A short guide to AI in ministry
These tools are here to save you time and spark ideas, and they are genuinely useful. But they are tools, and how we use them matters. A few things worth keeping in mind.
AI is good at giving you a starting point: a summary, a first draft, an angle you hadn't considered. It is not good at doing your thinking for you, and it shouldn't. The wrestling you do with a passage, the questions you sit with, the connections you make to the people in the room, that is the actual work, and it forms you as much as it shapes the sermon. Let these tools clear the ground so you have more time for that work, not less.
When we prepare to preach or lead a study, we are seeking God's guidance, not just assembling content. No tool can do that part. Start with prayer, stay with prayer, and hold whatever the AI gives you loosely, testing it against Scripture, the Spirit's prompting, and your sense of what God is saying to this church in this season.
AI sometimes makes things up, confidently. It will invent quotes and attribute them to real people, cite verses that don't say what it claims, and offer facts that sound right but aren't. Before anything goes into a sermon, a study, or print, verify it: check quotes against a real source, read the references yourself, confirm any historical claim. If you can't verify it, don't use it.
Don't paste anything confidential into these tools: pastoral conversations, personal details about people in our church, prayer requests shared in confidence, anything you wouldn't be comfortable having leave the building. Treat what people share with you as you always would.
AI produces generic, middle-of-the-road content. It doesn't know Blackburn, it doesn't know our theology, and it doesn't know the person in the third row who is grieving. You do. Use your judgement and your knowledge of our context to shape, cut, and correct whatever it gives you. You are the pastor; it is the intern.
People come to hear you, not a polished draft from a machine. Use these tools to help you say what you actually mean, more clearly. If a paragraph doesn't sound like something you'd say, change it until it does.
Some tools need an API key. A few of these tools need an API key to run, the bit that connects them to the AI behind the scenes. If you don't already have one, ask Darren and he'll set you up.
Please keep them within the team. Each use costs us a small amount. We're glad to cover that for our staff, but we can't be footing the bill for people outside the church, so please don't share the links around.
Ad blockers can get in the way. If a tool throws errors or won't load, an ad blocker or privacy extension is a likely culprit. Try switching it off for that page and reloading.
None of this is a reason to avoid these tools. Used well, they free you up for the parts of ministry that matter most. Used carelessly, they flatten your voice and can mislead you.
When you're in doubt about something one of these tools has given you, run it past someone else on the team. Iron sharpens iron, and a second set of eyes will catch what you miss. If you have any trouble with the tools themselves, or you think of another tool that would help the team, ask Darren.