Amish In This Community Invited A 15-Year-Old TikTok Preacher To Deliver A Sermon

This story will make you do a double-take. At least, it did me. Last month, Amish in a community in Eaton County, Michigan invited a teenage social media preacher to deliver a sermon to their community. He ended up preaching to a group of over 100 people, from the Amish and other backgrounds.

When I saw this story, I had the obvious questions. Who are these Amish? Who is this young preacher? And why would he come to preach to them?

On seeing the article title, I initially thought this is probably not an Old Order group – maybe a Beachy Amish church? But on closer look it does appear to be one of Michigan’s many horse-and-buggy Amish communities. More on that below.  

First here’s the gist of the story, from the report at ABC 12:

MID-MICHIGAN (WJRT) – A 15-year-old from Fenton delivered a sermon to an Amish community in Vermontville on April 11 after his motivational TikTok videos caught their attention.

Danny Zaher’s father, a developer, was working with Amish subcontractors when he showed them his son’s motivational speaking videos on TikTok.

One of those contractors, David Coblentz, said in a phone call that they were fascinated by Zaher’s videos from a family trip to Israel and invited him to speak to their community in Vermontville.

“They all really enjoyed it, and they wanted a visual representation of what it was like to go to the Holy Land and see the steps where Jesus walked,” Zaher said.

The young man delivered what sounded like a positive, forward-looking message: “Even if you don’t know what you want to do right now, you can step out of your boundary and go do great things that you want to do in life.”

I can’t resist commenting that it’s a bit amusing to hear an English teenager delivering a message like that – one that feels rooted in a wisdom gained from experience – to Amish people with gray in their beards. But that’s not to knock it.

How This Happened: A Couple Points

So how does a young man who preaches on TikTok end up delivering a sermon to the Amish? First off – many Amish people here in 2026 are going to be aware of things on social media. Especially in more progressive communities, they have access or are exposed through non-Amish people to that sort of thing.

Amish people in the construction industry, like David Coblentz, have potentially more exposure to social media than Amish in many other professions. They are working with and for non-Amish people in locations often far from home, in English settings.

Secondly, I can see the appeal of what Danny Zaher was offering. First, the appeal of the young man himself, who, if you watch one of the videos here, you have to say has a knack for what he does. He clearly has a talent, and speaks with the affect of someone much older than 15.

But there’s also the appeal of hearing about the Holy Land from someone who’s visited. Over the years when I sold a set of Bible-based books called Family Bible Library in Amish communities, I remember how often Amish families took an interest in the set’s facts and information on the Holy Land. You could see it really got to some people, to stop and imagine what life must have been like there in the time of Christ.

And there is a natural interest to know more about the place where Jesus spent his time on Earth – a place so geographically distant, especially for the non-flying Amish, that few will have a chance to visit themselves. Hearing from someone who’s been there is one way to get closer to that.

The odd thing is to hear that an Amish group invited a preacher not from their own community or Amish background. That is rather unusual.

But it’s not like he was delivering a Sunday service sermon. The meeting happened on a Saturday, and came with a podium, mic, and PowerPoint presentation. So it appears to have been a mix of preaching and motivational talk and travel presentation. It took place in what looks like a workshop or warehouse space – possibly where an Amish family holds church service. And when we look at the specific Amish community, that may explain things even more.

Who Are These Amish?

Eaton County, where Vermontville is located, has two Amish settlements – one based around Charlotte, and a much younger community at Bellevue.

The Charlotte settlement is one of Michigan’s older and more established Amish communities, founded in 1977. It currently has five church districts and an estimated population of around 500 people.

Looking at Raber’s Almanac, I see many of the ministers in this community have Vermontville addresses. So this is likely the Charlotte settlement we’re primarily talking about.

As far as why they invited Zaher, Coblentz had this to say:

“As somebody who has gone to church, and it’s just been part of our life for years, I think it’s good sometimes to see somebody else that might have a little different perspective,” Coblentz said.

The Charlotte area has historical ties to the Michigan Circle, a network of reformist-minded Amish churches with roots in Michigan. The movement’s key early figure, a minister named Omar Miller, originally came from the Charlotte community before relocating to help establish what became the Michigan Circle network.

This community is not listed among the Michigan Circle churches, but the openness on display here is consistent with what the Michigan Circle is known for — a willingness to engage with outside perspectives, which is reflected in its seeker-friendliness and emphasis on being a “living witness”.

More Amish preaching to come?

Finally, it looks like this might not be a one-off for Zaher. He says he’s already gotten an invite to preach to another Amish group in Ohio. I would think that’s a related community who must have heard about him from relatives in Eaton County or another visitor who attended. So who knows, he may end up doing an “Amish preaching circuit” before he’s done.