The Most Influential Pastors in America

Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church in Houston, TX. He ranks #1 in America and #3 worldwide in the 2026 Pastor Influence 100, with 37.58M in combined personal followers and an influence score of 79.4. Mike Signorelli (US #2) and Bobby Schuller (US #3) rank behind him.

Joel Osteen, on data collected August 2026. The ranking scores three things: reach, the combined personal audience across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook; velocity, the 1-year change in that audience; and breadth, how many platforms the pastor actually uses. All 44 American pastors in the index are listed on this page in US rank order.

Joel Osteen, at 37.58M across all four platforms. Most of that sits on one account: 30.29M on Facebook. Only one other American pastor in the index passes 15 million.

Joby Martin of The Church of Eleven22, whose personal YouTube channel grew +2,030% in one year to 47.7K subscribers. David Walker (+395%) and Michelle Corral (+347%) follow. Growth that steep comes off a small starting base. Of the 20 fastest-growing pastors worldwide, 10 are American.

Steven Furtick of Elevation Church ranks US #5 and #9 worldwide, with 15.84M in combined personal followers and an influence score of 75.5. His is the second-largest American audience in the index, behind Joel Osteen.

5 of the 10, 11 of the top 25, and 22 of the top 50. Across the whole index, 44 of 100 pastors are based in the United States, and they hold 38 percent of the combined audience. The other 56 come from 21 countries.

Texas, with 11 of the 44 American pastors in the index, 25 percent of the US field. California has 6, Florida has 5, North Carolina has 3. The 44 come from 15 states in all, and 2 entries carry no state in the dataset. Texas also holds the largest combined audience of any state at 61.24M.

The South holds 29 of the 44 American pastors and 77 percent of the combined American audience. The West has 7. The Northeast has 5. The Midwest has 1. Regions follow the US Census definitions, applied to the state each church is based in.

Facebook and TikTok. 57 percent of every Facebook follower counted in the index belongs to an American pastor, and 53 percent on TikTok. They hold 33 percent on Instagram and only 20 percent on YouTube, where the largest channels in the world are based outside the United States.

The median American pastor in the index carries 1.66M in total personal reach, above the 1.39M median across all 100. The mean runs the other way: 2.97M for American pastors against 3.48M for the index. America has more pastors in the middle. The largest single audiences are elsewhere.

The primary number is the US rank, position among the 44 American pastors in the index. The muted number beside each name is the global rank in the full Pastor Influence 100. Joel Osteen is US #1 and #3 worldwide. Both come from the same score, so nothing is recalculated between the two lists.

Two common reasons. The index only ranks people currently serving as the lead, senior, co-lead, or church-wide teaching pastor of a local church at the August 2026 snapshot, so leaders of a network, conference platform, or media ministry are not eligible. The second reason is account ownership: only personal accounts count, so an audience that sits on a ministry or church account is measured in the Church Influence 100 instead.

Reach is 50 percent of the score, velocity 30 percent, and breadth 20 percent. Reach is graded on a curve because audiences on this list span five orders of magnitude. Velocity was verified for 29 of the 44 American pastors; the rest are scored on reach and breadth with a neutral weighting. Every figure comes from public platform data collected August 2026.

No. It measures audience and momentum on public platforms, nothing else. It is not a judgment of preaching, character, doctrine, or faithfulness, and a pastor's placement here says nothing about the health of the church they lead.