The pastor of a CABA church said that 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 just checks 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 who did not have TVs to watch educational TV programs.
Now, we’re hearing about AI impacting not only classrooms, but churches as well. 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 exams using AI. Will we one day expect 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 where they are printed out or taught from a tablet in a small group Bible study.
Is the use of AI right or fair? Is it like 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? The point for this blog is to say that there is a Digital Divide emerging among churches, particularly 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 we cannot ignore it.
Here are three things that 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.
1. Online interactivity between visitors to our websites or social media apps who want to ask questions that used to reside in pages of FAQs. Custom answers can be delivered based on anticipated questions. Care to chat?
2. 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 asked can provide one-minute excerpts of online sermons addressing specific scriptures or topics.
3. As literacy levels continue to decline, the AI interactivity provides an interface with live vocal interactions. The catch is not to have the AI-generated host replace your own church staff or leader interactivity. Done correctly, the verbal exchange should provide interactivity.
The latest in AI will take time to adopt. Innovators have the ball now. According to the diffusion of innovation, 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!
--Mark Snowden serves as director for the Cincinnati Area Baptist Association
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