4 Ways to Embrace AI at Your Church Right Now

I'm no doomer on AI. I recently got to contribute to a Christianity Today article reacting to the Pope's mini book on AI, and my piece of it was simple: it's okay to feel anxious about what AI is going to do to our future, and we should also have hope that humanity is special in a way no AI advancement will ever supersede. AI is a tool. We have to learn to wield it wisely.

So the question I want to answer today, from my super positive view of the future (no doomer thoughts here), is how do you embrace AI at your church?

Go read "The AI Shift Happening At Work Around You" for the bigger picture. This post is the practical one. Using AI is like splashing around in a pool. You can stay in the shallow end or get lost in the deep end. Here are simple ways to embrace it, and more robust ways to unleash it into your daily workflows.

First, look at what AI is already built into the platform you're using. Most workplace tools now have AI woven into mail, calendar, documents, and chat. My church uses Google Workspace on a nonprofit account, and we simply enabled the AI features in Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, and Google Chat. Plus, everyone on staff gets a Gemini Pro account. Many churches can get a nonprofit Workspace for free if their incorporation paperwork is in order. Starting here is the best way to get people using AI in their normal day-to-day work. Summarize an email. Soften or shorten a reply. Edit a document. Build a formula in a sheet. Ask a question. This is an easy on-ramp for people to start using AI.

Second, build Gems and Skills your team can actually use. A Gem in Gemini is a preprogrammed chat with specific instructions baked in. You could spin up a "How Jay Kranda Might Answer This Question" Gem, bookmark it, and ask away. The ones your church could build are pretty obvious once you start: a writing in your church's voice Gem, a summarize my meeting notes Gem, a what would my lead pastor ask if I pitched this Gem, a does this idea fit our church strategy Gem. The point is to let the AI experts on your staff build a tool that everyone else can leverage. Build it once, share it with everyone. You can grow a whole Gem library over time. On Claude, these are called Skills. On ChatGPT, they're called Custom GPTs. Same idea.

Third, figure out how to unleash your super users. You want enough of a walled garden that they don't make a mess, but enough room that they go pave the trail. You don't have to know exactly what that means yet, but you do have to figure out how to say yes to their ideas. I'll often say, "I want to say yes to this. Think about it more and let me know how I can say yes." A lot of the time, you can let someone go figure it out on their own, and when the idea is ready, you bring it back into the fold for everyone. This will look different for different people and teams. My church is big, sure, but only certain folks on our Digital Products Team have Claude Max accounts. Not everyone needs that kind of token credit line. Super users do. Go case by case. You can say yes to one person and no to another. I do think eventually everyone will have an AI "max" account of some kind, but we're not there just yet.

Fourth, train the people getting left behind. Find an expert inside your church and let them come run training. Show people how you personally use AI in your own workflows. Focus on the simple stuff. Don't pitch it like it's radically shifting everything. Just show them what you do. This is one of those things people have to experience to understand. And don't get frustrated when someone brushes it off. If they do, your pitch is the problem. You just haven't shown them the right thing yet. The goal isn't for everyone to use AI at the same level. The goal is for everyone to use it in some way that helps them.

Honestly, I couldn't imagine my daily life without the ways I use AI now. Check out "What I've Built in Rock RMS Using Claude" if you want to see what I mean.

What am I missing?