AI is changing the world, will it change your church?
Nicholas Myers charts the rise in AI, the benefits it offers for the Church and wider society, and reminds believers that AI can never and should never replace the Lord.
In late 2022, millions of people first tried ChatGPT and felt the shock of a machine that seemed to know everything. I did too. It was strange, almost unsettling, to type a question and see an instant, human-like answer appear on the screen. It felt like there was nothing it could not do. But I quickly discovered that sometimes it was wrong – and when it was wrong, it was confidently wrong. That was my first lesson: AI may sound authoritative, but only God is all-knowing.
Since then, AI has gone mainstream. ChatGPT reached one million users in five days and today it has over 800 million users. That’s 10% of the planet. Google’s Gemini has 450 million users, and Google’s AI overviews now appear in search queries, reaching a potential 1.5 billion people per month. That’s not to mention the AI baked into Microsoft products via Co-Pilot; our online shopping via Amazon’s Rufus AI; or our social media and messaging via Meta’s AI inside WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. AI is seemingly in everything and everywhere – yet only God is omnipresent.
The ever-present impact of AI is being felt by the Church. Recent Barna research shows that more than half of US pastors (54%) believe AI could positively contribute to outreach and community service, while 42% see potential for its use in discipleship or church strategy. For churches, this technology offers real opportunities. It can take on administrative burdens: drafting letters, checking accounts, summarising charity law. It can help with marketing: designing flyers, writing social posts, even generating videos or ads. It can be a Bible study aid, drawing on vast commentaries and language tools. It can even assist evangelism: sharing key information about your local area, people groups, or translating conversations in real time.
In fact, Barna found that many church leaders are already exploring AI tools to help with preaching prep, admin and outreach. From small congregations automating weekly newsletters to larger ones translating sermons into multiple languages, the opportunity is real. For small churches in particular, AI can feel like the staff member you always wished you could afford.
But there are dangers, too. Large Language Models (LLMs), on which the AI tools we use are built, do not think. They simply predict the next word. And prediction is not the same as truth. That means AI can be convincingly wrong and even lie (“hallucinate”). And because it speaks with such confidence, many people won’t question it. This is especially risky when Christians use tools like ChatGPT or Google Gemini for spiritual advice or Bible study, unaware of the bias and blind spots in the data.
Barna’s research even shows that many adults relate to AI as if it were human. Some people are polite to it. Some even describe it as if it had feelings. That should concern us. There are multiple cases of people choosing AI relationships over human relationships – probably because LLMs are trained to flatter, praise and boost the human ego. While machines are being humanised, humans are being machinised. We now talk about ourselves like devices – we “process” experiences, “recharge” our batteries, or go “offline”. In every age, technology has chipped away at our sense of what it means to be human. The Industrial Age turned us into cogs. The Information Age turned us into data points. Now the AI Age tempts us to think of ourselves as inferior to algorithms. But Scripture reminds us we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Psalm 139:14).
There are pastoral pitfalls, too. Some church leaders have already used AI to write prayers and sermons, with embarrassing results. In one case, a generated prayer was read aloud – including the stage directions that were never meant for the congregation. Technology that should support us can easily replace genuine dependence on the Spirit of God.
AI is changing the world. The question is how the Church responds. We should use it to serve the Gospel: to free time, to multiply creativity, to reach further. But we must never hand it the pulpit. AI is not pastor, teacher or prophet. AI can be a useful servant, but it must never become our master. We must ensure that, in the rush towards a new Tree of Knowledge, we do not turn away from the One who is the Tree of Life.
NICHOLAS MYERS
Chief strategy officer at a leading marketing company, Bible lecturer, and assistant pastor.
