AI can become an assistant for every pastor or church leader trying to improve and expand their discipleship processes.
By David Thorne
Church leaders today use many tools when training others in discipleship practices. But how many are leaning into artificial intelligence? At first, this seems like a paradox, like asking a bald man to sell shampoo or finding a pilot who’s afraid of heights. How could an emotionless thing like AI become a helpful tool in accomplishing the relational Christian calling of discipleship?
The truth is, AI can become an assistant for every pastor or church leader trying to improve and expand their discipleship processes. There are two main ways you can use AI as a tool to support your church’s discipleship pathways. First, church leaders can save time by using AI to accomplish common tasks. This will give them more time to spend with people. Second, AI can assist in developing resources that support discipleship.
AI helps church leaders do more in less time. In a world where pastors are overworked and burning out, AI can save a pastor time by helping with common tasks and discipleship resources without handing the task of discipleship over to AI.
Related: 4 Things Pastors Should Know About Artificial Intelligence
1. How to use AI for common church tasks
AI can assist with almost every task a pastor does throughout the day. Try this simple exercise. Take a few minutes and write down all the tasks you accomplish throughout your week. Then, go back through and highlight the tasks that are most tedious, time-consuming, or downright annoying. These are the tasks pastors should try using AI for.
Before jumping into specific examples of using AI to save time, it’s essential to remember AI should only be used as an assistant. It’s meant to help you accomplish your task—not do it for you. As a church leader, you must always maintain your autonomy over what you create and never fully delegate your tasks to any AI.
“As a church leader, you must always maintain your autonomy over what you create and never fully delegate your tasks to any AI.” — David Thorne Share on XHere are a few specific places AI can help save church leaders time so they can spend more time with people.
Writing policies
Few people enjoy writing policies. It can take a ton of time and is tedious. Luckily, AI is great at this task. Simply explain to a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT or Claude what you’re trying to write, give it the details it needs to include, and clarify what it needs to know about your situation. When finished, ask it to help you improve your policy. You could even go further by asking your LLM to help you create a plan to implement and organizationally reinforce your newly created policy.
Improving emails/communications
Have you ever sat in front of a blank screen trying to write the perfect email or church communication? LLMs can help get your writing process started quickly. Simply explain what you’re trying to write, make note of the tone you’re trying to use, give it context of who you’re writing to, and receive your response. You can go further by telling it what you liked or didn’t like about its output.
Generating images
AI-generated images have come a long way since the days of six-fingered humans. Image-generating platforms like Midjourney or Ideogram can quickly create almost any image we can imagine. Generating images isn’t magic, and it will take multiple attempts to get your image right, as this technology still has many limitations. However, this process can generate better results than spending time searching stock photos. Your team will be able to add more high-quality images in less time than ever before.
Summarizing information
If you have a long article or chapter to read, simply copy it into an LLM (or take a photo of the article and upload it to ChatGPT) and ask for a summary. This should not replace reading but can help you better understand what you’ve read.
If you’re dealing with complicated text, ask the LLM to explain it to you as if you were an 8th grader (or your grade of choice). This also works great if you have a detailed event announcement and are trying to shorten it for social media posts.
Analyzing data
If you have a series of documents, job applications, spreadsheets, or survey data, simply upload them to an LLM. Once your documents are uploaded, you can ask for a summary, an analysis, key quotes, key points, comparisons, or any other analysis that makes sense based on what you’ve uploaded. For example, if you’re hiring for a position, you can copy and paste (or upload) information for all of your applicants and tell the LLM what you’re looking for in a candidate. The LLM can offer its top three suggested candidates with an explanation.
Overall, as church leaders lean into using LLMs for common administrative tasks, they’ll find themselves saving time and energy while accomplishing more. This will give them more time to spend in discipling relationships.
Related: 5 Principles for Genuine Discipleship in an AI-Generated Culture
2. How to use AI to develop discipleship resources
Some church leaders have argued against the use of AI within the context of sermon preparation and writing. These concerns may even extend to using AI to generate other spiritually helpful resources. Before addressing the interesting ways AI can support church discipleship directly, these concerns first need to be addressed.
Ultimately, a pastor is responsible for the content they pass on to their congregation. Their job is to attend to the Holy Spirit’s work within their congregation and create or share appropriate resources to help the church become more like Jesus. To accomplish this, a pastor may write a small group curriculum, or they may purchase a book with ready-to-go discussion questions. When it comes to writing a sermon, a pastor may search for applicable stories on the internet, gather ideas from commentaries, and listen to others who’ve preached on the same topic. All of these are used to inform the pastor’s sermon writing.
AI is no different. It’s simply another powerful tool a church leader can add to their disciple making toolbelt. Here are a few ways church leaders can utilize AI in their discipleship making process.
Sermon research and writing support
AI should never be used to write your sermon for you. Preaching a sermon like this is akin to printing and preaching another person’s sermon to your congregation. However, AI can be a sermon prep tool, like all the other tools your team may use in writing weekly sermons. AI can be used to help you brainstorm sermon titles, write outlines, find Bible verses, generate illustrations and metaphors, and even help you better explain complex topics. You can use an LLM, like ChatGPT, or start using a tool like SermonSpark, both free, AI-powered tools ready for you to use.
“AI should never be used to write your sermon for you. Preaching a sermon like this is akin to printing and preaching another person’s sermon to your congregation.” — David Thorne Share on XTurning sermon content into devotionals and blogs
In many churches, the sermon is the primary discipleship strategy. The issue is it’s hard for sermons to live beyond Sunday. AI is an excellent resource to help your sermons in this way. Your first task is to generate a transcript of your sermon. You can do this for free on SermonSpark. Sometimes, transcripts are available directly through YouTube as well. Once you have your sermon transcript, you can use it to generate an article or blog post built directly from the sermon. You can also use LLMs to generate a weekly devotional from your sermon content. Your blog and devotional can be used as social media content or as weekly texts or emails, reminding people and reinforcing Sunday’s content throughout the week.
Turning sermon content into social media snippets
AI can turn your weekly sermon into video snippets. These video snippets can be easily shared on social media for ongoing inspiration beyond Sunday morning. Sermon snippets are also easily shared by congregants, helping your church reach beyond its building. LLMs are great at generating other social media post ideas and content. Simply tell it what you’re trying to create, give it any useful content or context, tell it where you’re trying to post, and it will create.
Related: AI-Powered Preaching: How Much Should Silicon Valley Impact Sermon Prep?
Creating small group content
AI is great at generating group discussion. Whether you’re looking for ideas for icebreakers or a full discussion created from any topic, Bible verse, or your sermon, AI can help. AI-generated small group content could be the spark you need to offer a consolidated discipleship strategy for your congregation.
Generating discipleship ideas from the weekly sermon
Coming up with ways to increase discipleship activity within your church based on the weekly sermon is tough. You can use AI to help by uploading your sermon, sharing your outline, or simply explaining what your sermon is about and asking it to brainstorm activities that will reinforce the concepts found in the sermon.
For example, if your sermon is about letting your past go, the LLM might suggest creating an event where congregants can write down things they need to let go from their past on a rock and then give them an opportunity to throw that rock in the water or into a large pile. AI can easily become your creative friend when it comes to generating discipleship ideas that support the points your weekly sermon is trying to make.
AI is a tool your church can use to generate resources to support discipleship within your church.
Getting started with AI for your church ministry
Getting started with AI begins with the decision to get started with AI. Some church leaders may be waiting for things to slow down before jumping in. But things won’t slow down. Similar to technologies like the car, telephone, television, cell phone, and texting, AI isn’t going away. The real question is how long it will take for pastors to lean in to reap the benefits of this time-saving technology.
A great place to start is by signing up for ChatGPT and/or Claude. You can also download apps for these on your phone. Once you do, start using it in the same way you might use a search engine. If you need help with ideas of things AI can do, check out this prompt library. If you’re looking to go a little further, you can get great ideas for ministry tasks with this book about AI Prompts for Church Leaders. Joining an AI 101 cohort could also give you the confidence you need to get started using AI within your church ministry.
The most important thing is to get started today. Church leaders waiting to use AI are not only missing out on time-saving technology, but they may also be missing out on an opportunity to increase their church’s disciple making effectiveness.
For permission to republish this article, contact Marissa Postell Sullivan.
