15/01/2026
The Church of England’s digital channels aim to support local churches, clergy, lay leaders and volunteers. We also aim to have a strong and growing social media presence, work to transform national websites and use technologies such as voice and apps to help meet people where they are at with their faith. Perhaps you and your church find content from us on:
Social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn.
The national online services scheduled each week on both YouTube and Facebook.
The Church of England website and AChurchNearYou.com which is the Church of England's official church finder tool, also offering free websites for churches and benefices.
Digital Labs, a hub of resources, news, and events to support digital evangelism and digital discipleship in your church.
Daily Prayer app and podcast to help you follow Morning, Evening and Night Prayer, wherever you are, as well as the Time To Pray app and podcast, which presents everything you need for Prayer During the Day and Night Prayer in Contemporary form.
Everyday Faith app, a series of reflections, prayers and stories to help you find and follow God in everyday life.
Here’s what you engaged with the most across our channels in 2025.
January: Epiphany service soars
The national online service for the feast of Epiphany saw record levels of views with 1.6 million across the Church of England YouTube channel and Facebook page.
We saw a 70% rise in our posts being shared, mainly due to the prayer for Holocaust Memorial Day. This was a collaboration with the Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. This prayer was our most popular post on Instagram and X had over 7.8k engagements on Facebook.
The promotion for the Everyday Faith app theme ‘Starting afresh’ was also very well engaged with on Facebook.
February: #AskARev debut
In February we debuted the #AskARev series, featuring clergy answering questions about their faith and ministry, the Bible, church, and more. In the first week we saw a 31% increase in the number of followers on the Church of England TikTok account and a 293.8% rise in Instagram video views. The series started with Rev Sarah Howard-Jones, vicar of St Barnabas, Ealing, answering the question What made you want to become a priest?. This became one of our top five most viewed video posts of all time on Instagram with 14,600 likes. Across the year the #AskARev series spanned 163 posts receiving over 1 million impressions, 57k engagements and 926k video views.
A post explaining the significance of St Valentine also received a lot of engagement across all platforms.
The webinar launching the Lent and Easter theme, Living Hope, saw 496 signups, 84% more than for the Lent webinar in 2024. Leading on from this, our most viewed Digital Labs blog for this month explored the ‘Living Hope’ digital resources available for churches during Lent and Easter - Let’s unpack the Lent and Easter 2025 ‘Living Hope’ resources | The Church of England.
March: 35 under 35 share #LivingHope
Throughout Lent, we shared 35 videos of inspiring Christians aged 35 and under, alongside asking churches and individuals to share their own reasons for hope using the hashtag #LivingHope. One of the most engaged videos of this series came from Rev Charlie Day from Carlisle Diocese.
Bishop Sarah's video message for International Women's Day on Instagram also saw particularly high engagement.
The Lent and Easter theme on AChurchNearYou.com launched, with a dedicated homepage where people could search for services and events with Lent and Easter-related tags. Look out for a similar page this year!
The Church of England’s National Online Service marked its fifth anniversary, with a special service led by the Archbishop of York. Since its inception, the service has become a key lifeline for many worshippers, especially those unable to attend church buildings due to illness, remote living, or other circumstances, offering a vital sense of community and connection.
During the past five years the online service has provided a spiritual gathering for individuals who are housebound, in care homes, working irregular shifts, in prisons or living in areas with limited access to local churches. There was a lot of positive feedback for this national online service, with many saying how valuable it is to them. Posts sharing some key stats about the national online service for the five-year were also well engaged with.
The busiest day for new downloads for the Everyday Faith app was on Ash Wednesday, which saw 1,308 downloads, around four times as many as on other days throughout the year. The Daily Prayer app also celebrated its fourth anniversary.
April: Easter growth
The national online services for Good Friday and Easter Sunday were the best performing organic services on YouTube, with a combined total of 24,000 views. It was also the first time a full-length online service was shown on Good Friday.
Easter content on the Church of England social media platforms also led to larger than usual audience growth. Some popular content included our 'Happy Easter' graphic, an invitation to church for Easter Day, and our series of videos from Rev Pat Allerton answering common questions about Easter. Another very popular post for this month was on TikTok with Mother Emily Howarth explaining what vestments she wore for our Easter Sunday online service.
We also celebrated AChuchNearYou.com seeing more public views than ever before.
May: ‘We Believe’
In May, people across the nation marked the 80th anniversary of VE Day and our prayer for the occasion received a lot of engagement, as well as our special national online service for VE Day. Saturday 3 May saw the second highest traffic on AChurchNearYou.com in 2025 with 1.23 million views, likely due to the public searching for VE Day services and events.
The launch of the We Believe resources, encouraging churches and individuals to engage with the 1,700th anniversary of the development of the original Nicene Creed, saw 544 people signed up to attend the webinar. Following on from this, our second most viewed Digital Labs blog for the year unpacked these resources – Let's unpack the ‘We Believe’ Nicene Creed resources
June: Old English is a hit
Content from the We Believe campaign received positive feedback and high engagement across platforms, including our video featuring Alexandra Zhirnova, our Everyday Faith Editor, reciting the Nicene Creed in Old English. This video fast became one of the most popular pieces of social media content we have ever shared, delivering an 88.5% increase in overall video views across platforms and a 1,054% surge in Instagram video views.
Alexandra's video received many positive comments, with people fascinated by Old English and its similarities to other languages, and grateful for this insight into the church's history.
A video of the Bishop of Dover shared as part of Thy Kingdom Come content received many positive comments, and is now one of our most engaged-with videos of all time on TikTok.
This month we also reached 35,000 subscribers on YouTube. 2025 saw massive audience growth on the platform, largely driven by our national online services. In the last 12 months, we have seen a 76% increase in users subscribing to the Church of England YouTube account.
July: All things #GreatAndSmall
During July we continued to see healthy audience growth and engagement with the Nicene Creed Old English video. Other content related to We Believe included an explainer about the four marks of the Church.
This month we launched our summer social media theme, #GreatAndSmall. The theme encouraged churches to share pictures of animals in churches on social media, encouraging people to visit and sharing interesting elements of church life. We saw incredible responses – you can see some highlights here.
August: Cathedral cats
The summer campaign #GreatAndSmall continued. National Cat Day saw one of the most popular posts on Facebook with a post about Southwark Cathedral's cat, Hodge.
Another top-performing post on Instagram was a clip from the national online service from the Cloverleaf Parishes and Rev Deborah Perreau reading the Creed among animals which led to 1,282 reactions.
September: ‘The Joy of Christmas’ begins
The #GreatAndSmall theme wrapped up this month, with more than 670 uses of the campaign hashtag and 4,129,198 impressions on content.
The most registered-for webinar was September’s Advent and Christmas Resources webinar, which unpacked 2025's theme for Advent and Christmas – The Joy of Christmas. This was our biggest ever webinar for church leaders and volunteers, with 823 signing up. Following on from this, the Digital Labs blog detailing these resources received a large amount of views – Let's Unwrap the Advent and Christmas Resources for 2025
Archbishop Hosam's prayer for the Holy Land as part of the Call to Prayer and Public Witness for Peace was popular on Facebook.
October: New Archbishop of Canterbury
Our most engaged-with posts this month focused on the announcement of Bishop Sarah as the next Archbishop of Canterbury. The prayer for Bishop Sarah on Facebook received the most engagement, as well as an explainer about why Canterbury is so significant to the Church, and videos showing Bishop Sarah's visits around Canterbury.
November: Remembrance
We saw particular growth in Instagram followers this month driven by Remembrance content. Our most popular social media posts included the prayer for Remembrance Day, a good news story from St Thomas' Church, Garstang, and other Remembrance content taken from our Remembrance Sunday service.
On LinkedIn, we shared key findings from the Anglican Giving Survey which generated a lot of interest.
Since its launch in July 2024, the Everyday Faith app has been downloaded over 57k times across 189 countries, with an average of over 7.7k active users accessing the app per week. The Daily Prayer audio service continues to attract new listeners, with over 13.5m downloads since launch.
December: Christmas isn’t cancelled, and The Grumpy Owl gets animated
This month we saw increased audience growth, particularly as a result of our 'Christmas Isn't Cancelled' video, which saw a lot of positive engagement across all social media channels. Our '2025 Wrapped' post on LinkedIn was popular too.
Our national online services over Christmas remain a key opportunity for engagement, bringing in regular and new viewers. By the end of December 2025, the national online service achieved 118,000 watch hours, which is equivalent to 4,916 days or 13.5 years!
The busiest day for AChurchNearYou.com occurred on Boxing Day with 1.36 million views from the public searching for services and events local to them. Public views to AChurchNearYou.com during this month increased by 13% compared to December 2024, showing more people visiting the site than ever before.
Daily Prayer audio has now reached 3.6m unique listeners, with downloads up 10% in the past three months.
And the Everyday Faith app produced over 20 hours of daily reflections in 2025, which saw 36,140 downloads, accessed in 184 countries.
For more about what we’ve done this past year, check out this ‘CofE wrapped’ post.
- Alessi Burnham, Digital Officer
