Thomas Costello

Husband. Dad. Founder @reachright. Host of REACHRIGHT Podcast. Executive Pastor and former Church Planter. I love to help churches reach more people and grow.

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

Watched Sam walk across the stage.

Been a pastor, a founder, a boss, a teammate. Hardest job I've ever had is dad. Proud doesn't cover it.

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

Ed Stetzer's daughter typed "in the voice of Ed Stetzer" into ChatGPT.

It worked.

But @edstetzer said something on our podcast that reframed the whole AI-and-sermons debate for me: don't have AI write your sermon. Have AI help with your sermon.

One word. Completely different conversation.

https://t.co/k1vQ97e5E8

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

Every skill runs on a shared foundation that knows your church name, denomination, attendance, and Bible translation. Set it once.

Built for pastors at churches of 150 who are wearing five hats.

https://t.co/9MCx4tQkv5

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

I just open sourced 13 AI workflow skills built for pastors.

Not prompts. Complete multi-step workflows for sermon prep, church emails, social media, small groups, and more.

Built for Claude Code. Free. MIT License.

🧵

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

Church Email: subject line, preview text, body, CTAs. Ready to send.

Announcement Script: 60-90 seconds, spoken word, prioritized. No one zones out.

Social Media Calendar: a full week of posts mapped to dates and platforms in five minutes.

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

42% of pastors have considered quitting the ministry in the last year.

but only 1.2% actually do it.

that means the vast majority aren't leaving. they're suffering in silence. and they're leading your church from that place.

in 2015, 11% of pastors were at risk of burnout. today it's 40%. that's not a trend. that's a crisis that quadrupled in a decade.

65% report loneliness or isolation. only 49% feel well supported by their congregation. and 18%, this one still sits with me, 18% of pastors have considered self-harm in the last year.

and here's what makes it worse. you can't always see it.

dying churches and healthy churches can look identical from the outside when it comes to the pastor. the sermons still happen. the meetings still run. the smiling still continues. but underneath, something is breaking.

if you're on a church board or leadership team, here's what i'd do this week. not next month. this week.

ask your pastor how they're really doing. not in a hallway. not after a service. sit down and actually ask. and when they say "fine," push in a little.

budget for pastoral counseling. mandate sabbaticals, not just suggest them. watch your staff turnover rate because if people keep leaving, the culture is telling you something the pastor might not.

and if you're a pastor reading this, hear me. you are not a statistic. but you might be one conversation away from not becoming one.

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

@lllllll125185 @HwnElectric The outage map on the website says 6:00 a.m. Tomorrow. Is that accurate?

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

Your church staff is underpaid.

You know it. They know it. Nobody's talking about it.

Here's what I see working with churches across the country:

Pastors making $38K in cities where the median household income is $70K. Worship leaders working 50-hour weeks on a part-time salary. Youth pastors with seminary degrees earning less than a first-year barista at Starbucks.

And the unspoken expectation?

"It's ministry. You're not in it for the money."

That's true. They're not.

But they're also trying to feed their families. Pay rent. Keep their kids in shoes.

When a good staff member leaves because they literally cannot afford to stay - that's not a calling problem.

That's a stewardship problem.

The churches that keep great people aren't always the biggest. They're the ones that pay fairly and honestly.

Most churches don't underpay on purpose. They underpay because they genuinely don't know what fair looks like for their size and location.

We built a free Church Salary Calculator for exactly that reason. Takes 2 minutes. Tells you where you stand.

Drop "SALARY" in the comments and I'll send you the link. Must be following for me to send a DM.

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

@reachright SALARY

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

@MikeCosper As ludicrous as it seems for this to be an error, I think the alternative is even more preposterous. What plausible reason could there be for him to post this video other than an mistake?

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

@CoachDanGo Smart lock with fingerprint reader for my front door. Saves me 10 seconds a few times a day.

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

This guy is my hero!

[Tansu Yegen @TansuYegen]

A German passenger who did not want to pay an extra fee due to baggage size at an airport in Italy broke the wheels off his suitcase.

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

The Charlie Kirk effect is showing up in Google right now.

Across all of our clients' accounts, searches for “church near me” jumped +32% this week.

Google Trends backs it up: this week hits 95—trailing only Easter (100) and ahead of Ash Wednesday (94) and Christmas (85).

Pastors: prepare for guests now.

Be present. Be clear. Point people to Jesus. Windows like this are rare.

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

Have you had your AI “aha” moment yet?

Drop your wildest use-case in the replies. I’d love to see what others are doing with this tech.

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

Had 333 old MP3 sermons.
Bad titles. No summaries. Totally useless.
I thought about paying someone to listen to them all… but that would’ve cost me thousands.

Instead, I turned to AI. 🧵

[Thomas Costello @tkcostello]

Pastors & church leaders — AI isn’t “for tech people.”

It’s a tool you can use today to:
– Save massive amounts of time
– Unlock lost or messy content
– Prepare faster & better for ministry