“The AI Sermon Revolution” - Pastors Struggle With Where to Draw the Line

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Pastors are using AI to help write sermons.
Grapple with where to draw the line. And you know who wrote this story? Wall Street Journal.
I would never guess Wall Street Journal would write the story, but let me read it to you. Half of all pastors say they use AI for brainstorming or idea generation, and roughly a quarter use to help write sermons, up from 12% in 2024, according to a Barna group. The trend has drawn theological pushback to the Vatican earlier this year. Pope Leo warned clergy that artificial intelligence can't give a true amelie. Daryl Stetler, lead pastor of Bible Methodist Church in Oklahoma City, is among ChatGPT's top 1% users, and runs a Facebook group of 500 pastors experimenting with technology. He makes $600 a week plus a housing stipend, and takes construction jobs on the side. A sermon used to take him 10 to 15 hours to prepare. A chatbot does it now. First batch research shaves off several hours. This AI does not enjoy what it finds. He said, it cannot love it. The time he saves goes towards people, the hospital business. Tom, what do you think about pastors using ChatGPT for their sermons? Does it bother you?

**Tom** (1:16)
It doesn't bother me if they're using it just to pull research together.
But you know what's the interesting thing about the pastorate is being able to bring it to the lives of people where they're living today. In other words, scripture doesn't change. Christ's teaching doesn't change. How we get saved doesn't change. But the things that we're fighting as parents, like our kids making decisions and feeling insecure because social media, that's a new thing. And bringing messages to people where they live today in the new context of life as we see it, as it gets complicated, it doesn't bother me that they're using ChatGPT to assemble it together. It's not like he's going to say, hey, I'd like to mix it up a little bit on the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Should the Jews make it or not? If that's like, no, no, no. We made it, Tom.
Tom made it. Exactly. You see what I mean, Adam. It's not like you're going to take AI and say, nope, the waters of the Red Sea close in and all those poor Jewish people die. No, they cross on dry land. So it's not going to change the teachings. But I hope and what the Pope said, it's not a true homily, meaning you're not bringing it together into the life of people. Because part of being a pastor and preaching and teaching is you preach warnings and you teach love and then you preach applications. So what goes through here, it doesn't really bother me, but I hope it's not a shortcut to people maybe being an uninformed deliverer. If someone did a ChatGPT on your sales system that you built, Pat, and then they had no experience in sale and are trying to make videos about it, it's going to look clumsy because they're not authentic. They have nothing to draw on. Am I right?
Okay. It's the same thing for a pastor. If that's happening, then that would really bother me. But if it's somebody like Dudley saying, hey, I'm going to organize, bring me all the verses together on love from Corinthians, through Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. I'd like to talk about the Paul preaching on love from a New Testament perspective. And if he can pull that together in 10 minutes and put a sermon together, then I think that's a really wonderful thing.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:20)
Yeah. Vinny, what do you have with this?

**Vinny** (3:22)
Well, I love, I'm going to go with Tom what he said. AI should be used as a tool.
Like if he uses a pastor to like organize notes or, you know, where does it say this? And it brings that up. It's like using it as a Google or like Bible, like a Bible app. But the second it starts writing the sermon pattern, they're just memorizing it. I'm not a fan of it. They should come from the sermon from like prayer and you're studying the word and the Holy Spirit. What would you say, Tom?

**Tom** (3:49)
The Holy Spirit inspiring you, the way it says in the New Testament?

**Vinny** (3:53)
Yeah, not in algorithms. And who knows? Whoever is in charge of it starts twisting this or watering down the scripture and making it not go the way that it's really supposed to go. So people go to church not to hear AI. I want to hear the pastor. I want to hear his experience, his story and what God has placed in his heart.