Are AI’s Promises of Productivity Worth the Risks for Pastors?

My friend Alexandre is a pastor in Togo. He does not write his sermons on a laptop; he handwrites them. He does not do Bible research online; he uses a physical concordance. He does not use Bible software to read commentaries; he only has a few and they sit on a bookshelf.

Is Alexandre missing out on something that is vital for his ministry?

The Promises of Artificial Intelligence

When I first learned of Artificial Intelligence, I was very interested. I grew up with the internet, love technology, and always look for ways to be more productive. AI seemed like the perfect deal!

As a pastor of a church with limited staff, I was hoping AI could be used for some “mundane” tasks. If you’re in this situation, you know how it feels. On top of your pastoral responsibilities, you must also take care of various administrative tasks like printing bulletins and scheduling childcare volunteers! Would it be possible to use AI for tasks like these?

Well . . . sort of! AI can provide a list of all the first Thursdays of the month (when we have our prayer meeting). It can gather data from a form that members fill out. It can organize files and run statistics. In some ways, it can be used as a digital assistant. Sounds promising, right?

Even for all the administrative prowess AI technologies offer, I have found that my love for AI has grown cold, and that is mainly for two reasons.

1. The Ethical Dilemmas

Administrative offerings aside, I have found that there are too many ethical issues at stake when thinking through ways AI could assist me in my pastoral work. After all, creating volunteer forms is not like writing sermons. On the former, most agree that AI has something to offer. And yet, AI should never be installed as the pastor of a church.

The problem is that the distinction between administrative work and pastoral work is not always clear. Should pastors use AI to write emails to members or application questions for their sermons? Would that mean handing over to AI, even partially, duties that a pastor is responsible before God for? Moreover, who is responsible for the content produced by AI—me or the company behind it? Can that company even give an answer for something their AI produced in response to my prompt? Questions like these make me very suspicious of how far AI can go in assisting me in my pastoral task.

2. The Process Is Important

The second reason why I am not so hyped on AI is that it’s too easy. AI presents answers without my ever having needed to do any work. Now, technologists may call this max efficiency. It’s why they celebrate AI as a revolutionary tool. All destination and no need for journey! AI can, for example, produce a sermon illustration from even the most obscure passages in Scripture. You, pastor, never have to rifle through your catalogue of stories to find one that fits. Instant time saver! This isn’t all. AI can also summarize large chunks of a commentary from your favorite dead theologian in seconds! The best part (so they say)? You didn’t even have to read the original source material. AI has done that for you.

Now, it’s true that all technology aims to make us more efficient. And yet, AI and its max efficiency does something slightly different than say your laptop or Google’s original search engine. AI operates autonomously or near autonomously, and with autonomy comes dependency. In the case of say writing sermons, AI lures pastors by offering to do large chunks of the exegeting, illustrating, or applying the sermon passage in a way that your blank word processor and your open Bible (on Logos or otherwise!) never have. But such usage over time creates atrophy in your ability to exegete or illustrate or apply God’s Word to your people. You become dependent on AI to do the work that you should be doing as your church’s pastor.

So atrophy through dependency is one issue that is unique to AI. Another issue is AI’s inability to distinguish between unproductive and productive work. Exegeting and meditating on a passage of Scripture for your upcoming sermon is not just about getting your manuscript written, it’s about your spiritual formation, pastor, and not yours only but also your congregation’s. You see, often in the pastor’s work both the process and the result are important. The process makes us who we are, shaping our knowledge, our affections, and our character. It’s painful but productive work, and it’s necessary to make us better pastors. AI may save you time, but it will cost you something far more valuable—your ability to be the pastor your people need you to be. AI might make you more efficient, but it cannot make you godlier.

Ask yourself: What would I be missing out on if I use AI to exegete my sermon passage week after week for my entire ministry? What spiritual formation would I personally be sacrificing if I delegate to AI the responsibility to “meditate” on and apply God’s Word to my congregation?

But What About AI’s Promises?

This word of caution is hard to swallow when AI is touted everywhere else as the be-all and end-all. Might we miss out on an opportunity for gospel growth if we don’t dive in head first? After all, Silicon Valley says we better get on the AI bus or get run over by it, right?

Brother pastor, we need to remember that AI can do nothing to correct mankind’s biggest problems. Humans are still sinners, and the world is still under God’s wrath. AI might improve our well-being, but it can’t change our hearts. God can change hearts, however, and he does this work through his Word. Guess whose job it is to proclaim his Word? Ours. Don’t let AI replace you, pastor, as the appointed messenger of God’s Word.

God was building his church through his preached Word before AI and will continue to do so after AI is old news. We should thus unashamedly reject the notion that the gospel’s advancement will from this moment on always be dependent on AI. Jesus already revealed his secret: wait for the promised Holy Spirit and then start bearing witness (Acts 1:4–5, 8).

Putting AI in the Right Box

Go back to my friend Alexandre who has little to no technology at his disposal to help him pastor his church. I asked at the beginning of this article, is he missing out on something? I don’t think so. He is proof that laptops, the internet, and Bible software may be useful tools in their proper place, but not essential ones. The essence of his ministry is the same as yours and mine.

Be thankful for technology, but resist believing that it can fundamentally change your task as a pastor. Pastors don’t need to be on the frontline of technological advancement. It may even be too early to know what healthy use of AI even looks like. Sure, go ahead and evaluate how good it is as a secretary. But give most of your time to study the Word until you know it, know it until you love it, and then preach it for the spiritual good of your people.