On Monday, a fellow pastor and I spent almost an hour talking about AI. He was wrestling with how he should or shouldn’t be using it in ministry. He told me he feels the pull of it — it’s genuinely helpful, faster than he is on his best day, useful in a dozen small ways he didn’t expect. But he also feels a pushback in his spirit every time he opens it for something ministry-related. A pause. Maybe even a conviction. Should I be using this? Is it cheating? How do I use it in a way that’s actually honorable to God?
Every generation of church leaders has had to wrestle with a new tool. The printing press put Scripture into ordinary hands and helped fuel the Reformation — the church embraced it as a powerful tool for discipleship and mission. Radio and television carried gospel preaching farther than any pulpit ever could. But they also had their downsides — the platforms tempted more than a few preachers to trade shepherding for performing and brand building. The internet has connected the church globally and put unlimited resources in front of every believer, but it has also trained a generation to treat pastors and churches like content to consume rather than a covenant people to belong to.
The point is, as leaders, we must discern how to embrace new tools in ways that honor Christ but do not abandon our calling.
So what does that look like with AI? (For the record, I’m not commenting on AI’s larger role in society — I’m not qualified to speak to the opportunities and threats at that scale. I’m talking specifically about tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, and how we use them in everyday pastoral work.)
Here’s where I’ve landed — three ways I think AI is off-limits for pastors, and three ways I think it’s a genuine gift.
Avoid Using AI to Write Your Content
If you’re asking AI to write your sermon — or even a portion of it — or to craft your lesson for you, take a step back. Preaching and teaching are a holy privilege that you must not pawn off on AI. Sermons are the fruit of a pastor who has actually studied the text, wrestled with it in prayer, and asked the Holy Spirit for illumination and wisdom. None of that happens when a model writes for you. Sure, it can hand you a solid outline in a matter of seconds. It can even fill out a manuscript for you, more polished than you could write on your own. But presenting content is not the same thing as preaching. Eugene Peterson spoke about preaching as a holy dance between pastor and congregation to the beat of the Holy Spirit and Holy Scripture. The Spirit speaks a particular word to a particular people through the Scripture every week. This is our work to cultivate.
Consider the prayer Thomas Aquinas prayed this before he studied, wrote, or preached:
Creator of all things, true Source of light and wisdom, lofty origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your brilliance penetrate into the darkness of my understanding and take from me the double darkness in which I have been born, an obscurity of both sin and ignorance. Give me a sharp sense of understanding, a retentive memory, and the ability to grasp things correctly and fundamentally. Grant me the talent of being exact in my explanations, and the ability to express myself with thoroughness and charm. Point out the beginning, direct the progress, and help in completion; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
That’s the posture AI can’t replicate. Chat and Claude aren’t on their knees praying this prayer. If we are prompting before we are praying, we should repent.
Avoid Turning to AI as a Counselor
Hard things come up constantly in ministry — dozens of them, every single week. Turning to AI as your source of wisdom for those moments is wrong. This was something my friend and I talked about on Monday. He said, “It feels like a cheat code – asking AI what to do about a volunteer issue, a giving shortage, or even how to plan a special service.” He went on, “Sure, it can pull and source some solid advice, but it feels shallow.” My friend is right. It is shallow because it’s unspiritual.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. (James 1:5, ESV)
In pastoral ministry we have access to God’s direct wisdom. God’s ordinary means of supplying that wisdom are in prayer and wise counsel of mentors and spiritual fathers and mothers — people who actually know you, who can see your blind spots, who can sit with you in the complexity of the real things that you are facing. Sure, AI can hand you an answer in three seconds. But Godly wisdom is meant to be sought in prayer and counsel – and it’s particularly powerful for your present needs.
If ChatGPT or Claude is counseling you more than mentors or fellow pastors, you should repent. Pray, pause, and pick up the phone to call a wise counselor when uncertainty comes.
Avoid AI-Written Emails
This one is a bit subtler than the first two. While it’s extremely convenient to let AI write your email responses, I think pastors should avoid it. Here is why: behind every email you send or receive is another human being who deserves your full attention and care. Don’t let AI fake your presence. Does this mean that you might be slower to respond? Sure. But it means that your responses will be real – your words, your encouragement, your heart coming through. While this might not matter as much in other professions, it matters in the pastorate. At least it matters to me. Take the extra ten minutes and write emails yourself.
Don’t let Gemini replace your voice and rob your attention to the real people behind every email.
While we must not let AI tools keep us from the slow spiritual work of attending to God and people that pastoral ministry requires, I do think that there are some areas where we can embrace it. These are areas where AI can enhance or assist us in the work of the word, prayer, and the love of people.
Embrace It as an Editor
Let it proofread. Let it clean up a rough draft. Let it give you feedback on where a sermon loses clarity or where a lesson drags. Let it be a conversation partner around parts of a sermon or lesson. Used this way, AI is an editor, not an author. Use it to sharpen what you’ve already shaped in study and prayer. Here are a few prompts I have found helpful once my sermon is complete:
- Review my sermon and flag anything unclear or too dense.
- Is there anything in this sermon that a new believer would be confused by?
- What objections would a non-believer have to this sermon?
- Have I done a good job making Jesus the hero of this sermon?
I don’t recommend going over the top with this. Don’t use all of these prompts every week, and don’t edit your sermon to death – but this is one way AI can enhance your ministry.
Embrace It as a Research Assistant
Tracking down a quote, summarizing a scholar’s argument, pointing you toward theological resources worth reading for yourself, pulling up something you preached three years ago so you can reference it accurately — this is the helpful work of a research assistant. For example: As I was writing my sermon this week, the Spirit brought to mind a quote I had once read about repentance. I remembered bits of the quote, but was struggling to recall the author and source. In a matter of seconds, AI helped me find and source the quote.
Having a built-in research assistant is a real gift – Bible study tools like Logos aren’t shying away from integrating AI in this way.
Embrace It for Administrative Tasks
Building slides from your content for a class or sermon. Summarizing a long document. Giving you an end-of-day wrap-up. Reminding you to stay on track with your Bible reading plan. Depending on your role and work in ministry, AI can help you lift the administrative load in a variety of ways. For example: I drafted this post in a Google Doc, but Claude did the administrative work of uploading it to my site and scheduling its release.
Ministry carries real administrative weight, and any time you save frees up more time and attention for the work of word, prayer, and people.
We Need to Talk This Out
We need to keep having this conversation — as friends and ministry leaders still learning what it means to be faithful with a tool this powerful. What I keep coming back to is the tension my friend identified on Monday: we can feel freedom to embrace AI where it genuinely serves the work, but we must also keep a healthy distance from it in the parts of ministry that aren’t to be automated.
So I’ll ask you: How are you navigating the tension? Where are you using AI in your ministry, and where have you sensed that same pushback in your spirit? I’d genuinely love to know — reach out here.
