The Pastor’s Public Ministry and Generative AI: Perils and Possibilities
October 7, 2025
October 7, 2025
The rapid growth of generative AI—both in terms of popularity and technical capabilities—is raising questions not only for big tech companies but also for pastors. Should pastors use generative AI in preaching or public prayer or must they refrain? May pastors simply read AI summaries in place of primary sources when they prep for sermons? These questions will only become more prevalent as generative AI is increasingly used and developed.
By generative AI, I am referring to computer models that process large sets of data to generate content like outlines, paragraphs, and images. In practice, this definition means using tools like ChatGPT, Grok AI, or Gemini.
Before jumping into my argument, I want to briefly mention three facts about myself that are germane to this article: First, having served as a lay elder, I have experience writing sermons and congregational prayers. Second, I have a doctorate in history studying William Perkins (1558–1602), one of the most famous English Puritans who wrote extensively on the pastorate and preaching. Third, I have a decade of experience in engineering roles within Big Tech. I bring all three of these lenses to bear in thinking about the pastor and generative AI.
While there are legitimate ways that a pastor could use this new technology, there are serious potential pitfalls that he needs to carefully consider. To clarify my scope, I am discussing only the pastor’s public ministry of preaching and praying. I am not considering whether or not it’s acceptable for a pastor to write a first draft of an email with generative AI or if it’s a good idea for Bible study software to use generative AI to synthesize 100,000 pages of commentaries.
We must recognize that there is some Christian liberty in how each pastor interacts with generative AI in their public ministry. Some will choose to avoid AI altogether, viewing the technology as too risky. Others will employ AI tools in sermon preparation, administrative tasks, and basic communications. Both represent legitimate responses to the advent of generative AI so long as certain guidelines are in place.
Whether you’re on the side of the skeptics or optimists, I want to offer five potential pitfalls for pastors using AI in their public ministry.
Plagiarism represents perhaps the most obvious pitfall of generative AI. Tools like ChatGPT or Grok have become sophisticated and can produce detailed sermon outlines complete with alliteration in subpoints, illustrations, applications, and cross-references. Similarly, these tools can write an entire prayer of confession—even weaving in certain biblical themes or Scriptures that their users provide. For some busy pastors, plagiarizing from generative AI will inevitably be too strong of a temptation. Let me be clear, using AI-produced text as your own is a form of plagiarism. To be sure, plagiarism is not unique to generative AI. And yet, the nature of AI means having custom texts at your disposal within seconds of feeding the machine a prompt. Plagiarism has never been easier. Pastor, don’t undermine your ministry by plagiarizing AI.
Generative AI can easily short-circuit critical reflection on a sermon text. As I write this article, I am working on a sermon for my local church on Ephesians 1. I am reading and reflecting on the text each morning. At this stage, I intentionally have not gone to commentaries or generative AI tools.
Somewhat like the way a child needs to wrestle with learning multiplication before using a calculator, so a pastor who turns to various helps before wrestling with a biblical text short-circuits his understanding of the text and the sermon that results. The failure to labor with a text and to instead rely upon someone else’s meditation can easily turn preaching into a rhetorical performance. But preaching isn’t simply public speaking. Preaching requires meditating on God’s Word in order that you may interpret and apply it to the people directly in front of your pulpit. They are the ones God calls you to shepherd by preaching to them. By short-circuiting your own study with AI, pastor, you will inevitably short-circuit your people’s experience being under the preached Word.
Just as I would discourage anyone from beginning sermon preparation by reading a commentary, I would even more strongly discourage someone from using generative AI to create an outline or cultivate ideas for application, at least until he has wrestled with Scripture himself. Spending extended time reading and re-reading a text is vital for pastors. Generative AI is a lazy and inferior substitute.
Scripture teaches that pastors have particular people they are to know, care for, and shepherd to heaven (1 Pet. 5:2). Generative AI does not know your local congregation. ChatGPT does not feel the heartache of the couple struggling with infertility. Gemini cannot relate to the person fighting fear of man at work. Grok does not know how to rejoice when a church member sees a close friend come to Christ.
When I preached recently on Psalm 16:10, I looked through my membership directory and thought about how the psalm would apply to each of their lives. I trust this helped bring Scripture to bear on the church in a way that no generative AI tool could accomplish.
Part of your job as a pastor is to build relationships with your sheep such that when you preach to them, you preach from that personal connection, and they listen from it. Though you cannot be close friends with every member, even brief interactions provide fertile soil for the pastor in preparing the sermon and for the member in listening. Do not short-circuit the thoughtful reflection on how a biblical text applies to your congregation.
Sermon preparation is a great opportunity to disciple others. For instance, the main preacher at my local church spends 90 minutes each Wednesday with any interested members talking about the sermon text, discussing its meaning, outlining a sermon, and brainstorming application points. While my pastor could save time using generative AI to do this, he would be sacrificing all the discipling opportunities that preparing his sermon with his people affords him. Further, the live interaction with members helps him better know his congregation as he refines his biblical thinking. You may not prepare sermons exactly like my pastor does. However you choose to do it, I recommend you incorporate others into the process. And by others, I don’t mean ChatGPT. I mean your members. Preparing sermons with them will help them for sure, but it will also help you. Don’t miss that opportunity because AI is faster or more convenient.
Fifth, AI can be inaccurate. It is even known to fabricate information at times. You may be thinking, “Well, I plan to vet everything it gives me!” Even still, the same forces that push some pastors to use generative AI—namely, speed and convenience—lend themselves to uncritically accepting AI-generated text. You simply don’t want to be in a situation where you preach something that is theologically inaccurate because AI told you to do so. If I use generative AI, I always fact-check anything I use. I recommend you do the same.
Generative AI is almost certainly not going away. Companies are investing billions of dollars into training better models. The pastor’s calling, however, does not change. Jesus, the chief shepherd, has charged each pastor: “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17).
If you view generative AI as a big shortcut or a large timesaver, then that is a red flag. If you do use it, put it low on your priority list, and let it just be one more tool that you employ to be thorough and rigorous in studying God’s Word and applying it to your local congregation. Even more fundamentally, while my argument in this article is that pastors can use generative AI within some guardrails, the animating purpose behind my writing is a concern about the uncritical adoption of generative AI by pastors.
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