I was recently in a room with other pastors taking a look at some new AI tools designed to help day-to-day work. We were trying out a few AI tools with a similar feature set: essentially the tools would take a sermon manuscript (or produce a transcript from an audio recording), and from that source text, generate bible studies, discussion questions, weekly devotionals, etc. all in a matter of seconds.
After uploading a manuscript, all of us sat there watching the screen: a spinning progress indicator and a constantly changing body of text that changed as the AI model worked through our submission. The results were good, and from that we could tell, got at the heart of what the sermon was about. The weekly bible study it generated even referenced other similar passages (I did not know if this was from the manuscript or if there was a LLM that incorporated this cross referencing). The daily devotionals which included a single idea and looked succinct enough to work as an email someone would read on their commute.
To be honest, it was pretty impressive. But I became concerned when I started observing the reactions of those around me.
I could save so much time every week!
Anything to help me churn these out for my church.
To imagine how many more people we could reach!
I would love to have more time to work on my sermon without having to do these things!
Everyone wanted in on it! And… I could understand these responses. But sadly it seemed like these fellow pastors were looking for relief from an AI tool for the high demand that they felt in their vocations. The groups’ reflections circled around productivity and effectiveness to “reach greater audiences for the gospel.” Their motivations seemed like they were for a good cause… but I felt like such a big part of the pastoral vocation was missing in the discussion.
I don’t think anyone will question that AI will change how “productive” we are as a society. To be able to generate essays, summarize books — for pastors: create bible studies, discussion questions, weekly “pastoral” emails, even sermons! — will change how we work. But for pastors I think this comes at a cost that’s intrinsic to the call: we won’t be formed.
In my own pastoral experience, it was the slow work of creating bible studies, shaping discussion questions, poring over texts that shaped me as a pastor. It took time to work out my craft; creating “bad” questions was part of the formation process. In a vocation where a vast majority of pastors deal with “imposter syndrome,”[1] I think AI use will make the issue worse. It will communicate to our congregations and fellow pastors a false “productive” self. Pastors will then feel the need to live into those false models rather than go through the slow process of character growth.
The result will be that the “pastor” behind the work that the church sees may not be the same pastor that they sit with in a cafe. We won’t have the ability to ask AI to help when we sit with a person in grief. We won’t have the emotional and spiritual resources to be with others if the AI that has trained our churches (and ourselves) keeps demanding “results.”
There’s probably a “responsible” and “wise” way to utilize AI, but I don’t know what that would look like. If our society’s “more more more” attitude has taught me anything, it’s that we’ll likely get it wrong — really wrong — first as a society and then find some “deconstruct” it all.[2] Perhaps this whole post is my own “get off my lawn!” rant, but I do have concerns… maybe for another post when these tools become more utilized.