Church of the Highlands

Church of the Highlands is a nondenominational megachurch headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. Chris Hodges founded it on February 4, 2001, with a core group of 34 people, holding the first service at Mountain Brook High School with 300 in attendance. It grew into one of the largest churches in America, with tens of thousands of weekly attendees across more than two dozen campuses in Alabama and Georgia. Hodges also co-founded the Association of Related Churches, which has planted hundreds of congregations nationwide.

Highlands ranks 59th with an influence score of 57.1 and 422,218 combined followers, the third-largest audience in this group. Facebook and Instagram are nearly even at 178,569 and 171,949. YouTube sits at 71,700 subscribers on @churchofthehighlandsAL. The church is active on three of the four major platforms, with no TikTok account, for a breadth score of 82.5. New YouTube content published June 7.

For a church this size, the digital numbers run behind the physical ones. Highlands draws around 60,000 people on a weekend but counts only 71,700 YouTube subscribers, barely more than one subscriber per attendee. YouTube grew 13.99 percent over the past year, a solid rate that produces a velocity score of 36.2, below most of its neighbors in the 50s. The reach score of 46.1 keeps it ranked here on audience size. The pattern is common among attendance giants: enormous rooms, modest channels. Highlands has the in-person engine to build one of the biggest church media audiences in the country. The data says it has not made that a priority yet. If it ever does, this ranking changes quickly.