AI could be a blessing to the Church. Here's why we should embrace its benefits.

Technology has transformed the body of Christ, and artificial intelligence could well do the same.

Welcome to the fourth installment of our series exploring the seven guidelines for church leaders in an AI-driven world. So far, we’ve delved into the importance of fostering authentic human relationships, bolstering congregational resilience, and cultivating adaptability in our local expressions of the church.

In this article, we’ll explore the fourth guideline: embracing positive technological developments in the church. Maybe there is reason for optimism in these strange times, after all!

Photo by Lucas Alexander on Unsplash

Guideline #4: Embrace Positive Technological Development.

The year is roughly 1013 AD. A young man journies through picturesque Italian countryside and enjoys the warm breeze brushing his face. In truth, he’s far more interested in the horse’s percussive hoofing of the ground—he likes how it neatly accentuates the slow trundle of the cart he is bumping along on. His ears are well-trained for such rhythms.

The rider tightens his reigns, slowing to the magnificent view of Pomposa Abbey. It’s an imposing place of worship and residence for the Benedictine monks he would live with for the next decade. While the relaxing sounds of the horse and cart have now faded, there is no space for silence. Instead, a muffled but unmistakable sound is seeping through the Abbey’s windows. It’s a chorus of future comrades, a beautiful, almost divine melody of monks singing in perfect unison.

The traveller, who would one day be known by the moniker Guido D’Arezzo, closed his eyes and breathed in the moment before letting out a delighted sigh. This exquisite choir was all the confirmation he needed.

He was home.

Guido’s time at Pomposa Abbey would go on to shape the world.

A prodigious musical talent, it was within the hallowed halls of Pomposa that he would invent—or at the very least, develop—the first system for transcribing music, a precursor to the modern sheet music that has dominated musical history for centuries. Before Guido, one would teach music by rote, which had obvious limitations. It was time-consuming, not to mention highly restricted by fallible and insubstantial memories.

With transcribed music, more intricate compositions could be performed in a fraction of the time. The beautiful choral music Guido may have heard on his arrival was merely the tip of the iceberg, a taster of the beautiful sounds his invention would one day inspire.

Guido’s system gained rapid popularity in the area as people began to recognize the significance of the young monk’s achievement. Most of the province was awash with enthusiasm brought about by this technological achievement. However, some of Guido’s colleagues—and unfortunately, even the Abbott—grew skeptical, critical and jealous. They were uncomfortable with the new system and didn’t hesitate to inform its inventor of their feelings. Around a decade after arriving at Pomposa, Guido was forced to leave for Arezzo.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Guido D’Arezzo’s notation system laid the foundations for much of the music that would follow and, as a result, profoundly impacted the Church he had devoted his life to serving.

Thanks to Guido, we have Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.

Thanks to Guido, we have Handel’s Messiah.

Thanks to Guido, we have John Newton’s Amazing Grace.

Thanks to Guido, we even have Chris Tomlin’s How Great is Our God.

Thanks to Guido, we have Pinkfong’s Baby Shark.

Ok. So it’s not all good news.

Guido’s invention is a decisive moment in history and an important reminder that some technological developments can be extraordinarily beneficial to the Church.

As 21st-century believers wrestle with the coming changes that artificial intelligence will inevitably bring, we have three choices:

1. We can act like Guido D’Arezzo’s fellow monks, either burying our heads in the sand or defaulting to premature criticism.

2. We can run like banshees toward every technological development without stopping to see if it’s actually beneficial or not.

3. We can push forward like technological semi-Luddites who embrace the wheat while ditching the chaff.

In the previous article, I argued for the third position.

We should strive to be a church of semi-Luddites.

In what follows, I propose that rather than simply accepting positive developments in artificial intelligence and technology in general, we should actively encourage them. To build my case, I’ll argue two broad points:

• History shows how technological developments have greatly benefitted the Church.

• There are myriad ways that artificial intelligence could conceivably benefit the Church.

Suspend your disbelief for a moment.

Tear down those sacred cows if you need to.
Soften those Luddite hearts if you have to.

This could be important. Let’s jump in.

How Tech Has Changed the Church

You might feel compelled to skip this section if you're already a technological evangelist. But if you’re on the fence or perhaps seething at the thought of using artificial intelligence anywhere near the body of Christ, consider three ways technology has greatly helped the global Church.

1. The Printing Press

In 1436 AD, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, changing the world forever. It used movable type, meaning that books could be created significantly faster, cheaper, and more accurately than ever before. Supposedly, the first book to be printed in Europe was the Latin Vulgate in the 1450s—also known as the "Gutenberg Bible”—although it is impossible to know for sure.¹ Whatever the case, the printing press was a technological marvel that resulted in the democratization of knowledge and the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation.

In other words, it was a big deal for the Church.

Roughly two hundred years after Gutenberg’s printing press, Giovanni Andrea Bussi noted the drastic changes that it had brought about in a letter to Pope Paul II: “. . .God gave Christendom a gift which enables even the pauper to acquire books. Prices of books have decreased by eighty percent.”²

An eighty percent decrease! Coupled with the somewhat symbiotic translational developments happening around the same period, believers of all walks of life could finally afford to purchase and study the Word of God for themselves.

I don’t know anyone today who would view the invention of the printing press as anything other than a landmark achievement.

But not everyone thought it was a good thing.

In the open-air pulpit of Old Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the Vicar of Croydon supposedly proclaimed to his congregation, “either we must root out printing or it will root us out.”³ He saw it as a threat to the authority of the Church and its ability to disseminate prescribed doctrine. In 1563, John Foxe (famous for his Book of Martyrs) echoed this idea, with perhaps a slightly different sentiment. In light of the printing press,

. . .hereby tongues are known, knowledge groweth, judgment increaseth, books are dispersed, the Scripture is seen, the doctors be read, stories be opened, times compared, truth discerned, falsehood detected, and with finger pointed, and all, as I said, through the benefit of printing. . . either the pope must abolish printing, or he must seek a new world to reign over; for else, as this world standeteh, printing doubtless will abolish him.⁴

The Pope was not abolished, but the Reformation it helped to spark drastically shook the world order. The almost miraculous invention of the printing press—to Foxe, comparable with the gift of tongues—brought incredible technological developments. But it also brought rumbles of discontent and uncomfortable change for those quite satisfied with the status quo.

2. Radio

After several decades of developments, the 1920s ushered in the birth of commercial radio. In a fascinating article for Christianity Today, Mark Rogers details how Paul Rader pioneered the technology for Gospel purposes, recognizing that it could “push out the walls of the biggest church and reach the unsaved man.”⁵ Radar was followed by early “techno-optimists” Fulton J. Sheen and Walter A. Maier, who, through the medium, “fundamentally reshaped what it meant to be Lutheran, Catholic, evangelical, and Christian in America.”⁶ By the 1940s, millions would hear the Good News of Jesus every week from within the confines of their homes via the radio. Sheen was humbled by the realization that radio had made it possible to “address more souls in the space of thirty minutes than St. Paul did in all his missionary journeys.”⁷

Radio changed the face of ministry forever. It was a transformative tool for evangelism, Christian preaching and general education in remote or inaccessible areas.

However, once again, not everyone supported the changes that were taking place.

Some believers, recognizing that the devil was the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2), felt that the airwaves were his domain and were not tampered with. Those rumbles of discontent lingered.

Today, these fears are all but assuaged. In reality, most evangelicals embraced radio reasonably quickly, and the world was transformed as a result.

3. Audiovisual Technology

In the 1990s, sheet music—birthed out of Guido D’Arezzo’s work all those centuries earlier—endured a significant blow. Traditional hymnals were thrown out en masse in favour of a little glowing box called an overhead projector.

It was another revolution in many ways, changing how believers worshiped together. No longer did church-goers have to frantically thumb through the hymnal’s pages. Lyrics were easier than ever to follow, and those with fading eyesight could benefit from a much larger font projected onto large format screens.

All of this meant that congregants could, in theory, give greater attention to undistracted worship, the very thing they had joined with their fellow believers to do.

Churches operating on a shoestring budget no longer had to pay for dozens—if not hundreds—of expensive hymnals, meaning those finances could be better spent elsewhere. Worship leaders were no longer restricted to the songs in the hymnal’s repertoire. Bible passages could be projected for those who weren’t familiar with God’s Word.

It was a significant moment of change for the Church.

But perhaps unsurprisingly, it wasn’t for everyone. As I wrote here, some people fiercely attacked this technological revolution. One complaint from a 1999 magazine article took the change quite badly: “The joy of singing worshipful songs is replaced by frustration in trying to learn or recall the tune.”⁸

Some felt believers would be stifled in their praises without written traditional sheet music.

In their view, Guido’s good work had been gutted.

Nowadays, overhead projectors have been largely replaced by digital projection, and those earlier concerns have all but evaporated into the past. Though not unheard of, it is certainly the exception, rather than the norm, for evangelical churches to use hymnals rather than some sort of presentation software.

Reflections: A Familiar Response to Technology

These three monumental inventions point us to a single truth. Did you catch the noticeable parallels with the development of the printing press, radio ministry, and developments in audiovisual technology?

Few today would remotely question how these technological changes have revolutionized our worship.

Yet, at the time, there was significant pushback. If space allowed, we could also explore stained glass windows, music recording, the internet, television, live streaming, and mobile apps, to name a few more notable developments. In many ways, these changes were controversial in their time but have become widely accepted parts of church life today.

Here’s the point: perhaps there is a place for reasonable discomfort over a technological development. For this reason, we must have strong foundations in place (hence guidelines 1, 2, 6, and 7).

But maybe we’re just change-averse for its own sake.

In the name of God-inspired optimism and in light of the benefits of the past, let’s put on our rose-tinted spectacles for a moment and imagine how artificial intelligence might just revolutionize the global Church for the better.

How Artificial Intelligence Might Change the Church

In the previous article, we touched on how AI might impact the church, exploring the need for adaptability in our churches.

But it’s worth delving a bit deeper.

It’s one thing to be adaptable to technological developments; it’s another to embrace them.

1. AI for Bible Translation

According to Wycliffe Global Alliance’s 2023 Global Scripture Access Study, only around 10% of the world’s 7,394 languages have access to a full Bible.⁹ Artificial intelligence may conceivably be able to complete translations of the other 90% in our lifetimes—perhaps even in a generation.

As far back as 2017, developers have been exploring how to use unsupervised machine learning to translate completely new languages. Matthew Hutson explains how it works:

To start, each [method] constructs bilingual dictionaries without the aid of a human teacher telling them when their guesses are right. That’s possible because languages have strong similarities in the way words cluster around one another. The words for table and chair, for example, are frequently used together in all languages. So if a computer maps out these co-occurrences like a giant road atlas with words for cities, the maps for different languages will resemble each other, just with different names. A computer can then figure out the best way to overlay one atlas on another. Voilà! You have a bilingual dictionary.¹⁰

Remember that this was almost seven years ago, a lifetime in the field of artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, a team of archaeologists and computer scientists made headlines after finding a way to use AI to translate 5,000-year-old Akkadian tablets.¹¹

Astonishing.

While this technology may significantly accelerate the translation process, there are still tricky hurdles to overcome. Translation is a complicated process, and while AI may be able to handle a word-for-word translation, it could struggle with appropriately communicating the text's thought (or sense). To put it another way, AI may do well with formal equivalence but struggle with dynamic equivalence; the most popular/valuable Bible translations are such because they often strike a healthy balance between the two.

But the technology is still young. The signs are promising.

2. AI for Multilingual Ministry

AI’s language translation prowess will open doors previously bolted shut. Meta’s SeamlessM4T technology can understand audio or text in approximately 100 languages and use just one AI model to translate the input instantly into 36 different languages.¹² Google Pixel phones already have a “live translate” feature, and Samsung will reportedly be able to translate phone calls in real-time from 2024.¹³ Products such as Rask can already translate audio from a video into a different language while maintaining the tone and timbre of the original voice.

Incredible.

What might this mean for churches?

There will undoubtedly be many opportunities for cross-cultural missions and greater support for first-generation immigrants with prohibitive language barriers. Just this weekend, the current state of translational software afforded me the chance to converse with several Ukrainian immigrants who had only just landed in Canada.

It was wonderful and, quite honestly, very moving. It’s exciting to think about what developments in this technology might bring. But I think this is only scratching the surface.

This technology will be especially transformative when combined with augmented reality (AR). As I wrote about here, companies have already been hard at work on AR contact lenses,¹⁴ but unfortunately, the current cost of development has been prohibitive.¹⁵ AI expert Kai-Fu Lee is optimistic, believing that the technology will soon be affordable and widely adopted:

Several start-ups are already working to develop XR contact lenses. Their prototypes show that displays and sensors can be embedded in contact lenses, making text and images visible. These contact lenses will still require external CPU for processing, which can be done on a mobile phone. By 2041, we anticipate the “invisibility” of contact lenses will truly cause the market to accept the product, and that challenges such as cost, privacy, and regulations will be overcome.¹⁶

It’s well within the realms of possibility for believers of all languages to join together in worship, listening to a sermon in one language but seeing real-time subtitles on their AR lenses. We may experience multiple languages singing out in worship to the Lord together—one melody but many tongues. Audio description technology and automated subtitles would also improve accessibility to worship services for the deaf and hard of hearing.

We could find ourselves one step closer to that great future reality revealed to us in Revelation, where a great multitude “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” come before the throne together (Rev. 7:9).

3. AI for Administration

AI’s ability to handle administrative tasks is a game-changer for church management. It can free up valuable resources by automating routine tasks like volunteer scheduling, financial management, attendance tracking and trend observation. AI can provide the foundations for chatbots that help prospective visitors—who perhaps aren’t ready to commit to meeting or messaging with someone—understand the church's vision and values. It could, and in many cases already is being used to help with content creation and event advertisement.

As we explored in the previous guideline, churches could spend fewer resources and considerably less time running the church and more on being the church. If the world is about to face the relational challenges we have already discussed, more shepherding and fewer logistical concerns can only be a good thing.

4. AI for Outreach

There are many ways in which artificial intelligence can assist churches in serving their cities. It can help a church to understand its context and better address unmet needs.

In our context, this has been profoundly helpful in the last couple of months.

A few days ago, our church had the opportunity to host a big winter clothing giveaway. Although we are just a small gathering of believers, we received an enormous amount of clothing donations and, as a result, could give stacks of winter clothing to those in need. It was a powerful time.

You might be surprised that ChatGPT played a big part in coming up with the event. Here’s what happened:

As a church, we knew God was leading us to help meet the needs of our community (Isa. 58:10; Matt. 25:35-40; Jam. 1:27), but we were struggling to find a way to do that.

At a loss, I typed the following prompt into ChatGPT:

We are a Christian church in Red Deer, Alberta. There are around 50 members in our church, and we are located in the downtown area. You will analyze the demographics and needs of the city, and come up with a series of ways in which a church of our size, minimal resources and location may be able to meet those needs with an outreach event in the winter with one month's preparation.

The response was too large to copy word-for-word, but these sections were particularly intriguing:

Winter-specific needs: Cold weather brings unique challenges, like the need for warm clothing, shelter for the homeless, and social isolation, especially among the elderly.

Event Ideas:
- Warm Clothing Drive and Distribution: Collect coats, gloves, hats, and scarves to distribute to those in need. Consider partnering with local businesses for collection points.

This spark brought our “Wrap Up Red Deer” event to life!

Of course, ChatGPT didn’t plan the whole event (although it did help with ideas for getting the word out).

Nor did it put in hours upon hours of heartfelt prayer and hard work to make the event happen—that was thanks to our wonderful church family. However, ChatGPT did help identify a felt need particular to our city and season, and helped to get the ball rolling in a valuable way.

In other contexts, AI could help optimize resource allocation (for example, in food banks), tailor sermon series to meet the location's needs and provide invaluable help for ideation and administration.

It could be hugely beneficial.

5. AI for Education

AI can cater to students' unique learning styles and paces through personalized learning algorithms, offering a customized educational experience. AI can also provide access to a vast array of resources, facilitate interactive learning, and even assist in research and analysis in fields like textual criticism.

Kids may find their learning experience customized by AI in a way that is highly enjoyable and interactive, helping little ones to learn more about God while parents focus on leading their children to actually know him.

As we’ve already discussed at Church and AI, traditional seminary education could possibly be rendered obsolete. The financial barriers to entry for students could be radically lowered, allowing anyone who senses a call to ministry to get the education they need at a manageable cost.

Disclaimer: This is not to say that the need for education will be diminished, but rather that the current format used to meet that need may become redundant.

6. AI in Worship

Sunday worship experiences could be significantly impacted by artificial intelligence. AR glasses could mean that music teams see visual metronomes, lyrics, chords, and perhaps even sheet music right before their eyes, eliminating the need for music stands and charts. A world of possibilities could open regarding “visual worship experiences.” Imagine singing about the empty tomb and seeing an AI-generated, immersive virtual experience so real it feels like you are right there.

It could be moving to stand at the shores of the sea of Galilee, in the deserts of the wilderness, or in the midst of the Areopagus, where Paul delivered his speech in Acts 17.

In a slightly nearer future, AI may allow for other technological developments such as dynamic, automated camera switching, AI-driven audio engineering, and presentation software that “hears” the songs as they are sung and changes the slides accordingly.

Yes, there would be less of a burden on volunteers. But of far more value is that more people who would have been volunteering in some capacity could concentrate their focus on undistracted worship of God.

Conclusion: How Can We Use These Opportunities for God’s Glory?

As we have seen, many technological breakthroughs were viewed with suspicion before bringing enormous benefits to the Church. In our quest to be technological semi-Luddites, it is important to recognize—with caution and discernment—the potential for AI to be a blessing to believers worldwide.

From enhancing Bible translation to revolutionizing how we manage church operations and engage with our communities, AI presents once unimaginable opportunities, just as Guido D’Arezzo’s musical notation system, the printing press and the radio did in bygone eras.

It’s time to step into a brave new world—with cautious optimism—for the glory of God and the proclamation of the good news of Jesus.

If aspects of AI can help us to do that, bring it on.

---

Thanks so much for reading this far! I’d love to hear your thoughts. What excites you most about the possibilities of AI in the Church? Let me know. It’s always a joy to connect with or hear from readers.

---

READ MORE: UNPACKING THE SEVEN GUIDELINES FOR CHURCH LEADERSHIP IN AN INCREASINGLY AI-DRIVEN WORLD:

1. Prioritize relationship, community, and pastoral care.

2. Preemptively foster congregational resilience.

3. Build adaptability into church structures.

4. Embrace positive technological developments. [You are here]

5. Stay informed in a rapidly changing environment.

6. Proactively pray for God-given wisdom.

7. Keep an undistracted focus on the mission of the church.

1. “Printing Press,” HISTORY, last modified June 29, 2023, accessed August 16, 2023, https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/printing-press.

2. Rudolf Hirsch, Printing, Selling and Reading, 1450-1550 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1974), 1.

3. Tom Wheeler, “With New Technology Challenges, Remember We’ve Been Here before,” Brookings, last modified 2019, accessed December 7, 2023, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/with-new-technology-challenges-remember-weve-been-here-before/.

4. John Foxe, “The Invention and Benefit of Printing (c. 1563),” in The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. Stephen Reed Cattley, vol. 3 (London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1837), 718-22

5. Mark Rogers, “Christian History: Broadcasting the Gospel,” Christianity Today, last modified 2010, accessed December 7, 2023, https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2010/march/broadcasting-gospel.html.

6. Paul Matzko, “Meet the Pioneering Radio Preachers Who Revolutionized Religious Broadcasting,” ChristianityToday.Com, last modified June 28, 2022, accessed December 7, 2023, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/june-web-only/ministers-new-medium-fulton-sheen-walter-maier-radio.html.

7. Ibid.

8. “Some Pros and Cons: Shedding Light on Overhead Projection,” Reformed Worship, last modified 1999, accessed December 7, 2023, https://www.reformedworship.org/article/march-1999/some-pros-and-cons-shedding-light-overhead-projection.

9. “2023 Global Scripture Access,” Wycliffe Global Alliance, 2023, accessed December 7, 2023, https://www.wycliffe.net/resources/statistics/.

10. Matthew Hutson, “Artificial Intelligence Goes Bilingual—without a Dictionary,” last modified 2017, accessed July 26, 2023, https://www.science.org/content/article/artificial-intelligence-goes-bilingual-without-dictionary;

11. Kevin Dickinson, “New AI Translates 5,000-Year-Old Cuneiform Tablets Instantly,” Big Think, July 4, 2023, accessed December 8, 2023, https://bigthink.com/the-future/ai-translates-cuneiform/.

12. Kristen Houser, “Meta’s First-of-Its-Kind AI Can Translate between Any of 100 Languages,” Freethink, August 31, 2023, accessed December 8, 2023, https://www.freethink.com/robots-ai/universal-translator.

13. Richard Lai, “Samsung Teases Its Own AI-Based Real-Time Phone Call Translation,” Engadget, last modified November 9, 2023, accessed December 8, 2023, https://www.engadget.com/samsung-teases-its-own-ai-based-real-time-phone-call-translation-053818106.html.

14. Louis Rosenberg, “Huge Milestone as Human Subject Wears Augmented Reality Contact Lens for First Time,” Big Think, July 6, 2022, accessed December 8, 2023, https://bigthink.com/the-future/augmented-reality-ar-milestone-wearable-contacts/.

15. Cromwell Schubarth, “Bay Area Startup Mojo Vision Puts Smart Contact Lenses on Hold, Cuts Staff by 75%,” Silicon Valley Business Journal, last modified January 6, 2023, accessed December 8, 2023, https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2023/01/06/saratoga-based-mojo-vision-cuts-staff-by-75.html.

16. Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan, AI 2041 (New York: Currency, 2021), Kindle Loc. 3477 of 7291.