AI Comes to Church

Technology has always been a mixed blessing for the Church. The Roman road system of the 1st century was an engineering marvel, allowing ease of travel for early Christian missionaries to spread the gospel throughout much of the ancient world. But it allowed heretics to spread their message just as quickly. If Martin Luther’s followers in the 16th century hadn’t embraced the printing press his insights wouldn’t have spread and the Protestant Reformation in all likelihood wouldn’t have happened. But Guttenberg’s invention also allowed for the proliferation of Bible interpretations to the point where today the Protestantism that Luther began has splintered into 40,000+ denominations.

Closer to our own time, Billy Graham was a pioneer in the use of television as a tool for evangelism. But his innovation may have lessened the impact of the local church. The Chosen series has brought the gospel to millions of people through social media. At the same time, those who criticize the series for watering down the hard parts of Jesus’ message to make it more attractive to the demographic most in tune with social media aren’t altogether wrong.

I go through that brief historical survey to show that the relationship between technology and church has always been complicated. Innovations that seem at first to be positive and help the church better fulfill her mission can have a downside that becomes evident over the course of time. That principle is especially true today, I think, as churches find themselves caught in the same vortex of technological change as the rest of the culture with the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

What is AI? Basically, AI is a comprehensive term describing computer systems that have developed to the point where they mimic human intelligence. Some would say they go beyond human intelligence. Using enormous amounts of data (they essentially read the entire internet), AI software programs can educate themselves to become experts in almost any field.

But that’s not all. Using algorithms derived from the vast stores of information they consume, AI systems can identify problems, come up with solutions and execute the solutions effectively. Recently, AI has begun to program itself by writing its own code independent of human direction.

All that is left—if you believe some of the experts it already may have happened—is for AI to cut the tether with its human creators and become self-aware. In other words, to take on an identity of its own.

AI is developing so rapidly that it’s changing the landscape of modern life. From medicine to education to the military to the government to the GPS maps in our cars to designing and driving the cars themselves to business to counseling to architecture to accounting to ChatGPT (a form of AI that writes essays for lazy students, articles for lazy journalists and sermons for lazy pastors) and on to almost anything else you can think of, AI plays an increasingly important role today. It almost seems that AI will not only determine the future but make the future happen.

Now, AI has come to church. How does the church respond to such revolutionary change? How does AI affect local congregations and their ministries? What use should pastors make of AI as they care for their congregations? What spiritual and ethical principles are at stake when such game-changing technology comes face to face with the timeless message of the gospel of Jesus?

Those are key questions, and many church leaders are jumping on board the AI train as they try to answer them.

Church leadership consultant Cary Nieuwhof says that AI’s greatest benefit to pastors is that it can relieve them of administrative duties so that they can spend more time with their people:

Ultimately the opportunity AI presents to you as a pastor is to spend more time with your congregation and do something AI cannot; pastor them.

So, embrace AI to make your ministry more incarnational and more human. Get out of the office and into the homes of your congregants. Eat meals together. Laugh and cry together. Do the human stuff together.

Your congregation needs you to be present; there is not and will never be artificial presence.

Ed Stetzer, dean at Talbot School of Theology, an evangelical leader in advocating for innovative ministries and proponent for church change, makes the case for church leaders to embrace AI on a limited scale in his review of Todd Korpi’s new book AI Goes to Church:

"AI Goes to Church will benefit anyone seeking to navigate the digital frontier with faithfulness and integrity. We stand on the cusp of unprecedented technological change. This book challenges us to consider how we can leverage AI for kingdom purposes, ensuring that our commitment to the gospel remains unwavering as technology advances. I'm confident that AI Goes to Church will inspire you to engage with the digital age thoughtfully, embracing the opportunities it presents while steadfastly upholding the timeless truths of our faith."

To be sure, there’s reason for at least some of the enthusiasm for AI because there are specific ways it can help church ministry:

• It can automate many administrative tasks like scheduling, data entry and email communication. Chatbots can answer congregational questions and provide information to visitors.

• It can analyze data about attendance patterns, outreach ministries and give recommendations for targeting certain groups for ministry. It can drill down into giving patterns with suggestions on how to improve church finances. It can generate social media posts. It can assist with language translation and make church services accessible to wider audiences.

• It can provide pastoral care with chatbots offering 24/7 guidance, resources and encouragement (although, as a pastor of many years, I can’t imagine a congregation going to a robot for pastoral care).

• Then there’s the matter of sermon preparation—which if you believe the counsel of many church leaders today has become such an onerous task that pastors need to let others do it for them—that AI can give special help. In fact, AI can write the busy pastor’s sermons for him so that he won’t have to waste time writing his own.

But I’m not convinced.

I don’t believe that AI is the latest in a long line of technological innovations through history that the church can somehow blend into its overall ministries. It’s more than that and is changing the world in deeper ways that earlier technologies couldn’t imagine.

I’m not certain that AI is valueless in and of itself and can be used for good or bad purposes according to those who use it. I think it may be closer to Pandora’s box that, once opened, changes everything for the worse.

I’m not comfortable that pastors and church leaders, having integrated AI into their ministries and become accustomed to its many conveniences, can backtrack and reclaim what they lost when they made the shift.

I’m not saying that pastors and other church leaders can somehow isolate themselves from AI, as the Amish do with all modern technology. It’s here to stay and we can’t get away from it because it has so quickly become embedded in almost every facet of modern life. I’m just saying that there’s a difference between accepting it as a feature of the world that we live in and adopting it as a primary means of church ministry. The reason for my reluctance and fear is that AI, to me, isn’t just technology but potentially the latest and most powerful expression of the world’s will to dominate human life. The Bible names that will as “the rulers…the authorities…the cosmic powers over this present darkness…the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

On the granular level of the local church, AI is the latest iteration of the trend of reshaping pastoral leadership in the image of modern culture. Eugene Peterson put his finger on the problem in his book, The Pastor: A Memoir:

“…the pervasive element in our two-thousand-year pastoral tradition is not someone who “gets things done” but rather the person placed in the community to pay attention and call attention to “what is going on right now” between men and women, with one another and with God—this kingdom of God that is primarily local, relentlessly personal, and prayerful “without ceasing.”

Peterson has in mind the role of pastor as laid out in the New Testament, a role that is so “relentlessly personal” (in Peterson’s perceptive phrase) that Paul describes it as nothing less than the pastor laying down his life for the sake of his congregation:

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” (Colossians 1:24-29)

So I want to conclude this essay with a reflection on the ten ways in which an AI-based ministry militates against the biblical pattern for pastoral leadership:

AI is fast but pastoral ministry is patient.

AI is efficient but pastoral ministry is intimate.

AI is pragmatic but pastoral ministry is visionary.

AI is granular but pastoral ministry is wholistic.

AI is data driven but pastoral ministry is driven by prayer

AI is reductionist but pastoral ministry is expansive.

AI is intelligent but pastoral ministry is wise.

AI is the future but pastoral ministry is timeless.

AI is cold but pastoral ministry is driven by tears.

AI is detached but pastoral ministry is personal.

AI is here to stay, in the world as well as in our churches. But wise church leaders need to be discerning as to its dangers as well as its benefits. And always to remember that “relentlessly personal” is the first and highest value of all those who would shepherd God’s people.