Can AI and Preaching Coexist? Three Ethical Ways to Use It Well.

How Pastors Can Use AI Without Sacrificing Authenticity, Theological Depth, or the Spirit’s Leading.

We’re not quite here, yet. Don’t worry.

Every few centuries, the global Church faces a significant technological shift that fundamentally changes how pastors preach, teach, and lead. If you’re a longtime follower of this Substack (or simply a student of history), you’ll know that the printing press gave preachers access to the Bible in their own language in unprecedented ways. The microphone amplified their voices, enabling them to reach larger crowds. The Internet has brought a flood of theological resources to the fingertips of anyone with a Wi-Fi connection.

And here we stand, at yet another crossroads: artificial intelligence.

I get it. You’re probably tensing up at the mere thought of artificial intelligence and preaching, as though I’d suggested pouring diesel into your carefully curated coffee.

Perhaps you worry that AI will turn sermons into soulless, machine-generated and Spirit-free lectures. To be honest, I worry about that sometimes, too.

But what if AI didn’t have to be the enemy of authentic preaching? Used wisely, I believe that artificial intelligence can enhance—rather than erode—the integrity of sermon preparation. The key is using it both ethically and intelligently, ensuring that it serves as a tool rather than a crutch.

Let me propose three ways we can use artificial intelligence in sermon preparation to enhance rather than replace the Spirit’s work (number three is my favourite - a genuine gamechanger for me):

1. AI as a Research Assistant (Not a Researcher)

AI can speed up the work. It should not do the work.

Every sermon begins with a journey in prayer, in Scripture, in context, and in theology. Most pastors pore over biblical texts, commentaries and cross-references, seeking the Lord’s wisdom on a given passage. But let’s face it: the research part is time-consuming, and with all the other responsibilities we’re trying to balance, the sheer volume can feel overwhelming.

This is where AI-powered tools like Logos’ latest features can be extremely helpful.

Now we can ask questions like, “What do my commentaries say about the parable of the Prodigal Son?” and get an instant, organized summary—without flipping through dozens of books. AI can draw key insights to the surface, help to understand the historical context and distil dozens of pages of scholarly insight into a few paragraphs.

However, AI doesn’t discern. It doesn’t wrestle with the text. It doesn’t pray for wisdom, and it doesn’t view the Scriptures through your own unique congregational context. AI can retrieve data, but only a Spirit-led, Scripture-saturated child of God can faithfully interpret and proclaim biblical truth in a way that nourishes the Church.

A helpful tool. A terrible crutch.

2. AI as a Logic and Clarity Checker (Not a Preaching Tutor)

AI can help refine the sermon’s structure. But it doesn’t have the last word.

Sometimes, writing a sermon is as easy as breathing. Sometimes, it’s a long, painful labour. If your experience of preaching is anything like mine, it’s all too easy to find ourselves caught in the thicket, struggling to know how to effectively communicate what God has placed on our hearts. It’s as though we dive so deep into the passage we get lost.

This is where I find AI to be a tremendous editorial support.

What I’m not asking:

• Can you write this sermon for me, please?

• Tell me what to say.

• Make it more interesting.

What I am asking:

• Does this sermon have a clear, logical flow? In other words, are the arguments I’m making coherent or are there gaps in my reasoning?

• Is the tone appropriate? Are there areas where I come across as unintentionally harsh or judgmental? Is it overly academic in tone or too simple?

• Do the illustrations accurately support the point? The last thing I want is an illustration for the sake of it, so this is a big one!

Now, of course, caution is abundant. AI lacks the wisdom, experience, and Spirit-led discernment necessary to bring God’s truth to life. It’s an expression of technology that can refine words. It cannot infuse them with love or a sense of prophetic urgency. But with the right approach, it can help smooth the flow of some of those clunkier explanations or sections, which has been an enormous blessing for me personally.

3. AI as an Internalization Support (Not a Substitute for Meditation)

This is a big one.

I’m confident that most pastors have faced this moment: Sunday morning arrives, and the sermon still feels like a collection of words on a page rather than a truth that permeates our very being. In an ideal scenario, we’d spend 40 hours a week allowing the sermon to percolate in our souls, but countless other responsibilities mean that this often isn’t possible.

Personally, I’ve struggled with internalizing my sermons the way I would like, but I’ve recently been using a tool called Google Notebook LM.

This technology allows you to:

• Engage in a Q&A with your own sermon (literally in real-time, which is mind-blowing), allowing AI to ask you challenging questions about your key points and forcing you to clarify and deepen your understanding of the text.

• Memorize the sermon’s structure. AI can summarize your message into key bullet points, making it easier to internalize

But here’s the gamechanger part: what’s really powerful about this AI infrastructure is that you can feed it your sermon manuscript and in just a few minutes, it will generate a fifteen-minute podcast with two hosts discussing the content of your sermon, meaning that you can listen to your sermon and internalize its structure and flow while driving or doing chores.

This isn’t just about efficiency, of course. It’s about transformation. I’m sure you know that the more a sermon lives inside the preacher, the more powerfully it can be preached. I’ve personally found the podcast feature of Google Notebook LM transformational in the internalization process of my sermon preparation.

Ethical Boundaries

Once again, there are some ethical caveats.

Of course, AI should never replace prayer, study, or personal conviction.

Of course, AI should never be used to generate entire sermons.

Of course, AI should never compromise the pastor’s authenticity.

But used wisely, I do believe that AI can be a tool that strengthens preaching—sharpening research, improving clarity, and reinforcing memory, as long as the heart of the preacher remains unchanged: a human preacher, called by God, proclaiming his Word with conviction, love, and authenticity.

The use of artificial intelligence in preaching isn’t as straightforward as drawing a black and white line. There are instances in which it can be highly useful—and ethical. But it must never replace the wrestling, praying, and Spirit-led soul-searching that makes a sermon worth preaching.

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If you found this article helpful, consider reading my book “The Church and AI: Seven Guidelines for Ministry on the Digital Frontiers,” out now! If you’ve read it already, thank you! Feel free to leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads!