The pastor of a Cincinnati church said he always printed out copies of his emails to give to church members who don’t have computers. My mind went to my 92-year-old mother who owns a computer, but since my Dad died, has never used it. She has a tablet, but only uses it to check Facebook. It’s entertainment and not a tool.
When I was in elementary school, television sets were brought in for the first time. When my wife began teaching first grade, she would roll in a TV set to watch “Electric Company” on KET (Kentucky Educational Television). The school system wanted children to be exposed to educational TV programs.
Now, we’re hearing about Artificial Intelligence impacting not only classrooms, but also churches. Through certain apps, an AI-generated sermon can be developed in a matter of minutes. Seminary education is beginning to scrutinize students who seek to write papers using AI.
Skipping hours of research saves time, but does it rob the pastor of learning opportunities? Will we one day expect digitized quarterlies online?
I develop a curriculum that is distributed as PDF files. What I actually sell is the license to use it. I don’t care whether they are printed out or taught from a tablet in a small group Bible study.
Is the use of AI right or fair, wise or ill-advised? Is it akin to my experience in college when we had to use slide rules my freshman year, but my sophomore year we were allowed to use hand-held calculators?
Three ways AI can help
The point is that there is a digital divide emerging among church leaders.
Certainly, I do not see AI as a fad. It will not go away. Our culture will find ways to use it, but church leaders cannot ignore it.
Below are three ways I believe using AI will help our churches. And the churches that do use them will likely cause a divide among those that ignore the distance it places between the haves and have nots.
- Online interactivity between visitors to our church websites or social media apps who want to ask questions that used to reside in pages of FAQs. Customized answers can be delivered based on anticipated questions. Care to chat?
- Provide further study on biblical topics. Sunday School curriculum can be expanded to provide videos, lectures, interactivity with an app or text to help the discipleship be directed in specific touches. I look forward to the day that a question can provide one-minute excerpts of online sermons addressing specific Scripture passages or topics.
- As literacy levels continue to decline, the AI interactivity provides an interface with oral interactions. The catch is not to have the AI-generated host replace your own church staff or leader interactivity. Done correctly, the digitized exchange should provide interactivity. In other words, your pastor could become AI generated.
The latest in AI will take time to adopt. Innovators have the ball now. According to the diffusion of innovation theory, some 25% of a group will need to adopt any new thing before it will have enough inertia to keep going on its own.
If you’re still thinking that rolling a TV into a Sunday School classroom is an instrument of the devil, then AI might take you a bit longer. However, if you’re one of those open to trying something new to the glory of God, go ahead and give it a shot.
A lot of us will be watching — and learning!
EDITOR’S NOTE — Mark Snowden serves as director for the Cincinnati Area Baptist Association. This editorial will appear in the Jan. 16 edition of The Baptist Paper. Click here to subscribe.
