taut, tanned skin. He wears a slim-fitting cobalt blue T-shirt, ripped jeans and a pair of white Nike Jordans. I’ve asked him about the group’s merch, which includes a black snapback hat emblazoned with a nod to President Trump: the words “MAKE AMERICA GODLY AGAIN” in white block letters. When I inquire about the slogan, he waves Noah over, telling me it was his son’s idea: “[Noah] likes to throw a little controversy in,” Lance quips.

Noah pops in the doorway to the dining room, where we sit. The eldest Schnacky sibling wears a beige New York Yankees beanie, a sage green Fear of God Essentials hoodie and a slightly impish grin as if he knows a secret you don’t. “We don’t put our faith in any man,” he says. “What we’re trying to do is get away from the left versus right. It’s up,” he adds, referring to God, as he leaves the room. “It’s always been up.”

“I hate labels,” Lance adds, widening his eyes and shaking his head. “A lot of people come up to us [when we’re wearing the hats]. They’ll be like, ‘Oh, I love that hat.’ Or they just look at you. You don’t know if they want to kill you or what.”

But has Trump’s re-election in November altered the group’s perspective or strategy at all? For Lance, the answer is no. “I don’t put my confidence in who’s in the White House,” he says. “There’s a bigger story than our little world’s, and it’s God’s story … all that other stuff is noise.”

But the family itself makes a lot of worldly noise. The Schnackys’ business empire is varied and slightly nebulous. JWLKRS Worship is a nonprofit, but each of its creators earns income from their work across various social media platforms. In addition to Recapture Records, there’s Recapture Management and Recapture Livestream, the family’s TikTok Live agency for faith-based creators, all of which are for-profit businesses. Then there are additional entrepreneurial offshoots, including a partnership with an Israeli tourism company and plans to develop a sketch comedy series based in Nashville. Other income comes from investments. “As for revenue, we usually keep that private,” Lance says. “We see money as a tool to steward, not something to chase. Whatever God puts in our hands — we try to use it faithfully and with purpose.”

In the living room, the group breaks down the podcast’s set. They put away ring lights and cameras and rearrange the pieces of a gray sectional to face the room’s gargantuan flat-screen. They hoist a looming statue of an astronaut by the Filipino American artist known as Jefrë that served as a backdrop, returning it to its rightful place in the house’s entryway. (The D’Amelio and Jonas families have similar Jefrë statues in their homes.) Allie crouches at her laptop, uploading the footage they’ve just captured. Noah and a few other creators are already livestreaming again.

The combined effect is dizzying, similar to what living in TikTok’s Hype House during its heyday must have been like, I imagine. Allie understands this comparison, making it herself the first time we speak over the phone. But for her, there’s one big difference between other creator collectives and her family’s. “There’s no real relationship with a majority of these groups,” she says. “There’s no history. There’s no loyalty.

“We’ve been together since we were young kids,” she continues. “But we don’t live the same as everyone else. We don’t drink. We don’t party … people look at us and just don’t understand it.”

I ask Allie what she feels is the most misunderstood thing about her family.

She pauses, then says, “People love to look at us and call us a cult.”

***

The Schnackys have acolytes, though — in their millions of followers and also in more than 5,000 faith-based TikTok Live creators signed to Recapture Livestream.

I meet many of these other creators later that week when the family decamps to New York City for Recapture’s Winter Games, a three-day live-streaming tournament for 225 of the agency’s top creators at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.

The tournament centers on “battles” between creators. In each battle, several pairs go live on TikTok at the same time, asking for virtual tokens that viewers buy with U.S. dollars, which are then translated back into earnings for the streamer. (According to TikTok, in the U.S., most LIVE creators are eligible for a share of up to 53 percent of TikTok’s net revenue from selling virtual items after deducting the required payments to app stores, payment processors and any other adjustments required under its terms and policies. According to Lance, Recapture Livestream does not take a cut of its creators’ earnings, but TikTok compensates the agency directly for services it provides, including bringing “awareness” to the app’s livestreaming function.)

The games culminate in a final battle between the top two creators that will take place outdoors in Times Square and will be livestreamed on a 2,250-square-foot digital billboard. (When asked how much it cost to rent the billboard for a 15-minute slot, Lance declined to answer.)

I arrive on Sunday, the day of the finals. On my seat in the Marriott conference room is a sheet of stickers from Upward, a Christian dating app and the event’s sponsor, featuring such phrases as “Faith Over Fear,” “Prayer Warrior” and “Grow in Grace.” I watch Lance lead a morning worship service, which also includes a live acoustic performance from JWLKRS Worship, composed of Noah, Ella, Armstrong and Hope. The attendees — largely 20- or early 30-somethings from all over the U.S. and Canada — dance and sing along, eyes fixed on the Schnackys and their crew.

Afterward, Allie is all business, filming content for Upward and interviewing a steady stream of creators about their experiences with Recapture and how it’s changed their lives. Mattah Parker, a 25-year-old creator and model, steps into the frame and recounts how joining Recapture helped her pay off medical debt from multiple surgeries to remove benign tumors in her breasts, as well as her continued treatment for Type 1 diabetes, a diagnosis she received during the pandemic. “I’m a very holistic person,” Parker says, “And so to be told, ‘You have to go to the pharmacy every day and go see doctors — modern doctors.’ That part freaked me out.”

After filming, Allie shares with Parker how God has cured her own sicknesses. We stand in a circle as she prays over Parker, placing her hands on both of our shoulders, willing Him to cure her diabetes. “God, for her body, no medicine,” Allie says. “God, nothing but you and your spirit.”

After the semifinals, Nathan Stroble and Cameron Carroll are the last surviving streamers. At 10:30 p.m., everyone heads outside into the cold. The two climb onto a platform at 46th and Broadway and begin battling. When their faces appear on the billboard, which towers above the Disney Store, the crowd erupts. Stroble begins to feverishly preach the Gospel; both creators shout into their smartphone cameras as viewers’ gifts roll in. TikTok’s live chat function, now projected dozens of feet high, floods with messages, including “Listen to God,” “Jesus loves you NYC!!” and “JESUS CHRIST IS KING.”

Ultimately, it is Carroll who emerges victorious. He leaps into the crowd, which hoists him aloft. Noah follows, then others. The group breaks into the song “I Thank God,” which features JWLKRS Worship, jumping up and down. Passersby stop to watch as the Schnackys and their sea of creators scream the lyrics at the top of their lungs, in the very center of the universe.

***

In Clermont, the world goes quiet as the sun sets. Allie and I have just returned from a walk with Gatsby, the family’s Bernedoodle. Back on the porch, Allie reflects on her journey; she can’t quite believe the way it’s played out so far, how fortunate she’s been.

“Even you being here,” she says. I assume she’ll continue to explain what God has done in her life, but she pivots, telling me she prayed for me before I arrived. She looks out at the water, where she’s told me a baby gator lives. “This isn’t me trying to convert [you] or anything,” she continues. “I just genuinely feel like there’s something He has for you in the way he’s made you.”

I ask her if she says this to everyone.

“It’s not like I meet somebody random and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, God wants to know you,’ ” she says. The twilight casts a dusty rose hue over her face, matching the color of the Bible she’ll gift me before I leave. “But there was something different about you, in particular, from the first time I talked to you.”

At one point, she reaches across the table to touch my forearm, bridging the gap between us for one fleeting moment. “I really believe you’re here for a reason,” she says, resolute. “And that He’s going to show you what that is.”

This story appeared in the June 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.