Artificial intelligence isn’t the church’s greatest threat. Unformed disciples using powerful tools without biblical wisdom are.
The church can’t respond to AI with fear, silence, or shallow warnings. People need spiritual formation that helps them use new technology faithfully, wisely, and responsibly.
Teach Discernment
AI can generate information, but it cannot replace spiritual wisdom. Disciples must learn to test what they receive against Scripture, truth, context, and the character of Christ. Convenience should never replace discernment.
Protect Human Dignity
Technology should serve people, not reduce them to data, audiences, or outcomes. Churches must teach members to consider privacy, fairness, honesty, and the effect technology has on vulnerable people.
Practice Honest Use
Using AI isn’t automatically dishonest. Presenting its work as entirely our own may be. Christian integrity requires transparency about how these tools assist our writing, research, planning, and communication.
Preserve Human Presence
AI can support ministry, but it cannot shepherd a soul. It cannot replace prayer, pastoral care, Christian community, embodied worship, or the work of the Holy Spirit. The church must protect the human relationships through which disciples are formed.
Prepare People to Witness
AI is already shaping workplaces, schools, homes, and public life. The church has an opportunity to form believers who enter those spaces with wisdom and moral courage.
The question isn’t whether Christians will use AI. The question is whether we will be spiritually formed enough to use it without allowing it to form us.
Paul D. Flowers, Sr. 