How the gospel is going viral with LEGO

In a former church building overshadowed by a shopping centre, a small media organisation is producing Christian content which is going viral across social media.

Go Chatter Studios is animating Biblical stories - from the prophet Jonah’s reluctant journey to Nineveh to Christ’s raising of his friend Lazarus from the dead - using the much-loved construction toy, LEGO.

"I’ve been a LEGO nerd literally my whole life at this point," its founder and director Josh Whitehouse tells me. Whitehouse's love for LEGO started in his childhood; he then went on to enter international building competitions during his teenage years. It was during the COVID-19 lockdown though that he first began making LEGO animations based on the Bible for his church’s online Sunday school, which was being run by his mum. "That’s what sparked the idea, really… and I started to see those animations as a way of sharing my two passions, Jesus and LEGO, with the world," he tells me.

Now a registered charity with five team members, Go Chatter Studios has set itself the goal of producing, in its own words, "over 70 high quality, theologically rich animations and related resources that tell the story of the whole Bible."

Animating the Bible

That’s no small task, with each animation undergoing the same lengthy process that Whitehouse breaks down for me: "We start with creating the script from the Bible passage … we’ll then start building sets and planning the animation as a whole." Decisions made at this point can include determining how practical effects can be deployed to achieve a desired look. It is then time for the LEGO minifigures - created from custom combinations of pieces from LEGO ranges such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings - to arrive on set for filming. "And that’s what really takes the chunk of time," he tells me. "It typically takes two to three months to make a single animation, and that averages out to an hour to make one second."

And once production finally concludes, the recorded script, music and a smattering of sound effects are added in post-production, resulting in the vivid and engaging retellings we get to see on YouTube. As well as those stories mentioned above, this has so far included the Genesis account of creation and the fall, the parable of the Good Samaritan and Jesus walking on Lake Galilee towards His disciples.

Big numbers and big opportunities

Prior to registering as a charity, these videos individually drew a maximum of 50,000 viewers and the YouTube channel had around 14,000 subscribers. As of the time of writing, this has rocketed to a regular minimum of 150,000 views per video (with several surpassing 400,000 views), and over 119,000 subscribers; and that’s without counting subscribers to the Spanish, Portuguese and Gaelic language channels! This rapid rise "100% surprised me … I did not see it coming at all," Whitehouse says. He credits it to God as entirely His work.

Go Chatter Studios can boast similarly big numbers elsewhere: 82,000 followers on TikTok, 41,000 followers on Instagram, and 3,800 churches and schools who have used their animations - some of which Whitehouse has visited and seen in-person reactions. "When we’re primarily an online ministry you are somewhat removed from how people … [are] impacted by the content, so it's always a huge privilege to … just see people’s faces light up when they see the animations," he says.

Such interactions also provide additional opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus with young people, with Whitehouse recalling a common question he received from curious secondary school pupils recently: "A lot of what these year nines were asking was, 'Why do you spend an hour making one second? Why do you spend two months making an animation?' And I was able to explain to them it's because I love Jesus and I want to share Him and put everything I can, everything I am, into sharing my passion for Him."

From one creative to another

Among Go Chatter's increasing number of viewers are other Christian creatives seeking to share the gospel through media. Last year, Dallas Jenkins, the creator and executive producer of the widely popular TV series The Chosen, reached out to Whitehouse after seeing the animations online. "I went out to visit him in the States back in October/November last year, and he proposed, 'Hey, why don’t we do a LEGO x The Chosen collaboration?’ So we’ve done a couple of those now," Whitehouse tells me. This has included "collab" posts on Instagram featuring side-by-side screenshots of each production’s depiction of gospel stories, like that of Jesus healing the paralysed man.

Up next in 2026

This year is set to bring yet more partnerships with well-known Christian organisations, Whitehouse reveals: "We’ll be getting our content on YouVersion, the Bible app, and hopefully doing some collaborations with The Bible Project." It will also see the release of its first three-parter - based on the narrative of the Israelites’ exodus from slavery in Egypt - towards the end of spring/the beginning of summer.

Given its massive growth in 2025, Whitehouse is enthusiastic for what’s in store for Go Chatter Studios this year: "[We’re] very excited to see what God does over 2026, where He takes us, and what we’re looking back on by the end of it."