The Most Followed Pastors on Instagram
The 100 pastors of the Pastor Influence 100, ranked by personal Instagram followers. Updated August 2026.
As of August 2026, Bruno Leonardo is the most followed pastor on Instagram with 14M followers on @bispobrunoleonardo, ahead of Alph Lukau (6M) and Lamartine Posella (5M). 18 pastors in the index have crossed one million Instagram followers, and the 91 with an account hold 75.36M followers between them. This list is drawn from the Pastor Influence 100 and counts personal accounts only. Church accounts are ranked separately on the biggest church Instagram accounts list.
Top 25 Pastors on Instagram
By personal Instagram follower count, August 2026. Click any name for the full profile.
| Rank | Pastor | Followers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bruno Leonardo Igreja Batista Avivamento Mundial | 14M |
| 2 | Alph Lukau Alleluia Ministries International | 6M |
| 3 | Lamartine Posella YAH Church (formerly Igreja Batista Palavra Viva) | 5M |
| 4 | Silas Malafaia Assembleia de Deus Vitória em Cristo | 4M |
| 5 | Joel Osteen Lakewood Church | 3M |
| 6 | Chris Oyakhilome Christ Embassy (LoveWorld) | 3M |
| 7 | Steven Furtick Elevation Church | 2.7M |
| 8 | Sarah Jakes Roberts The Potter's House | 2.5M |
| 9 | Jerry Eze Streams of Joy International | 2M |
| 10 | Josué Gonçalves Igreja Família Debaixo da Graça (also founder/senior pastor of Ministério Amo Família) | 2M |
| 11 | Cash Luna Casa de Dios | 2M |
| 12 | Augustus Nicodemus Lopes Esperança Bible Presbyterian Church | 2M |
| 13 | Michael Todd Transformation Church | 2M |
| 14 | Josephat Gwajima Resurrection and Life Ministries (Ufufuo na Uzima Ministries) | 1.2M |
| 15 | Rich Wilkerson Jr. VOUS Church | 1.1M |
| 16 | Craig Groeschel Life.Church | 1M |
| 17 | Osiel Gomes Assembleia de Deus Tirirical | 1M |
| 18 | Philip Mantofa GMS Church | 1M |
| 19 | Bobby Chandler Authentic Church | 834K |
| 20 | Mike Kalambay Dans Sa Présence Church | 755K |
| 21 | Victoria Osteen Lakewood Church | 690K |
| 22 | Holly Furtick Elevation Church | 641K |
| 23 | Yvan Castanou Impact Centre Chrétien (ICC) | 634K |
| 24 | R.R. Soares Igreja Internacional da Graça de Deus | 627K |
| 25 | Touré Roberts The Potter's House | 608K |
See the full Pastor Influence 100
Personal accounts only, collected from public platform data in August 2026.
What the Instagram Numbers Show
Five things the full distribution says, beyond the order of the top 25.
91 of 100
pastors with a personal account
42%
of all followers held by the top 5
300K
median account, against a 828K mean
18
accounts past one million
The top is heavy. The five largest accounts hold 32M of the 75.36M followers counted, or 42 percent. Widen it to 25 and the share reaches 80 percent. The other 66 accounts split what is left.
The average is not the middle. The mean account holds 828K followers. The median holds 300K. The mean runs 2.8 times the median because a handful of accounts drag it upward. Half the pastors with an Instagram account are below 300K.
Brazil out-follows United States. United States holds the most accounts, 41 of 91, adding up to 24.79M followers. Brazil does it with 12, and those accounts hold 28.23M, 37 percent of every Instagram follower in the index.
One account sets the ceiling. Bruno Leonardo holds 14M, which is 2.3 times the second-largest account. The gap between first and second is 8M followers on its own.
Instagram is the platform this index has in common. 91 of the 100 pastors run a personal account, ahead of YouTube at 78, Facebook at 74, and TikTok at 59. Only 9 pastors in the index skip it. The 91 accounts span 22 countries, and the top 25 covers 9 of them.
The takeaway
Instagram rewards the person, not the building. Several pastors here out-follow the churches they lead, which is why we rank the two separately. It also runs deeper than the top of the list: the top 25 hold 60.29M of the 75.36M followers counted, so the tail is real. Compare the same names on TikTok and YouTube and the order changes on every platform.
Why Instagram Matters for Pastors
What the platform does that the others do not, independent of any ranking.
It is where people check you
Someone hears a pastor's name and looks it up. Instagram is usually one of the first two results they open. The profile works like a directory entry: photo, one line of bio, one link, and the last nine posts. That grid answers the question before any sermon does.
Reels reach past the people you have
The feed mostly serves people who already follow. Reels get pushed to people who do not. That is why one account can serve two jobs at once: discovery for strangers, and a steady drip for the congregation that already knows you.
The formats match what a church already makes
A sermon clip is a Reel. A line worth remembering is a graphic. A series breakdown is a carousel. Sunday is a story. Instagram is the one platform where a church can publish all week without producing anything it was not going to produce anyway.
It rewards a person, not an institution
People follow faces faster than logos, and Instagram is built around a face. Its audience sits younger than Facebook's and older than TikTok's, which is why so many pastors treat it as the middle of their publishing, not the edge of it.
How to Read This List
- What the number measures
- The public follower count on one account: the pastor's personal Instagram profile, read in August 2026. Nothing is estimated and nothing is blended.
- What it does not measure
- Attendance. Giving. Engagement rate. Reach per post. Where the followers live. A pastor with 300K followers scattered across forty countries and a pastor with 300K followers in one city look identical here and are not.
- The limitation worth naming
- A follower count is cumulative. It records everyone who ever tapped follow, including accounts that went quiet years ago. That gives an advantage to whoever started earliest, and it says nothing about whether those followers still watch. Momentum is scored separately on the fastest-growing pastors list.
- What is excluded
- Church accounts, ministry accounts, campus accounts, conference accounts. Those are measured in the Church Influence 100. A pastor whose audience sits on the church account ranks low here by design.
Questions, Answered
Which pastor has the most Instagram followers?
Bruno Leonardo of Igreja Batista Avivamento Mundial has the most Instagram followers of any pastor in the 2026 Pastor Influence 100, with 14M on @bispobrunoleonardo. Alph Lukau (6M) and Lamartine Posella (5M) rank second and third.
Do church accounts count toward a pastor’s follower total?
No. This ranking counts the pastor’s own account only. Church, ministry, and campus accounts are measured in the Church Influence 100 instead. A pastor with a large church account and a small personal account ranks low here on purpose.
Why is this order different from the Pastor Influence 100?
The Pastor Influence 100 scores reach, velocity, and breadth across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. This page sorts by Instagram followers alone. The biggest Instagram audience does not always belong to the highest ranked pastor, and it rarely matches the YouTube order.
How many pastors in the index are on Instagram?
91 of the 100 pastors in the 2026 index have a personal Instagram account with a public follower count. 18 of them are past one million followers.
How many Instagram followers does the average pastor in this index have?
The mean is 828K and the median is 300K. The mean runs 2.8 times the median because the largest accounts pull it up, so the median is the more useful number. Half of the 91 pastors with an account are below 300K followers.
Which country has the most followed pastors on Instagram?
United States has the most accounts, 41 of the 91, holding 24.79M followers. Brazil has more followers from fewer accounts: 12 pastors holding 28.23M, or 37 percent of every Instagram follower counted in the index. The 91 accounts span 22 countries, and the top 25 alone covers 9.
Is Instagram the most used platform among these pastors?
Yes. 91 of the 100 pastors run a personal Instagram account, ahead of YouTube (78), Facebook (74), and TikTok (59). Instagram is the one platform most of this index has in common, which makes it the fairest single-platform comparison of the four.
How concentrated is the following at the top?
The five largest accounts hold 32M followers, 42 percent of the 75.36M counted. The top 25 hold 80 percent. The remaining 66 accounts split what is left. Bruno Leonardo alone is 2.3 times the size of the second-largest account, a gap of 8M followers.
Reach like this is built, not given.
Every pastor on this list posts on a schedule, in formats people actually watch. That is a system, not a gift. We run that system for churches every week: sermon clips, graphics, carousels, captions, posted for you.