Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / What the Data Says About Pastors and AI in the Church Today

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What the Data Says About Pastors and AI in the Church Today · Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hey Nick, thanks for joining me.
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  Speaker 2: Are you trying me? Michael?
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  Speaker 3: Nick Skitland, vice president of Glue for AI research. I
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  Speaker 3: wanted to have you on, Nick to discuss some new
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  Speaker 3: research that Barna and Glue has out now about pastor's
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  Speaker 3: use of AI.
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  Speaker 1: I could read the data for you, Nick.
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  Speaker 3: But I want you to kind of help us interpret
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  Speaker 3: the data as you read it. How are pastors using
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  Speaker 3: AI and do you have any caution for their usage?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, Michael, that's a good question. And so this
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  Speaker 2: is a year long research series that Glue and Barna
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  Speaker 2: have been doing around faith and AI, and of course
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  Speaker 2: it's all part of the State of the Church initiative,
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  Speaker 2: and it is really interesting data and that we've we've
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  Speaker 2: released aboutja pastors are using AI or not. And what
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  Speaker 2: we're seeing in the data is, honestly, pastors are probably
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  Speaker 2: using AI and more than you think they like all
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  Speaker 2: us are adopting AI, and I would say that it's
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  Speaker 2: becoming the norm, not the exception. So if you kind
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  Speaker 2: of look into the data, only thirteen percent of pastors
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  Speaker 2: say they don't use AI at all, meaning of course
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  Speaker 2: a seven percent using it in some form or fashion,
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  Speaker 2: which makes sense because AI is obviously mediating more of
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  Speaker 2: all of our experience in the world than it's becoming
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  Speaker 2: part of the work that we all do. I do
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  Speaker 2: think it's important to note that pastors are using it,
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  Speaker 2: like again, probably a lot of us are as a
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  Speaker 2: thought partner and not substituting themselves at church or the
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  Speaker 2: pulpit with AI. They are using it for things like brainstorming,
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  Speaker 2: idea generation, research, turning content into small group questions, and
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  Speaker 2: of course padmin pasts as well, and so so overall,
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  Speaker 2: I think that's kind of what the data showing us
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  Speaker 2: is that pastors are using it. Do you only talk
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  Speaker 2: really quick see cautions about.
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  Speaker 3: Well, let's flesh out some of what you just said.
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  Speaker 3: I'll go ahead read it for those who want to
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  Speaker 3: know some details. Fifty percent use it for brainstorming and
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  Speaker 3: idea generation, thirty seven percent use it for graphic design
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  Speaker 3: or visual creation, thirty six percent for biblical or theological research,
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  Speaker 3: thirty four percent for generating small group discussion questions I've
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  Speaker 3: done that before, thirty four percent for administrative tasks like scheduling,
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  Speaker 3: emails and document preparation that's going to actually lead us
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  Speaker 3: to one thing that you actually thought was useful in
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  Speaker 3: the research, which is you said that oftentimes pastors get
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  Speaker 3: bogged down and you know, administrative tasks. Tell me how
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  Speaker 3: AI can help with that, And I guess we can
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  Speaker 3: talk about the good in AI before we turn to
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  Speaker 3: some caution.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, first of all, I mean, I think we
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  Speaker 2: might all Agredea that pastors are some of the most
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  Speaker 2: over extended leaders in the world, right, I mean, especially
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  Speaker 2: if you're the posture of say a men sized church.
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  Speaker 2: You're the CEO, you're the counselor, you're the communicator, you're
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  Speaker 2: the chaplain all at once, and you know if the
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  Speaker 2: church is smaller here, and it's even more so true.
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  Speaker 2: And so I think it's really important to note that
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  Speaker 2: postures of course from leveraging NA like a lot of us,
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  Speaker 2: due to the administration part of our work. And that's
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  Speaker 2: that's exactly what I mean, I would hope pastors do,
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  Speaker 2: because we want to free them up from that type
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  Speaker 2: of work to do the really important missional biblical work
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  Speaker 2: that they're mandated to me that the pastor in their community,
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  Speaker 2: to their congregation.
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  Speaker 1: Some more data we haven't discussed yet.
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  Speaker 3: The majority of pastors, seventy nine percent worry about AI
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  Speaker 3: acting as a replacement for God.
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  Speaker 1: Two thirds of pastors.
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  Speaker 3: Sixty three percent worry about AI replacing the role of
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  Speaker 3: pastors or spiritual leaders entirely. I think much of the
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  Speaker 3: country is concerned about AI replacing their jobs.
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  Speaker 1: So I understand. I understand that.
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  Speaker 3: More controversial, of course, is that I guess when we
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  Speaker 3: use AI for creative tasks and spiritual tasks like writing
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  Speaker 3: sermons or writing a study, school lessoner or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: And the data has some information about that as well.
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  Speaker 3: Twenty four percent of pastors actively use it to write
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  Speaker 3: edit sermons. That's I believe, double what it was twenty
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  Speaker 3: twenty four. Give me some advice there, Nick, What advice
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  Speaker 3: would you give pastors who are considering AI for writing sermons?
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  Speaker 3: What cautions would you give pastors in terms of that
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  Speaker 3: issue or any other issues?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm just a nuance around the data, right,
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  Speaker 2: So yes, last year, twelve percent reported that they're using
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  Speaker 2: AI to assist them in the work of certainly creation,
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  Speaker 2: which might be around editing sermons. Right, Twenty four percent
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  Speaker 2: today are using it, and of course we expect that
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  Speaker 2: trend to increase. I think the nuance matters. It's you know,
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  Speaker 2: in many cases they're reporting. This is largely used for
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  Speaker 2: research and commentary and looking at at theological angles and outlines,
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  Speaker 2: not necessarily generating the message itself. And that's really important
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  Speaker 2: because if you think about how AI is trained, it's
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  Speaker 2: trained on secular, pluralistic information. It's like turning to Reddit
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  Speaker 2: for marriage advice is probably not what we're going to
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  Speaker 2: find in the Bible. And so I think the caution
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  Speaker 2: for pastors is to recognize the bias that's in the
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  Speaker 2: responses from AI. And of course you can prompt AI
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  Speaker 2: to better align it with the biblical perspective, but by
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  Speaker 2: default AI is not going to start there, and we
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  Speaker 2: want to So we want to make sure that our
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  Speaker 2: AI is vislines fl all the work that glue does.
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  Speaker 2: We want to make sure that AI is in the
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  Speaker 2: service of human flourishing, not just substituting for it. And
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  Speaker 2: then as pastors, you know, our encouragement is to use it,
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  Speaker 2: of course as a starting point, but never ever the
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  Speaker 2: ending point. And in a way to think about this
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  Speaker 2: is AI as a tool for reclaiming time, you know,
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  Speaker 2: freeing the pastor up for the work that act requires
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  Speaker 2: the them to be present, to be human, and to
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  Speaker 2: be doing the work of human formation, and we're seeing
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  Speaker 2: not in a lot of how pastors are reporting how
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  Speaker 2: they're using it, is that that's exactly what they're doing,
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  Speaker 2: that they're using it so that they can have more
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  Speaker 2: time for the work of the church.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a lot of people have probably learned
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  Speaker 3: about the I don't know what to even call it,
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  Speaker 3: but how how powerful AI is when John Piper went
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  Speaker 3: viral for John Piper asked AI to write a prayer
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  Speaker 3: about a year or two ago, and it sounded exactly
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  Speaker 3: like a theologian's prayer, and so, yeah, it could be
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  Speaker 3: very tempting on Friday, you're running late on your sermon.
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  Speaker 3: You haven't written all of it yet, maybe you're running
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  Speaker 3: behind because of hospital visits or a funeral or whatever.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know if you have any cautions your thoughts
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  Speaker 3: about that, Nick, but I think I think that's probably
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  Speaker 3: the temptation, and they concern from a lot.
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  Speaker 1: Of people because I mean, my goodness.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, for graphic design and for brank storming ideas or
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  Speaker 3: even for biblical ideological research, it can be really helpful.
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  Speaker 2: I like to say, I mean the pastoral judgment. Though
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  Speaker 2: the work of the pastor is essential especially in a
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  Speaker 2: future where AI is making things more efficient, and so
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  Speaker 2: it would be tempting as humans to outsource our judgment
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  Speaker 2: or the task to AI in the name of efficiency,
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  Speaker 2: especially when we're retired at stander of the week. They
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  Speaker 2: haven't quite prepared like we want to prepare. And I
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  Speaker 2: think pastors are feeling the weight of this because their
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  Speaker 2: job is fundamentally formation. It's not just generating information as
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  Speaker 2: form storming in humans, and that shaping work is what
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  Speaker 2: we're called to do in the Bible. It's God's mandate
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  Speaker 2: for us. And so I think if we can keep
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  Speaker 2: that in mind and keep in mind that friction matters, right,
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  Speaker 2: it might be easier to talk to a machine than
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  Speaker 2: it would be a human, but we wanted three passers
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  Speaker 2: up to do the formational work in human relationships sometimes
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  Speaker 2: results in friction that we don't want to just in
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  Speaker 2: the name of efficiency, use AI to to do a
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  Speaker 2: way better.
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  Speaker 1: I would caution anyone who uses AI to double check
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  Speaker 1: what it tells you. And I say this. I say
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  Speaker 1: this because I use it for a fact checking a lot.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, In the past week, I was writing a story
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  Speaker 4: about Savannah Guthrie's mother, who of course went missing. And
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  Speaker 4: I was just using it kind of as a Google
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  Speaker 4: at the time, and I wrote, I typed in a
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  Speaker 4: prompt and said, when did Savannah Guthrie's mom go missing?
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  Speaker 4: And I was winning a date from this year, like
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  Speaker 4: January February, I couldn't remember, and it said nineteen seventy
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  Speaker 4: and I, you know, of course, I pushed back. I said,
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  Speaker 4: I said that's you know. I said, that's the wrong answer,
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  Speaker 4: and it said, you know it. Of course, it said,
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  Speaker 4: you're correct to push back on that. It's not you
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  Speaker 4: know whatever, February the first I forgot the date. So yeah,
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  Speaker 4: so if you're using it for any kind of research,
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  Speaker 4: just double check what it tells you because it, I
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  Speaker 4: guess the term is hallucinating in the AI world, that
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  Speaker 4: AI can hallucinate and just give you completely wrong information
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  Speaker 4: and then you'll be standing up there a little bit
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  Speaker 4: telling something that's.
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  Speaker 1: Completely wrong and you'll even realize it.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean AI is biased, it's not theologically neutral,
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  Speaker 2: humble worldview, and it hallucinates. Right, And so again, if
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  Speaker 2: we're outsourcing all this without thinking critically about the answers,
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  Speaker 2: that's a problem. We should never ever be doing it.
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  Speaker 2: You know that The challenge is though it becomes such
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  Speaker 2: a temptation. You know, it's just so easy to do,
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  Speaker 2: and you give one good answer that seems close, and
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  Speaker 2: so you start to trust it more. And we as
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  Speaker 2: leaders in the church need to remember that the church
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  Speaker 2: has always been a place to focus on human formation.
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  Speaker 2: It's not just informed, it's not just about efficiency, and
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  Speaker 2: so the work that we do really really matters that
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  Speaker 2: maybe maybe more than ever in the age of AI.
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  Speaker 1: Before we close, Nick give us some final thoughts on
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  Speaker 1: this research.
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  Speaker 3: And secondly, what is glue For those who don't know
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: anything about glue?
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  Speaker 1: By the way, it's gloo for those who don't know
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  Speaker 1: anything about you guys. What is glue? And how people
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: get more information about what you guys do?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So Blue is a technology company working to have
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  Speaker 2: that intersection of faith and technology. We build AI that
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  Speaker 2: you can trust for answers that are actually biblically accurate,
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  Speaker 2: theologically aligned. We serve that faith and flourishing ecosystem. So
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  Speaker 2: not only the four hund and fifty thousand churches in America,
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  Speaker 2: but also the nonprofits, the faith faith organizations that are
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  Speaker 2: all serving the church in one way or the other.
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  Speaker 2: So we build technology that you can trust. And if
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  Speaker 2: you want to learn more about the research that we've
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  Speaker 2: been doing, you can of course go to Barna dot
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  Speaker 2: com check out the State of the Church research series.
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  Speaker 2: There's a lot of really really good stuff that you
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  Speaker 2: can also go to Glue dot com slash FAI which
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  Speaker 2: stands for Flourishing AI, and that's where we publish all
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  Speaker 2: of our research and our benchmarks about how the models
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: are doing when it comes to human flori.
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  Speaker 5: If you enjoy today's interview, please make sure to subscribe
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: and share the episode with a friend. A big thanks
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: to the team at Life Audio for their partnership with
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: us on the podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: com you will find dozens of other faith centered podcasts
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: in their network.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: See you next time.