Can AI Increase Church Attendance? It Might. But Not in the Way You Are Thinking.

This post is the third in a series on the intersection of Christianity and artificial intelligence. The previous post in the series, which explores how AI can help us to communicate and collaborate more effectively, is available here.

The holy sacrament of the altar... also has three parts which it is necessary for us to know. The first is the sacrament, or sign. The second is the significance of the sacrament. The third is the faith required with each of the first two. These three parts must be found in every sacrament. The sacrament must be external and visible, having some material form or appearance. The significance must be internal and spiritual, within the spirit of the person.

-Martin Luther, "The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ," 1519

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, I heard Jim Keat say something profound that would come to shape my view of church online: "Virtual is not the opposite of real. Virtual is the opposite of physical. They are both real."

With these words, Rev. Keat provided a handy retort that could be deployed anytime someone questioned the validity of digital or hybrid ministry. For now, I still agree with Jim. Real Christian community is in fact convened and sustained in digital spaces.

Still I wonder how Rev. Keat's ideas might evolve in a post-ChatGPT culture. Artificial intelligence was an afterthought for most of our culture until November 2022. When we thought of digital ministry during the pandemic, we thought of online communities led by people we knew and recognized. Whether listening to a sermon on YouTube or reading a Facebook post devotion, we accessed content that was created by people we trusted.

Our pastors may not have been the best podcasters. Our directors of music may not have been the best video producers. But we trusted their digital creations because we trusted their creator, even viewing them as authoritative. Prior to 2022, interpretations of God's word, even those rendered digitally, had a certain fidelity. But when AI takes over our virtual experiences, to what extent is it "real?"

And herein lies the problem with AI tools, and the great challenge they pose to our idea of church. Anyone can prompt a tool like ChatGPT to create digital content on their behalf. This moment is the start of a challenge of authority, where all AI systems have the freedom to interpret scripture for themselves, and the power to project that interpretation as a definitive answer. In such a culture, words of any sort, including the Word of God, can and will be repeatedly contested. They can then copy and paste the output of those tools and claim it as their own work.

Suddenly, the blog post by our senior pastor is no longer his or her reflection on Romans chapter 8, but the output of a predictive algorithm.

Even the sermon manuscript that is read from the pulpit could be the copied words of a large language model.

For what ChatGPT lacks in theological validity it more than makes up for in coherence and clarity.

Is ChatGPT's take on Romans 8 proof-texting, or is it looking at the arc of Paul's entire body of literature?

Does this AI interpretation rely on a dialectic of Law & Gospel, or is it beholden to the American prosperity gospel? Are its reflections Lutheran, Catholic, Unitarian, or Agnostic? We cannot answer such questions. All we have are the words the tool produces - compelling, cogent words, devoid of citation or footnotes. In a digital ecosystem saturated with artificial intelligence, our virtual experiences may come to be replete with voices that are fragmentary, untrustworthy, and potentially even deceitful.

A post-ChatGPT culture may come to be defined by an eroded trust in words presented digitally. Even interpretations of scripture may come to stand on flimsy ground.

There are no easy solutions to this challenge. That is, no easy solutions other than to remain committed to a church that is instituted by both Word & Sacrament.

AI tools have the power to project an unreliable word.

AI tools cannot change or affect the sacraments.

They cannot dilute the physical elements of bread, wine, and water shared by analog communities around physical fonts and tables. Sacraments, the synthesis of God's words, physical signs, and the Spirit's faith, give life and salvation. When all our other words start to fail us, we can still place our faith in the words spoken around the font or before the table. When the authority of the words we read online is called into question, the validity of the words spoken by sacramental communities is retained.

Perhaps the unintended impact of AI on Christian ministry is that it will draw us back to old-fashioned sacramentality. It could well be that the further our digital technologies advance, the more our culture will react by seeking out the analog. The more AI accelerates, the more our culture will search for the sacramental.

In this emerging digital ministry moment, the church can still be inviting, connecting, and hospitable in digital spaces. But the unreliability of online voices will leave us wanting something more.

It is in the physical elements of water, wine, and bread, experienced while standing shoulder to shoulder with Christian communities, that we must come to put our trust. Just maybe this ancient expression of Christian community will prove to be a balm for a world inundated with unreliable, artificial words.

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@ryanpanzer is the author of two books on digital ministry.

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Book Review: Work Pray Code by Carolyn Chen

Charles Taylor, famed sociologist and author of "A Secular Age," argued that secularization is not a process of subtraction. Taylor writes:

Western modernity, including its secularity, is the fruit of new inventions, newly constructed self-understandings and related practices, and can’t be explained in terms of perennial features of human life.

In other words, secularization is not a product of our surrounding culture stripping away faith and religiosity. Rather, secularization is a product of positive construction, where our surrounding culture produces a new spiritual identity apart from the traditions of the church. And nowhere has this been more true than in the technology industry.

Carolyn Chen, author of "Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley,"

has observed that the tech industry has become a leading laboratory in this great spiritual reconstruction.

By tracing the stories of once-religious tech workers who relocated to Silicon Valley, Chen demonstrates the encroachment of the workplace into spheres once occupied by religion. The mechanisms of this encroachment are often described by Silicon Valley corporations as amenities, as enhancements to workplace culture. From meditation programs that teach "scientific Buddhism" to coaching offerings that promise "inner transformation," the tech industry has used these cultural offerings to displace the role once held by pastors, rabbis, and spiritual directors.

The once-religious emigrants that Chen describes are not rejecting Christian doctrine. They are not making an active choice to leave their upbringing in the church. Rather, they are shaped and molded by employers seeking to make the mundane into the transcendent. As our work becomes a source of our spiritual identity, we become more attached to and dependent on our employer. Chen's emigrants often look back on their religious past not with judgment or criticism, but with an acknowledgement that they have moved past their past spiritual selves.

When work becomes a spiritual journey, we approach it with an enhanced sense of purpose. We work harder, we produce more deliverables, we work longer hours. Chen is quick to point out that this transformation is taking place within a late capitalist frame. One wonders, while reading Chen's work, what will happen to the Google engineer or the Facebook account manager upon the next round of layoffs.

How will individuals who derived their spiritual identity from the workplace react when those same workplaces replace their jobs with AI? How will those who found transcendence through coaching and meditation regimes respond when their access to such programs is suddenly revoked? In a time where organizations are leaner and less committed to their employees, the juxtaposition of faith and labor has all the makings of a looming spiritual crisis.

Chen concludes her book by describing this transformation as a "cautionary tale." She asks:

"What kind of society do we become when human fulfillment is centered in the workplace What happens to our families, religions, communities, and civil society when work satisfies too many of our needs? Silicon Valley is a bellwether of what happens when we worship work - when we surrender our time, our identities, our resources, and even our cherished traditions in service to work. It is what will happen if we don't invest in building and sustaining social institutions and traditions that nurture community, identity, and purpose outside of work." (pg. 197)

As a sociologist, Chen asks these questions with a remarkable sense of clarity and urgency. The workplace has indeed encroached upon the spiritual sphere. Employers, not congregations, are forming faith identities. Chen has supplied the questions. It is time for the church to come up with the answers.

Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley, was published in 2022 by Princeton University Press.

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Ryan Panzer (@ryanpanzer) works in the technology industry. He received a master's in theology while working full time for Google. He now wonders whether the seminary or Google has had a more profound influence on his theology.

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AI for Ministry: How Churches Could Use ChatGPT

This post is the second in a series on the intersection of Christianity and artificial intelligence. The first post in the series, which explores how AI may challenge what it means to be church online, is available here.

Creatio ex nihilo.

Latin for "Creation out of nothing."

This phrase is foundational to the Christian doctrine of God, which posits that God is the one who creates matter where previously there was none.

When ChatGPT was released last November, it seemed like a digital tool that could also create something out of nothing, producing everything from children's stories to song lyrics with minimal prompting. In fact, ChatGPT does not create from nothing. ChatGPT's creations are the product of a highly sophisticated model that ingests the contents of the internet and produces coherent answers through a process of prediction.

Of course, these answers aren't always accurate, nor are they always coherent. And there are many ways that these tools could be used for malevolent purposes. Indeed there has been a loud and clear outcry about the potential harms from systems like ChatGPT. Still, these tools also have the potential to make our lives easier. They can help us to generate and organize our ideas. They can provide structure to our communications. They can give us templates to kickstart the creative process. So while there are real risks of artificial intelligence, ranging from job displacement to violence on a global scale, there is also the hope that these systems can make us more effective, as individuals and organizations, leading to greater human flourishing.

Churches have a real opportunity to utilize AI systems to enhance our ministries. If we learn to use tools like ChatGPT, we can create practices that enhance, rather than replace, our ministries. As church resources from budgets to staffing continue to decline, these AI tools can help us to create digital content. They can help us to communicate more effectively. They can even help us to be better teachers of the Gospel.

Using ChatGPT to curate and create church digital content

33% of mainline Protestant adults attend church weekly. 25% of mainline Protestants never attend church. Just over 40% attend church sporadically. ChatGPT can help congregations reach infrequent church-goers, connecting them to the messages and themes first proclaimed from the altar and the pulpit.

Moreover, AI tools can help frequent church-goers to engage more deeply with what they heard from lessons, prayers, and preaching.

A sermon manuscript is a powerful resource for creating digital content. When a preacher writes 1,500 or more words for a sermon manuscript, he or she creates a resource that can be expanded upon or repackaged, shared with the broader community as it moves from the sanctuary into day to day vocations.

1. Instruct ChatGPT to create a Tweet or Facebook post based on your most recent sermon manuscript

2. Paste your sermon into the chat

3. View your ChatGPT-created social post

4. Provide feedback to refine the post

5. Edit and post to social media

Using ChatGPT to organize church communications

I've never been a member of a church that is lauded for its clear and consistent communications. Chances are, no matter how effectively you send newsletters and share announcements, someone is going to feel like you are leaving something out!

While AI cannot solve all of these challenges, ChatGPT can at least provide your communications with a consistent, repeatable framework.

Think of ChatGPT as a dictation assistant. AI can take an unformatted list of what is coming up next in the ministry and provide a template for a newsletter.

1. Input what's happening this week in your ministry

2. Instruct ChatGPT to write a newsletter

3. Include instructions to write a short reflection on a verse from next week's readings

4. Provide feedback to refine the post, then edit yourself for accuracy, clarity, and consistent tone.

Using ChatGPT to teach the Gospel

ChatGPT has been trained on a library of the world's sacred texts, and ostensibly some of its most influential commentaries.

While AI is by no means an authoritative theological research, it knows enough about the basic structure and narrative arcs of scripture to at least provide a teachable outline. These outlines can be adapted to the needs of specific audiences: age, school year, even familiarity with the subject matter. And while you'll need to scrutinize the theological outputs of any chatbot, AI tools can provide you with a well-organized lesson outline that has a coherent flow and sequence.

ChatGPT can be an especially useful assistant anytime a substitute teacher is needed, or when you aren't sure where to start. In the following examples, ChatGPT creates a 20 minute lesson plan for a group of Confirmation students in the Lutheran church.

While the hands-on learning activity (a "freedom collage") may not be particularly effective, the outline is a highly useful tool for organizing your lesson.

To create your own lesson plan:

1. Provide background on your learners and their familiarity with the subject matter.

2. Mention any time constraints.

3. Include the context of the ministry, such as the denomination or any core theological convictions.

4. Instruct ChatGPT to create a lesson plan.

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Challenges and issues abound with the use of AI in the church. ChatGPT may not be the best theologian. It's certainly not a great pastor. And it's ability to create personalized, immersive content might turn us away from community, drawing us further inward.

Still, in a time of dwindling budgets and resources, it can provide something invaluable to ministries in a digital age. It can spark the creative process. As we seek to create Christian community, AI may prove to be a practical assistant.

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@ryanpanzer is the author of two books on digital ministry. No chatbots were harmed in the making of this blogpost.

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