Pastors have always had a very particular way of preparing their sermons — hours of study, reflection, prayer, and a deep connection with the message that needed to reach their congregation.
But something changed.
And it was not a small thing.
Today, alongside personal notes and biblical references, a new tool has quietly found its way into the routine of many religious leaders: ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence assistants.
This scene has already become reality in churches across the United States — and it is probably closer to becoming mainstream than most people realize.
That is more or less how it happened with Darrell Stetler II, a pastor in Oklahoma City. On a Saturday afternoon, about 20 hours before stepping up to the pulpit, he was sitting behind a dual-monitor workstation crammed inside the sound booth of his church. On one screen, a slide deck glowed. On the other, a ChatGPT window was open and ready to help. 🙏
The sermon in progress was called Forged, part of a summer-long journey through the book of Proverbs. And it was taking shape somewhere between the pastor’s own notes and a handful of AI chatbots working side by side.
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This is not science fiction.
This is what is already happening.
And that is exactly where the most interesting, delicate, and urgent debate begins — about the limits of using AI inside one of the most deeply human spaces that exist: the collective spiritual experience.
How ChatGPT slipped in through the back door of churches
The adoption of ChatGPT by pastors did not happen through announcements, theological debates, or formal assemblies. It happened quietly, almost organically. One leader mentioned it to another, a YouTube video showed how to use the tool to organize ideas, and suddenly artificial intelligence had a seat at the study table of religious leaders across the country. The preparation routine, which once involved stacked books and scribbled notebooks, gained a new digital companion that responds in seconds.
What stands out about this movement is the speed at which it happened. While other technologies took years to make their way into the religious environment — things like projectors, Bible apps, or livestreams — ChatGPT arrived in a matter of months. That has a lot to do with how accessible the tool is: it requires no technical training, no complicated installation, and responds in natural language, as if you were talking to someone. For a pastor who needs to prepare a relevant message every single week, that is a game changer. The barrier to entry practically disappeared.
Cases like Darrell Stetler II illustrate this transition well. He did not abandon his own notes or trade personal study for ready-made answers. Instead, he brought the chatbots in as part of a larger workflow, blending what comes from his own mind with what the machine suggests. That kind of hybrid approach is what is spreading — not everything comes from the AI, not everything comes from the pastor, and the final result is born from that mix.
In many communities, the picture is still forming, but the signs are already showing up in group chats among religious leaders, evangelical forums, and even YouTube channels focused on pastoral training. Pastors are beginning to test, question, and share experiences with using AI in sermon preparation. And just as it happened in the U.S., the debate about the limits of this practice is starting to emerge with force — because the question is not just a technical one. It is spiritual, ethical, and deeply human. 🤔
What AI actually does well in this context
Before getting into the tension points, it is only fair to acknowledge what ChatGPT actually delivers when put to work in sermon preparation. The tool is very good at organizing trains of thought — if a pastor has a central idea and needs to unfold it into three or four coherent points, the AI does that quickly and clearly. It also helps a lot with finding illustrations, analogies, and everyday examples that make a message more accessible to different types of listeners. For someone who preaches every week and needs to keep messages fresh and relevant, that kind of support can make a real difference in the quality of content delivered.
Another strength of artificial intelligence in this context is its ability to work with large volumes of text and theological context. A pastor can ask ChatGPT to analyze a biblical passage from different hermeneutical perspectives, compare interpretations from historical commentators, or suggest thematic connections with other parts of Scripture. This does not replace deep study, but it works as an intelligent accelerator of the process — especially for leaders who shepherd smaller communities and do not have a support team to share the load of weekly research and preparation.
In the case of a long series, like the summer-long journey through the book of Proverbs that Stetler was preparing, this kind of support becomes even more valuable. Maintaining consistency across weeks of preaching on the same biblical book requires organization and memory of everything that has already been covered. The AI helps stitch those threads together, avoiding repetition and suggesting angles that have not been explored yet within the same theme.
There is also a less obvious but very valuable use: clarity and communication review. Pastors who use ChatGPT report that the tool helps identify confusing sections, suggest more straightforward rewrites, and even adapt the tone of the message for specific audiences — like young adults, couples, or people who are grieving. That kind of fine-tuning is often neglected in the rush of a pastoral week, and having a tool available 24/7 that responds in seconds eliminates a real bottleneck in the preparation process. 💡
The limits technology cannot cross
This is where the conversation gets heavier — and more necessary. As impressive as ChatGPT is, there are dimensions of pastoral ministry that artificial intelligence simply cannot reach. The first is lived experience. A sermon about loss, for example, carries far more weight when it is preached by someone who has gone through real grief, who knows by name the member of the congregation who is suffering, who looks into the eyes of the person who needs to hear those words. The AI can generate a technically correct and theologically coherent text on the topic, but it does not feel. It does not cry. It does not hesitate. And that human imperfection, paradoxically, is what makes the message true.
The second limit has to do with the authenticity of the pastoral voice. Every religious leader develops over the years a unique way of communicating — a specific vocabulary, a way of telling stories, a preaching rhythm that their congregation recognizes and that creates a bond. When ChatGPT writes a text, it produces something generically well written, but without that personal signature. And the congregation notices, even if they cannot name exactly what feels different. There is a subtle coldness in AI-generated text that attentive listeners pick up on — a lack of irregularity, of spontaneity, of those moments when the preacher seems to be discovering something right alongside the congregation.
The third limit is perhaps the most delicate: spiritual responsibility. A pastor who delivers a message built entirely by AI is, in a way, outsourcing their role of intercession and discernment. In the evangelical Christian tradition, the process of preparing a sermon is itself a spiritual act — one of seeking, praying, and depending on a direction that comes from the inside out. When that journey is replaced by a chain of prompts in a chat window, something fundamental can be lost along the way. Not because the technology is bad, but because the shortcut may cost exactly what made that message special: the mark of someone who lived it before preaching it. 🙏
That is why pastors like Stetler do not dump the entire preparation process into the machine’s lap. They keep their own notes at the center of the process and use AI as a supporting player, never the lead. That approach reveals a healthy instinct: recognizing that the tool can help polish the form, but the content of the heart needs to keep coming from the person who will stand up and preach.
The conversation churches need to have right now
What is missing from this conversation is not technology — it is collective discernment. Churches need, urgently, to create spaces for dialogue about how and how far the use of artificial intelligence is welcome in pastoral practice. That means asking concrete questions: does the congregation have the right to know if the sermon they heard was prepared with AI support? Is there an ethical difference between using ChatGPT as a research tool and using it to write the full text of a message? What do religious denominations think about this? These questions still do not have established answers — and that is precisely why they need to be asked now, while the practice is still taking shape.
In the United States, some denominations have already started to make moves. There are groups discussing internal guidelines on AI use by their pastors, suggesting that the tool can be used for research support, but that the final text of the sermon should be crafted by the leader themselves. Other groups are more open and view any tool that helps communicate the message better as welcome. This range of positions reflects exactly where we are: at a moment of transition where there is no consensus yet, but where the choices made now will shape pastoral culture for decades to come.
Across different communities, the discussion comes with an extra layer: the enormous diversity of the evangelical landscape, with churches ranging from small neighborhood congregations to megachurches with professional audiovisual production, creates very different contexts for using AI. A pastor at a small community church who prepares a sermon after a full day of work has a completely different relationship with these tools compared to a leader of a large church with a dedicated communications team. Understanding that diversity is essential so the debate does not get stuck in a one-size-fits-all perspective and end up being irrelevant for the majority of pastors who actually need this conversation. 🇺🇸
The central point is not about banning or endorsing the use of AI in sermons. It is about making sure the technology serves the message — and does not replace the one who has the mission to deliver it.
ChatGPT is a powerful tool, no doubt about it. But tools do not have faith. They do not have history with the congregation. They do not know the names of the people sitting in the front rows. And it is exactly that difference — small on the screen, enormous at the altar — that needs to guide the choices of every leader who decides to open an artificial intelligence window in the middle of their spiritual preparation. The limits exist, they are real, and acknowledging them honestly may be the most important step in this whole equation. ✨
