Is Your Church Using AI? Probably

Is your church using Artificial Intelligence (AI)? “Probably” may be an overstatement. I imagine there are some that aren’t using AI in any meaningful way. Still, some may be surprised by how prevalent AI is in many tools we use in our everyday lives. Others may find it surprising that their church is using AI for more and more tasks and that there are now AI tools marketed to churches.

Wherever your church is in the adoption of Artificial Intelligence for ministry work, a few things are true:

1. The average church member likely doesn’t know whether or not their pastor, staff, or leadership is using AI for their work at the church.
2. More churches are using artificial intelligence than you might expect.
3. More churches will be using AI tools in the near future.
4. Not many church leaders are thinking about the implications of the use of these AI tools.

I will tackle each of those, but first, for clarity, let’s define Artificial Intelligence with the help of Wikipedia’s Simple English site:

Artificial intelligence is a computer program or machine that can learn and mimic human cognition. It involves a system’s ability to understand external data, learn from it, and use what it has learned to achieve specific goals or tasks through adaptation ​(Wikipedia).

With that definition in mind, let’s review my four points one at a time.

1. The average church member likely doesn’t know whether or not their pastor, staff, or leadership is using AI for their work at the church.

I will take this one step further. Many people are using AI without even knowing it. Since there is no well-known, universally accepted definition of artificial intelligence that defines what is and what isn’t AI, many people don’t know if they are using it or not. 

If you have predictive text enabled on your smartphone, you are using a form of AI. Predictive text falls into the category of “narrow AI,” or AI designed to perform a specific task. Predictive text can’t “think” outside of its narrow task, but it does use computer algorithms and machine learning models. These programs analyze language patterns to use this information to suggest or autocomplete words or phrases.

This article isn’t about whether your pastor or church staff is using predictive text. The point here is that most of us aren’t paying much attention to AI. If we might be using it without even knowing it, what else might be happening inside our churches? And does it really matter?

2. More churches are using artificial intelligence than you might expect.

Let’s ignore, for a moment, the fact that many of us may be using AI tools without even knowing it. Instead, let’s look at some AI tools that we know churches are using. With some of these tools, it still may be possible that the people using them don’t realize that they are using AI. However, the products I mention below include language that makes it clear that they are using some sort of artificial intelligence or machine learning.

This might be helpful when having conversations about AI. Instead of asking whether or not our church is using AI, we could ask more specific questions about particular AI tools and whether or not our pastors and staff are using them.

Constant Contact – If your church sends out email messages, there is a decent chance it uses Constant Contact. Years ago, I was a big proponent of churches adopting services like this and Mailchimp to improve the quality and open rate of emails. In an effort to make their service even better, Constant Contact has been adding new AI-enhanced features. 

Without going through all of the new features, let me just mention two: the “AI Content Generator” and “Subject Line Recommendations.” Both of these use AI and large language models to write content. 

What does this mean to you? It means that the email message you get from your church may have been written by a machine. You get to decide if that is problematic. In many cases, the messages you receive may be written better than before. The copy may be more compelling. Likely, it will be more effective.

Pulpit AI – While Constant Contact is not primarily designed for churches, Puplit AI is. Pulpit AI is an AI-powered tool designed specifically for churches and ministries. Its primary function is to help pastors repurpose the content of their sermons. It is more popular than ever for churches to repackage elements of the Sunday sermon for use on the church website, social media, and small group and Bible study gatherings.

Pastors just upload their sermons and can nearly instantly get AI-generated sermon video clips, sermon summaries, bible study materials, and more. 

Canva – Canva is an online graphic design platform used by churches for everything from designing sermon series artwork, posters, postcards, and even weekly bulletins and newsletters. Canva has been integrating AI across the platform. This includes text-to-image generation, where users can create images by describing them in text. AI can also help generate content by offering real-time design suggestions, content writing, and layout recommendations. 

ChatGPT – Not specifically for churches but available for free to anyone with an internet connection, ChatGPT is a general AI model designed to answer questions, assist with tasks, and generate both written and graphic content. There is no data about how this is being used in churches. However, narratively, I have read of pastors using it to do research and write newsletter articles, prayers, and even whole sermons. 

3. More churches will be using AI tools in the near future.

There are certainly churches that are not using AI at all at this point. However, with the growing number of tools available and with more and more being marketed towards churches, adoption will likely increase exponentially.

4.  Not many church leaders are thinking about the implications of the use of these AI tools.

Artificial Intelligence will quickly become an integral part of how we do ministry. Is that a good thing? That is not the point of this article. However, it is something that churches should be discussing. This technology should be the topic of discussion at all levels of church leadership. Churches and their governing bodies should have policies guiding the use of these tools.

I remember how slow churches were to adopt social media policies. Most were written in response to something that had gone wrong. AI is going to be a much bigger issue. 
When churches sit down to consider how they will respond, here are some questions they should ask:

1. Should there be any limits to the use of AI in ministry? For instance, maybe a church feels comfortable with AI helping to write a newsletter article, but what about a sermon? How about AI-generated imagery in worship?
2. What level of transparency should be expected? Should members of the church know what work is being done by AI? Should that include everything? 
3. Should the church have any concerns over replacing staff members with AI? If a staff member could be replaced by an AI-empowered app or if overall staffing could be reduced thanks to AI tools, is that a moral issue that the church should address?
4. Who in the church should be paying attention to these things? Should someone have the authority to call for an update of church policies if the landscape changes?

What are your thoughts? What other questions should we be asking? Are you using AI in your church setting? Let me know in the comments below.