Chaz Smith is a storyteller and social media influencer. Known for his comedy content on Vine, TikTok, and Instagram, he is releasing an animated web series about the Bible for Gen Z and millennials. 

PEER: How did you come to know Jesus? Did you always grow up in a church?

Chaz Smith: I grew up going to church my whole life. My mom was the biggest influence for me on my faith, within my family, on my walk with the Lord. I was saved from a very young age. I had solid pastors and mentors growing up. My youth pastor is still one of the most impactful people in my life. I went to a Christian school for a couple of years. And again, a lot of people go to church but don’t really have a relationship with the Lord. 

I know I did from a young age, but at the same time, my understanding of my walk with God growing up was, “I’m saved, but am I doing enough?” —the “servant first before a son” mindset. As I’ve grown older and continued to just know Jesus more deeply, it’s been a matter of understanding in my heart, like, I’m loved by You first. You came to save me first. I’m your son, I’m God’s son first. And then from that, I serve Him and love Him. 

P: Shifting into your social media. What inspired you to start creating comedic content on social media

CS: I started on Vine in 2013. I played basketball all the way through high school­—from ages eight to 18. I didn’t want to play in college, but I knew by the time I was 13, I wanted to do something in entertainment in some form, but I didn’t know what. So, when I finished playing basketball in my senior year, I was like, why don’t I just start a YouTube channel? I made a couple of videos and then it was like, all right, that’s a lot of work. Then I had been scrolling, and Vine had just come out in January of 2013. I finally downloaded it, later that year in May, and started watching videos—spent hours watching these six second clips. I laughed so hard. Finally, I decided to just start making my own just for fun. Only my family and friends would see them. I remember the day I got 100 followers—I was so excited. Going into the summer, I made a video that took off. People might know it. It was where I was screaming about watermelon, so I called it watermelon, and people thought it was really funny. 

And from there, I kept doing it. Going into college, it [my Vine profile] kept growing. I was going to go to NYU’s grad program for film production, but then by the end of college, I was like, wait a minute, Lord, you just blessed me with a whole bunch of favor in social media. Why don’t I just keep going with this? So, I did. And then after I graduated from college, it took off even more. It became my career, my primary source of income. 

P: Where do you draw inspiration from when creating content? 

CS: My parents are both really goofy. I have a sense of humor from them. What I find is that when me and my brother’s friends or just people who don’t know us hang around our family, they’ll laugh so often at things that we do that we all as a family find normal. It’s natural for us to pronounce things incorrectly or be goofy and make random noises walking through the house. A lot of it is natural, but also on the other side of it, inspiration comes when I am most at rest and just relaxed, not stressed out, thinking about tasks I need to get done. It’s a peaceful place for me. 

When I’m relaxing, a lot of times, my thoughts and ideas or back and forth conversations with myself will come up. And that’s when I’ll be like, “Oh, that’s a good idea. I can make that into a video.” A lot of times, ideas will come when I’m rested, not when I’m trying to think of what’s the next funny thing I can do. 

P: How do you blend sharing your non-Christian content, or secular content, with your faith online?

CS: Yeah, it’s all me. So, part of it is considering how to steward my platform and my audience. Not everybody is called to do the same thing. What I mean by that is just because I’m a Christian and I follow and serve Jesus doesn’t mean that all my content needs to reflect that in my talk or in the content itself, outwardly. And that is an example that’s clear in scripture too.

I’m working on a web series about Daniel right now. So, I’ll use him as an example. In chapter five, when King Belshazzar is throwing the party and he’s using the vessels from the temple of Jerusalem. And then a hand comes and writes on the wall. His stepmom (or something like that) comes and tells him, “Hey, I know a man with an excellent spirit and the spirit of the gods is in him.” They didn’t even believe in Yahweh, but she says, “Hey, there’s this man with an excellent spirit in him. He can interpret the dream.”

She knew that based on the way Daniel carried himself and how he served King Belshazzar a couple of generations before that. Joseph is another example. He was elevated in Potiphar’s house just because he did everything with excellence to the point where Potiphar, an Egyptian man who served different gods, was like, oh no, Yahweh’s with this dude because he does X, Y, and Z. Colossians 3:23-24, in another example, talks about whatever you do, do it as though you’re serving the Lord, not men, because He’s the one who will reward you. So do everything in excellence.

Whether you’re going to tell a joke or make a table, just because you’re a Christian and you build a table that doesn’t mean it’s a Christian table. It’s a table that was made very well, but you make it well because you want to have a heart to serve the Lord and honor people in the way that you do everything. So, when I make my content, whatever it is, this will be a funny idea. Let me  make it. It’s cool. And honor the Lord in the way that I do it. Or there are times where this is really strongly on my heart. I want to share this. It doesn’t matter what people believe or think, that’s something that the Lord’s putting on my heart to share. Okay, I’m going to share it.

If you go to Chick-fil-A, for example, you’re going there because they make really good chicken and fries. If you were to go there and they were suddenly serving a bunch of vegetables all of a sudden, you’d be pretty upset. Not because vegetables are bad, but because there’s this expectation that, oh, I’m going to Chick-fil-A, I should be able to order chicken and fries.

With my content, I shouldn’t be afraid to serve people or put vegetables on the menu or do things that are healthier that people know are good for them or just be more explicit about the gospel. But I also got to understand, okay, this is the platform that I have. Let me use it in a way, again, that honors the Lord and gives people what they need without being afraid to shift either.

I’m not a preacher on social media. I’m a content creator and there’s nothing wrong with that. I create content on social media. I don’t preach and use it necessarily as a platform to evangelize to people. There are spaces for that privately, one-on-one.

P: How has your faith influenced creating content online? Do you find yourself taking breaks from social media if you feel away, like disconnected?

CS: Yeah, it can be very easy for me personally to get distracted. There are a couple boundaries that I’ve put up in place. People have screen time on their phones, but they might not use it and be like, all right, your time’s up on Instagram for the day, but do you want 15 more minutes or an hour or the rest of the day?

I have screen time on my phone, but I don’t know my password. Only my roommate, my best friend, and my brother knows my password. Anytime I set limits for social media, like 20, 30 minutes a day for each platform, once it’s up, I can’t use it anymore. That forces me to be intentional with how I use the time. If I’m not posting, that means I have 30 minutes of scrolling and then I’m done for the day. If I need to post, then I get 15 more minutes so I can put this post up.

Because when I find myself scrolling, it’s often an indicator that I’m stressed out, lonely, tired, bored, overwhelmed. When I pause and think about it, it means I haven’t spent time with the Lord. I haven’t really gotten in the Word. I haven’t really spent time in prayer or worship, or I just haven’t gotten outside. When was the last time I had a solid conversation with a friend? When was the last time I listened to inspiring good music? Just healthy behaviors. Being on social media and just consuming it is often an indicator that I’m not taking care of myself. Social media has helped me become more aware of how I spend my time and how I need to spend my time.

P: You mentioned the web series. What motivated you to start that web series illustrating different books of the Bible? 

CS: This circles back to the beginning of what I wanted to do on social media. I never wanted to create only comedy content, funny content, on social media at all. The first thing I wanted to do in entertainment when I was 13 is do a live talk show where the guests I’d have on were to discuss serious topics in a lighthearted way that would help people understand. Because there’s this gap generationally between parents and their kids, where kids won’t listen to their parents or trust them because proximity. But they’ll listen to somebody who’s a little bit older than them who makes really dope music or is an influencer or a YouTuber or just someone they look up to.

I wanted to do something that had more meaning and impact in entertainment that would entertain people but also point them to deeper truths and ultimately to the gospel. Once I started making this social media content and it took off, I was like, this isn’t really what I want to do, but it’s cool. I’m having fun. But over time I got more and more dissatisfied with only making comedy content.

Four years ago now, at the beginning of 2021, I was praying, and I was like, Lord, you gave me this platform. I feel like I stumbled into it, and I still don’t really know what to do with it. How do I do both? The entertainment side and the evangelism side. That was when He started putting down my heart to do this: to retell biblical stories from a fun perspective. And it developed more and more since then.

Last year we did a Kickstarter to raise money for it. And even since then we’ve increased the scope of what we want to do. By May of 2025, the four episodes will have been released.

P: What do you hope to achieve with this project? What do you hope like readers or viewers will take away from it? And then do you have anything upcoming ventures with this project that you want to share? 

CS: What I want this project to do is encourage people to read the Bible for themselves, whether they’ve been walking with the Lord for decades or have never heard the gospel in their life. Because on one end, it’s very anime-inspired, which is a massive market. A lot of people in that space don’t believe in God. There’s the Christian side of it, where much of the content we have out right now is for either adults or kids in this demographic. This show’s aiming to hit the demographic like Gen Z and Millennials.

I want it to be something that helps bring people or families together to see visualizations of stories in scripture in a fresh way. Opens their eyes up to the fact that the people in the Bible were actual people, not characters in a book. Because of the way that the nature of scripture, that the way that it’s written, it’s not for the sake of exalting people, it’s for the sake of exalting God. Therefore, in the retellings of scripture, it’s very easy to look at people from a two-dimensional perspective or just see them as heroes, not actual humans with thoughts and feelings and emotions and flaws and mistakes and fears and worries and things like that.

We’re trying to place the stories in front of people in a way that will allow the Holy Spirit to work and draw people closer to God.

Initially, it was going to be a for-profit, but then we just recently launched a non-profit with it called The Khash Fund. Right now, its purpose is to ensure that the web series stays free. With the certified 501c3 platform, the purpose is to ensure that the web series stays free, is accessible globally, is translated into different languages, and ensures that devotionals are made, like supplemental content surrounding the web series for whatever books that we’re focusing on.

And then to continue to be able to create social media content as well to help continue to grow the audience and draw people in. Eventually, we’d love it to be something that is able to help fund other Christian artists’ projects and other platforms who have great ideas and great projects, and they have great talent and skill, but they don’t have the money to be able to do it. There are a lot of things that we want to do there. I’d say, yeah, The Khash Fund is the venture. Everything will flow through that.

P: What advice do you have for the young college-age Christians who may want to pursue a creative dream, but have just no idea where to start? 

CS: I say from experience and just from personal experience and just knowing a lot of people, one of the main things that stops a lot of people is just fear. It’s either a fear of being criticized or judged or a fear of making something that sucks. You got to treat it like learning how to walk. When we’re babies, we’re not self-conscious of our mistakes and how many times we fall or the fact that we’re wobbling or the number of steps that we’re able to take compared to other people who have been walking for several years. We’re not thinking about any of that stuff. 

We’re just like, oh, look, my dad’s looking at me right now and he’s smiling with every step that I take. You got to get over yourself. Stop looking inwardly and look forward to knowing that God has placed gifts and talents in you and He wants you to use them. Every time you do, even just a little bit, He’s smiling over you. Even when you’re not, He’s smiling over you, but He would love it even more if you did use the gifts that He gave you for free.

That’s one thing to really look at yourself with the grace and love and joy that He sees you with. Knowing that even if you don’t fully believe it, choose to try to believe it and walk in that. So, that’s one thing. Second thing tied to that is it’s very likely that the first few things you make as you’re starting off, the things you make are going to suck. You’re going to make some crap. But crap is fertilizer that makes space for things to grow. Use the crap to make better crap.

The first videos I made? Terrible. There are so many of them, but there’s still stuff that I’m making, I’m like, oh, this could be so much better. As I’m working on the web series, I studied film production in undergrad and have a knowledge of the production pipeline, but an animation production pipeline is totally different. There’s a big learning curve. Even these first four episodes that we’ve released, if you’ve watch them, you can see the difference in quality or storytelling between episode one and episode four.

If you’re a human, then you’re going to start off making stuff that’s just not good. You got to get better at it though. So do it afraid anyway, be afraid and do it anyway.

P: How do you practice self-care?

CS: One thing is just to simply recognize the unhealthy behaviors, which are mindlessly scrolling, gaming without any boundaries, not getting up in the morning, waking up but not actually getting up out of bed, staying up too late, ample screen time and working without breaks. That’s a massive one, not giving myself permission to take breaks, scheduling breaks.

But on the positive side, exercising is a very good thing. Getting outside and getting sunlight, journaling, having honest, deep check-ins with friends, enjoyable outings, like just going to hang out, doing something I haven’t done before. Just staying in scripture daily, stepping away in the middle of the day, to spend time with the Lord. That also ties in with breaks, but yeah, spending time in prayer and worship, watching something inspirational, like good art.

Unplugging, getting away from screens, having casual conversations, seeing nice scenery and climbing mountains. Making sure I take a Sabbath weekly. Blocking social during work hours, reading books, going out to eat, downtime for entertainment, listening to great music. I like being in my car, going on drives. 

P: What are you currently listening to?

CS: Movie and video game soundtracks. I’ll say that, and scores, like orchestra music.

P: What is a Bible verse that’s been on your heart recently?

CS: I have these written on my wall. There are three answers I have for this right now.

All right, one I have written on my mirror in my room. Hebrews 5:7-8, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he has heard because of his reverence.” The reason why that speaks to me is in our flesh and our earthly human desires, there’s going to be a lot of things that we just want to do. Even Jesus Himself did not want to go to die on the cross, but He chose to out of obedience. He said He had to learn obedience.

In our lives, the Lord never promises that our life will be easier as believers. He says it’ll be harder, and He says the world will hate us. When He speaks of joy, it’s a strength and deep inner peace. There will be moments of happiness throughout our lives, sure, but, especially if you live in America, as opposed to other countries where there’s constantly war and things going on like that, the joy that He speaks of is something that’s deep, and an inward peace and strength that comes from knowing Him, abiding Him, and remaining in Him. That joy gives us the strength to move through the suffering.

It was, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. It wasn’t the joy in the moment, it was the joy that he knew He would have in the strength of the Lord with Him that gave Him the perseverance. He still had to go through that as a human.

The other scriptures are passages. The first is what I’m looking into right now is the difference between Job or David complaining to God versus the Israelites complaining to God. The Lord got upset with the Israelites in the wilderness when they were complaining to him, but he didn’t get upset at David or Job. Why is that?

I was talking to some friends and one of them said something that was pretty interesting. Well, while the Israelites complained about God, to each other, Job and David complained to God about their circumstances, which was: There’s this truth that we as Christians feel like we got to come to the Lord with just all made up in our minds in the right space. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this phrase, but growing up in a Black household, it’s a pretty common thing: “Stop crying before I give you a reason to cry.” We can’t come to our parents with our tears all the time, or our attitudes have to be made up in order to come to them properly, or else it’s a sign of disrespect.

That’s not how the Lord is at all. He wants us to come fully honestly to Him with whatever is going on in our hearts, our minds, however we’re feeling about our circumstances. That’s something I’m really learning to do and just be honest with Him and knowing that that is okay. He wants me to do that. The last thing tied to that is the difference between Moses when he was in the wilderness, went up on Mount Sinai, and had a “mountain moment.” A lot of people glorify and praise mountain moments, whereas with furnace moments where you’re being put through a fire, tested, refined—everybody hates those.

What I’m starting to see is that they’re kind of the same thing. Moses was called up to a mountain, along with only a couple other people, to enter into a fire. The Lord rested on the mountain in a fire. And he, in the presence of God, was there. Well, all the other Israelites, they were afraid to go up. The Lord said, “You can’t come here, only Moses, yourself, Aaron, and a few others, can come and be there.” The exact place that everybody was afraid to go ended up being the exact place that no one wanted to leave because God’s presence was there.

On the other side, it’s like they had to leave because they needed to share the testimony of what the Lord spoke to them in the fire with the people at the foot of the mountain because they were worshiping something else, a golden statue. Now, look at Daniel 3, same exact scenario. The exact place that nobody wanted to go into the midst of a fire was the exact place that they didn’t want to leave because God’s presence was there, but they had to leave because they had to go out and share the testimony of what they heard in the fire with the people who were outside of it worshiping something else, a golden statue.

Even though one may seem more comfortable than the other, they mirror one another in the sense that it’s all for the same purpose, to draw near to the Lord for the sake of knowing Him. So that others can know Him as well. He puts us through these mountain moments and through these furnace fighting moments for the sake of intimacy with Him and to grow in that and also to allow that intimacy we receive to be an overflow into other people’s lives.

So, yeah, one, two, three. Those are the verses.

To follow Chaz and his web series, check him out on Instagram @chazsmith and @whhwseries. 

This interview was edited for length and clarity.