His topics are self-love, masturbation or that summer feeling – the posts by the sensual fluencer Elias Renz do not immediately make you think of church. But it is precisely this contradiction that he relies on. “I want to show that the church can also discuss real-life topics,” said the 20-year-old student from Freiburg on the phone.
Renz actually only has a mini job on the YouTube project of the Evangelical Church in Baden. However, the number of his social media appearances up Instagram, Youtube and
?lang=the-DE” target=”_blank”>TikTok suggest that he made it a full-time job.
Under the name Ey.lias, Elias Renz provides regular information about church youth work in Baden, conducts weekly surveys on favorite songs and publishes statements like “Nobody but you has the chance to be you!”. On average, 1,000 to 4,000 young people watch his videos, his best post reached 33,000 people.
Music brings distance from the church to his profile
His followers are mainly young people, many of whom are Protestant. But Catholics and Free Churches are also represented, a survey showed him. The religious pedagogy / community diaconia student explains that people who are distant from the church also come to his account through music.
Elias Renz / Elias Renz
Under the name Ey.lias, Elias Renz provides regular information about church youth work in Baden, conducts weekly surveys on favorite songs and publishes statements such as “Nobody but you has the chance to be you!”
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Born Bühler, his topics encounter his topics offline and online. His post on the subject of masturbation came about, for example, because conservative Christians spoke out against it on Instagram. Followers then asked him directly for his opinion. “I then declared that not all Christians think that way,” says Renz. For example, the punishing God does not belong to his belief.
Work on quality and aesthetics
For Renz, the work is a “heart issue”, he explains. “I am fascinated by how new things can be tried out in youth work and how the church can be rethought,” says the young man. He was more or less born into church youth work. Thanks to his Protestant family, he went to Christian youth camps at an early age. Today he is on the executive committee of the Protestant Youth Baden and the Ortenau.
Renz still sees a lot of potential in social media for the church. It starts with the subject of quality and aesthetics. “There are companies out there that pay entire teams to get their messages across online in glossy formats,” he says. And then a pastor posts a photo of his showcase. “Recently seen on Instagram again,” emphasizes Renz.
Of course, users prefer to click on the company video, even if they are interested in church issues. “So that we don’t confirm the cliché of the backward-looking, gray church, we have to put a lot more energy into it,” says Renz, who often attends training courses on social media on the weekends.
He himself is already fully in the planning for the Advent season. “I will introduce a character from the Christmas story every week,” announced Renz. Similar to the project @ichbinsophiescholl he disguise himself as the character and report something from her life every day. In this way he again connects biblical topics with today’s world.
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