Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools

Overview

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing how we work, communicate, and even build community—including in churches. It has the potential to lighten administrative burdens, streamline communication, and help faith communities stay connected in an increasingly digital world. But AI isn’t without its challenges. Many people have valid concerns about the ethical and environmental implications of this technology—how it impacts jobs, privacy, and even the planet’s resources.

So, where does that leave churches? Rather than ignoring AI or jumping in without reflection, faith communities have the opportunity to approach this tool thoughtfully—leveraging its benefits while being mindful of its limitations. AI can assist with tasks like scheduling, social media management, and donation tracking, freeing up time for deeper, more personal ministry. At the same time, churches can set ethical guidelines to ensure that AI aligns with their values of justice, stewardship, and human connection.

Curious about how AI could support your church while keeping ethical considerations in mind? Let’s explore some key ways this technology can be used wisely and responsibly.

  1. Administrative Automation: AI can automate routine tasks such as scheduling, data entry, and management of church databases. This can free up staff time for more strategic activities that require a human touch.

  2. Enhanced Communication: AI-driven tools can personalize communication with congregation members by learning individual preferences and ensuring that the right messages reach the right people at the right time.

  3. Social Media Management: AI can assist in managing social media accounts, helping to schedule posts, analyze engagement data, and even generate content suggestions based on trends and the interests of the congregation.

  4. Donation Management: AI systems can optimize donation collection and management, identifying patterns and suggesting strategies to improve fundraising efforts.

  5. Visitor and Member Tracking: AI can help track attendance and participation trends, giving church leaders insights into which services or events are most effective at engaging their community.

  6. Content Creation: For church communicators, AI can help create content such as newsletters, sermon summaries, and website updates. Natural Language Generation (NLG) technology can draft content that can be further refined by staff.

  7. Translation Services: AI-driven translation can make sermons and written materials accessible in multiple languages, broadening the church's reach and inclusivity.

  8. Predictive Analytics: AI can analyze various data points to help predict church growth, financial needs, or the success of events, helping leaders make informed decisions about resource allocation.

  9. Facilities Management: AI can optimize the use of church facilities, predicting peak times and scheduling maintenance tasks efficiently.

  10. Personalized Learning: For educational programs run by the church, AI can tailor learning experiences to the individual needs of participants, enhancing the effectiveness of formation offerings.

A NEW TOOL FOR MINISTRY

Throughout history, the Church has embraced emerging technologies to spread its message and serve communities more effectively.

  • The early Christian communities utilized the vast Roman road network to carry the Gospel far beyond their local regions.

  • The printing press made the Bible and theological writings accessible to millions, revolutionizing faith formation.

  • Automobiles allowed for greater mobility in ministry, making outreach efforts more dynamic and far-reaching.

  • The internet transformed communication, enabling real-time global connections and digital faith communities.

Now, Artificial Intelligence is the next frontier—offering churches new ways to create, communicate, and engage more efficiently than ever before. Whether it's assisting with sermon preparation, managing social media, or personalizing outreach, AI has the potential to support and amplify ministry work. As with any innovation, it’s up to us to use it thoughtfully and ethically, ensuring that technology serves our mission rather than defining it.

Resources

Practical and Ethical Guidelines

Writing

Not unlike old fashioned spellcheck, you can install Grammarly as a plug-in on your browser for real-time feedback on your emails and documents. In addition to refining clarity and style, Grammarly also includes a built-in plagiarism detection tool, making it a valuable resource for writers seeking accuracy and originality.

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot that uses natural language processing to generate humanlike conversations. It can answer questions, assist with brainstorming, and compose a variety of written content, including articles, social media posts, essays, code, and emails. Whether used for idea generation or refining text, ChatGPT serves as a versatile tool for enhancing communication and productivity. There is a free version; however, the paid version ($20/month) is much more advanced and helpful.

Jasper AI is an artificial intelligence writing tool designed to help users generate content quickly and efficiently. It can assist with brainstorming, drafting, and refining a variety of written materials, including blog posts, marketing copy, social media content, and more. Jasper also offers customization features to align with specific brand voices, making it useful for organizations looking to maintain a consistent tone. While Jasper requires a paid subscription ($39/month), it includes a free trial for those who want to explore its capabilities before committing.

Images & Graphic Design

Canva recently launched several AI-powered tools, including Magic Eraser, Magic Edit, Magic Write, Beat Sync, and Translate, in its tried-and-true graphic design interface. We reviewed several of them here.

Flair, Illustroke, Patterned, DALL-E, Ideogram, and Midjourney are all AI tools that create images from text prompts.

Stockimg.ai is an AI-powered design tool that helps you create visuals including “photos”, logos, illustrations, wallpapers, and posters in minutes. It also offers social media management features, allowing you to generate, edit, and schedule posts across multiple platforms. You can start with a free plan to explore its capabilities, with paid plans ($4-20/month) available for additional features.

Looka.ai is an AI tool for designing or re-designing logos and establishing brand kits, providing a way to build and maintain consistency across platorms. You can start designing for free, with paid plans available for downloading high-resolution files and accessing additional features.

Music

Soundraw is an AI tool for creating original music, providing businesses and individuals with a simple, intuitive way to create and publish their own music.

Beatoven is an AI tool that creates custom royalty-free music, enabling businesses and individuals to add unique, original music to their projects without the hassle of licensing.Audio

Rev.com transforms your audio or video into readable, searchable text using both AI and real person transcribers. This is a great tool for creating captions, translations, and transcripts. Starts at $.25/minute

Voicepen.ai is an AI-powered tool that transforms audio and video content into written content quickly and easily. It accepts .mp3, .mp4 and .wav audio formats and converts the content into a blog post, transcription and an SRT file. Cost is $14.99/month

Assembly.ai is an AI-powered speech recognition platform that converts audio and video content into text. It can be built into a data call center to analyze all phone calls for patterns, analysis, and more, and offers features like real-time and batch transcription, speaker identification, support for various audio and video formats, automatic punctuation, word timestamps, confidence scores, and paragraph detection.

Video

Powtoon.com creates animated videos for personal, educational, or business/professional use. It is free (with options to upgrade), web-based, user-friendly software that creates presentations via three steps: writing a script, recording a voiceover, and adding visuals.

Sermon Research, Writing & Redistribution

Sermonspark.ai allows you to draft a sermon outline quickly, find relevant verses, explore historical context, gather quotes to efficiently write your message. Then, it assists creating content based on your sermon for social media and other channels, helping you to connect with your congregation.

Sermons.tech uses AI to produce discussion questions based on a sermon that has been given, create group leader guides, sermon clips, summaries, transcripts, and more.

Pulpitai.com uses sermons to generate discussion questions, write devotional posts and social media posts and blog posts, create email recaps, and generate key points, highlights, and quotes from the sermon.

discipls.io is a social media management tool for churches that assists with workflows, posting, data analytics, and more.

pastors.ai allows a church to make a custom chatbot, with answers derived from the history of sermons given and archived, and makes resources to utilize beyond Sunday morning.