Ai for Church Leaders with Kenny Jahng

[00:00:06] This is the Tech Arts Podcast, where we talk about tech, leadership, and all things that

[00:00:11] concern church audio, video, and lighting. Welcome to the Tech Arts Podcast and the Earthworks

[00:00:19] Audio Studios. My name is DL. So glad to have you joining us today. I'm so excited to tell you that

[00:00:25] we are extending the $700 giveaway. That's right, your church being able to pick up to $700 worth of

[00:00:34] gear that Digital Great Commission Ministries sends you for free has been extended. This past month,

[00:00:42] we helped several churches, and in the spirit of Christmas, we could not shut this down in December.

[00:00:48] So we're extending it. Here's how it works. You go to techartspodcast.com, register your church for

[00:00:56] the giveaway, and then if your church is chosen, DGCM pays for all the gear you select, up to $700

[00:01:05] worth of value, and we ship it to you for absolutely free. Our core mission is to help as many churches

[00:01:13] as we possibly can, and this giveaway aligns with that. Don't miss out. Go to techartspodcast.com

[00:01:21] and register your church today. Are you ready for this podcast? In this episode, we are talking about

[00:01:27] AI. That's right, we dive into the world of artificial intelligence with Kenny Jang,

[00:01:34] answering questions like, what is AI? How do you use AI? Can AI get you in trouble? Yeah, we're going to

[00:01:43] talk about some of those ethical AI questions. Oh, we also have a church tech tip that will change how

[00:01:51] social media. Hint, they also use AI. It's a good episode, and you don't want to miss a second of it.

[00:02:00] But right now, let's hear from Paragon 360 and the Paragon Angle. At the end of the day, I hope the

[00:02:06] client is buying experience and track record. The way I see it, I'm not paying the cardiologist for the

[00:02:11] 30 minutes it takes to change the heart valve, right? I'm paying them for a portion of their 36 years of

[00:02:16] experience and the track record of getting it right the first time, because I can't afford a mess.

[00:02:25] Welcome to the Paragon Angle. Today, we're going to try and answer the question,

[00:02:30] do multiple bids actually lead to a better project? Wait for it, no. It's a shell game that rarely

[00:02:38] produces the quality product that everyone desires in the end. Typically, the client, architect,

[00:02:44] contractors all end up pointing fingers at each other while the client is left holding the bag

[00:02:48] on a project that never quite lived up to expectations. This can get very expensive for the

[00:02:54] client. Now, I get it. It's a necessary step for many of our church clients. We see it often because

[00:02:59] church bylaws that maybe haven't been updated require multiple bids, and we do respect leadership's

[00:03:06] fiduciary responsibility, right? The three-bid deal can work really well when we're purchasing commodities

[00:03:12] like cleaning or office supplies, but there are inherent issues with this approach when purchasing high-quality

[00:03:18] integrated worship technologies. It's not like it was 25 years ago, when all you needed was a mic,

[00:03:24] some speakers, a projector, throw some words on the screen. Today, more than ever, congregations rely

[00:03:30] on technology as an integral part of the ministry. Just consider how essential streaming services have

[00:03:35] become to churches. Done right, it's literally the front door for millennials and Gen Z. There's a saying

[00:03:42] among the better AVL integrators that they want to sell the church their last sound system. That's

[00:03:47] because, strange as it seems, many churches buy two to three sound systems before they finally end up

[00:03:52] with one that works well enough to meet their needs. This happens because their first inclination was to

[00:03:58] go with the low bid. But if that system isn't designed and integrated correctly, they end up with the wrong

[00:04:03] equipment in the wrong spot, and they have to start all over. Where is the stewardship in that?

[00:04:09] Unfortunately, at Paragon, we see it every week. It's ironic that the thing designed to protect the

[00:04:15] church can often do the most damage. My recommendation is to hire the right company regardless. Here are a

[00:04:22] few things to consider. Make sure you're dealing with a reputable firm that's not going to take

[00:04:27] advantage of you. In today's environment, it's easy to study a firm's reputation. The good ones are going

[00:04:33] to have pages of references, testimonial videos, and a track record of long-standing relationships.

[00:04:38] If they don't, they're probably not the right company. The most important thing is to find a firm

[00:04:45] that you can trust. Secondly, you need to consider their design expertise. There are just not a lot of

[00:04:52] firms out there doing their own design work, and that can get you into some serious trouble.

[00:04:56] Many of the firms out there, even some of the larger ones, are using copy and paste package designs

[00:05:02] or having their manufacturers do the design work for them or designing around select equipment that

[00:05:08] they happen to sell. Integrated design makes such a difference in the end product. I always say it's

[00:05:14] easier to get it wrong than it is to get it right. And there's an old saying out there, if you think

[00:05:18] design work is expensive, you should see the cost of free design. Third, make sure whoever you're

[00:05:24] dealing with is providing proposals that are inclusive. The strategy for vendors doing bid work is to price it

[00:05:30] low, cutting everything out of it that actually adds value. Then there's the blame game. Blame the designer,

[00:05:37] blame the architect, blame the contractor, the building, the drawings, whatever else they can

[00:05:41] find. They have a whole book of excuses prepared. That's the game. They stand behind the, you didn't

[00:05:46] pay for that scenario. That's when the change orders fly. And guess what? Those change orders are built

[00:05:52] with a margin three times that of the initial bid. Have you seen the picture of the two boats?

[00:05:58] The small one is named original contract, but the yacht behind it is named change order.

[00:06:04] Several clients bought that guy a really nice boat. That's meant to be a joke, but sadly,

[00:06:09] it's completely accurate. That's the bid game and the client never wins. However, this whole charade

[00:06:15] is based on more than a bit of willful ignorance, really on both sides of the table because the

[00:06:22] integrator bids the job at something near cost with zero value with the intention of recovering

[00:06:27] more revenue through change orders. And the client feels like they've checked the stewardship box by

[00:06:32] obtaining the lowest bid. Find an integrator who has a good reputation, does high quality design work

[00:06:39] and hire them, pay them well to do what they do, and they will take care of you. You want your

[00:06:44] integrator making money so they can be there to take care of you in the future. If you do this,

[00:06:49] you will probably end up with the right system for the space. You won't have to sit down and have

[00:06:53] that painful conversation with leadership and donors later. You know, hey guys, sorry, but we have to do

[00:07:00] all this again. Good news is we saved 8% on the initial bid. At the end of the day, I hope the

[00:07:05] client is buying experience and track record. The way I see it, I'm not paying the cardiologist for the

[00:07:11] 30 minutes it takes to change the heart valve, right? I'm paying them for a portion of their 36

[00:07:15] years of experience and the track record of getting it right the first time because I can't afford a

[00:07:19] miss. I can assure you this, churches can't afford a swing and a miss either, especially today.

[00:07:24] Funding is getting harder and harder to come by. They need to be partnering with someone who has a track

[00:07:29] record of getting it right the first time. For more information on Paragon, check out

[00:07:34] paragon360.com. I hope this was helpful and we'll see you on the next episode of The Paragon Angle.

[00:07:44] I want to take a moment and thank Sermon Shots, AIforChurchleaders.com, Digico, Paragon 360,

[00:07:53] and Earthworks Audio for sponsoring today's episode. Without our sponsors, we would not exist.

[00:07:59] Today's church tech tip is Sermon Shots. We are so proud to have them as a sponsor of the Tech Arts

[00:08:06] Podcast. We featured them as a tech tip about a year ago, but so much has changed since then.

[00:08:12] Coming on to talk to us about Sermon Shots is Corey Aldrin. Corey, welcome to the Tech Arts Podcast.

[00:08:18] Yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:08:19] Hey, for those who don't know anything about Sermon Shots, tell us who you are and what Sermon Shots does.

[00:08:24] Yeah, so Sermon Shots takes a sermon and turns it into different pieces of content. So how can we

[00:08:34] utilize the sermon more? Primarily what we're known for is making sermon clips. So making the 30,

[00:08:41] 60 second clips that are popular on Instagram, Facebook, Reels, TikTok, that sort of thing.

[00:08:51] That is what most people know us about.

[00:08:55] I feel like I see those Instagram clips and TikTok clips. I feel like I see more of that than I actually

[00:09:02] do the actual church service. I feel like that's penetrating out into the, especially the younger

[00:09:08] generation a little bit more than even the church services. So I think this is a very important tool

[00:09:15] when it comes to church and reaching, you know, new visitors or the lost for Jesus. So can you jump in

[00:09:21] and give us a little bit of a demo?

[00:09:22] Yeah, absolutely. So I guess from the last time that we were on the podcast, there's probably three

[00:09:30] really big updates, and I'll go through the three and point them out as we go through making a clip.

[00:09:37] But the way it starts, no matter what you're making, is you upload your sermon. So your sermon is the

[00:09:43] starting point for all the content. And what you do is you upload either from your computer,

[00:09:50] from YouTube, simply by putting in the YouTube link, or you can even upload from live stream.

[00:09:59] So if you're already live streaming to Facebook, YouTube, all that, you can do that from here as

[00:10:05] well. So as soon as it's done, live streaming, it's uploaded straight into your account ready to go.

[00:10:12] That's pretty cool. So you're telling me that I just attach it like an RTMP or something along those

[00:10:20] lines. And as soon as my service is done, it's already on your platform?

[00:10:24] Correct. Huge time saver.

[00:10:27] Wow. All those media marketing, you know, all those folks out there just went, oh my,

[00:10:35] we just, we just have a game changer here.

[00:10:38] Yes. You log in right after sermon or right after service is done and you can start downloading and

[00:10:44] making all your stuff right away.

[00:10:45] That's awesome.

[00:10:47] You can also use a previous one. So that's what I'll do here as my example. You just click on one

[00:10:53] of your previous ones and from here is where all your content lives for that sermon. So what we'll

[00:10:59] mostly go over here is making a sermon clip, but just briefly, I'll show you, this is one of the

[00:11:05] things that's been updated since we last talked and it will make a discussion guide for you. So

[00:11:12] it's a, it's a starter. It's a discussion guide starter. So it's, it's got a title, a sermon summary,

[00:11:18] intro prayer, icebreaker, verses, questions, life application, and an ending prayer. And all of this

[00:11:25] is there for you to be able to copy and paste, uh, to maybe your format that you want. Uh, you just

[00:11:32] download, download it from here. And the same thing with all the other pieces of content we have

[00:11:38] here. So the full transcription you can download, we convert the sermon into a blog style. If you,

[00:11:44] uh, if you want to put it on your website somewhere, you can see it's written out as a blog,

[00:11:50] SEO, all that's put in into this. So you're, if you're a small church, you're, you are knocking

[00:11:57] out a lot of the work that they have to do for the website, for the transcription that, that is so

[00:12:05] cool. I mean, and on these, let me, so let me ask you this. I know I want to talk to you a little bit

[00:12:10] down the road about how people sign up, but are, are these different layers of features or do they

[00:12:16] all come with, with the standard sermon shots? Yeah. Uh, the, uh, there's, there, there's two

[00:12:25] main plans. Uh, one plan that is primarily for sermon clips. You can get the sermon clips,

[00:12:30] the transcription and the audio. And then for just a little bit more, the next plan up includes the

[00:12:37] other stuff, discussion guide, blog summaries. Uh, and I, I can show you the pricing afterwards if

[00:12:43] you want to. Yeah, no, absolutely. We'll look at that afterwards. I just got excited there and was

[00:12:47] like, Oh my gosh, look at all this stuff. Like this is so much more than what, what I saw last time.

[00:12:53] I was, I just, I'm sorry. I jumped ahead of myself and got excited. All right, here we go back to the

[00:12:57] demo. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, audio, if you want to download just the audio and use it, you know,

[00:13:03] podcast, put it on your website, you know, for the people that don't watch, but just listen.

[00:13:07] And then some summaries. So people use these in a lot of different places, social media, YouTube,

[00:13:14] newsletters, things like that. But we've got a short one, a longer one, one that's made specifically

[00:13:20] for newsletter and then YouTube. And all of these, as I said, you just simply download them and they're

[00:13:27] yours. But going back to what I said earlier, sermon clips really is, is probably the primary

[00:13:32] thing that we're known for. And it's the, it's the feature that we have lots of capabilities to

[00:13:37] be able to do. You can make it really simple fat. You can make a clip in just a few minutes.

[00:13:42] You can edit it the way you want as well. And I'll just go through that and point out some of the

[00:13:48] newest features that we have as well. So when you go to create a new clip from here, you choose the

[00:13:55] design style that you want. So there's about, there's well over a thousand different designs that

[00:14:01] you can choose from all kinds of different things. And I will not scroll through all of them to save

[00:14:05] time. Only a thousand, Corey. Correct. Yep. Lots of different designs. So really just there,

[00:14:14] there's probably something there for just about any church. And all you do is you select the one that

[00:14:20] you want and it's a starting point. And so you have the ability to change this stuff. I'll show you

[00:14:25] in the, in the last step. The next step is where you cut it down to the 30, 60 second moments that you

[00:14:34] want. And this is really where huge time savings is. There's, there's two primary ways that you can,

[00:14:42] you can do this. When we, when you upload it, transcribes the whole thing. So you can see the

[00:14:48] whole thing is transcribed here. You can, you can search for a word, uh, that the pastor said, say

[00:14:56] you remember a moment. All you have to do is type in the moment, um, that they said, I, you know,

[00:15:04] I would imagine Bibles probably, Oh, there you go. So let's say you remember that and you can just

[00:15:10] scroll through kind of like a word document to find the part in that sermon that you remembered and say,

[00:15:16] ah, I've got it. I found the spot. So all you have to do is hit the plus button to the sentences

[00:15:23] that you want. And that's what builds the clip. And so say you've built it from here,

[00:15:28] hit the plus button and you can see down here, I've selected 11 seconds.

[00:15:32] So you can imagine building a 30, 60 second clip from this. The other way of doing this,

[00:15:39] which is our new, a new feature since we last talked is the AI suggested clips.

[00:15:44] And what it does is it determines what are 10 really good, potentially viral moments from your

[00:15:53] sermon. And you can see here that there's, there's 10 of them listed here. And all you do

[00:15:59] is you just click on them and it selects it for you. And so you can play this, say,

[00:16:07] or say you want to listen to this one. And you can go through, watch them all, pick ones that you

[00:16:16] want. And once you've picked what you want from here, all you have to do is hit next.

[00:16:26] And this is where it puts all of that together. So that template we chose in step two, and then that,

[00:16:33] I think about 30 second clip that we chose it, it's cutting that down and then putting it together.

[00:16:39] And we'll be able to preview it right here. And typically 30 seconds or less. There we go.

[00:16:48] And then what we can do is play.

[00:16:50] And so you'll see from here, I won't play the whole thing, but you'll see from here that he goes

[00:16:56] off the screen, right? A very typical thing for a pastor to do. This vertical space is a,

[00:17:01] is a hard place to keep a pastor. And sometimes even for a camera person to track with them.

[00:17:08] And I see it all the time. When I watch these clips, I see, I'm just leaving the screen all the

[00:17:12] time. And it's so annoying. Yeah. Cause the face is like, the face is a big, important thing,

[00:17:17] right? Of like what these clips and listening. And so what we have here is AI camera crew and all you

[00:17:24] have to do simply click the button. And what it'll, what it starts to do is process that. And it takes

[00:17:30] about the length of the clip to start processing. And what it will do is it allows you basically just

[00:17:38] automatically track. And we'll see this in just a little bit. And while this is going, you can work

[00:17:43] on the other things that I'll just briefly mention. You can, you can change all the colors you see.

[00:17:49] As I highlight over these color palettes, it's highlighting over here. If you want to change

[00:17:54] something like you don't like the yellow, for example, you just change it. And just like that,

[00:17:58] it's changed. The fonts can be changed. It adds the logo automatically for you. You can see down here,

[00:18:05] but that can be resized or moved or even removed if you don't want it. Music is a really nice feature

[00:18:13] to be able to add. And I'll come back to music and I'll just play this real quick with AI camera crew

[00:18:19] enabled. How often are we trading the whole world for the comforts of today? How often are we willing to make

[00:18:27] concessions with what God asks us to do? Oh my. Because it makes us feel good now. That is so cool.

[00:18:33] And we trade it away. Huge for exactly what you're saying. It's annoying when the pastor goes off the

[00:18:38] screen on your vertical space. And so this will, this will help keep them. And it looks like actual

[00:18:43] camera person, right? Yeah, it did. You just flip a button and that's the AI portion of sermon shots.

[00:18:49] That's, you know, kind of going through and figuring out where the face is at and keeping them centered.

[00:18:53] Yep. That's exactly it. Wow. And then, oh, I was going to finish up with the music that this is a,

[00:18:59] uh, popular feature as well as you can just add music in the background. And so, uh, say that you

[00:19:06] want a sort of like slow piano, uh, effect added to it. You can play that as a little extra effect

[00:19:17] in the background as well. Yeah. Just add some mood to it. Yep. Exactly. And then, uh,

[00:19:23] because it makes you can preview what it looks like on these platforms before you download,

[00:19:27] you just click on these and it'll show you exactly what it looks like on Facebook, Instagram,

[00:19:32] YouTube, Tik TOK. That way you don't have, you know, words kind of overlapping with this stuff.

[00:19:38] You can make sure everything's fitting in there the way that you want to. Uh, and then you can add

[00:19:43] a few other things, resize, add some caption or, uh, edit the captions, add some text, that sort of stuff.

[00:19:50] And as soon as you like it, you hit download and that's it. It's yours. It's all done.

[00:19:58] It's done. So you can, you could, you can imagine being able to, you know, after you've done this

[00:20:03] one or two times, you can make a clip in like five minutes, pretty simply.

[00:20:08] Well, that looks amazing. I really think every church in America should be using this. Can you,

[00:20:13] you tell us how people can sign up? And you mentioned some pricing differences earlier in

[00:20:19] the demo kind of help us with that a little bit. Yeah. Let me, let me show you what, um,

[00:20:24] the pricing would look like. Just this probably the easiest way. Uh, the, the plus plan, which is

[00:20:31] the one that has, I was telling you, it has the, um, unlimited clips. That's the thing that we

[00:20:36] spent the most time. The transcription and the audio for the podcast is 39 a month. If you pay

[00:20:42] yearly 49, if you pay monthly. And then the silver plan is the plan that has all those other things

[00:20:50] that we were talking about as well. So for a little bit more, uh, you can have all those as well.

[00:20:55] If you want to sign up for sermon shots, go to sermon shots.com that's sermon shots.com.

[00:21:03] Corey, this whole AI discussion really intrigues me. And coming up in just a few minutes,

[00:21:08] we have Kenny Jang from church tech today.com. He is going to chat with us about AI. Would you mind

[00:21:16] staying on and being part of that discussion? Yeah, absolutely. That's right. In just a few

[00:21:21] minutes, we're going to be talking about AI and how it's changing the world of tech. Plus we'll talk

[00:21:27] about how you should embrace it or should you be worried about it. We will also talk some uses for

[00:21:33] it like sermon shots.com and how that works with AI. We'll talk about some other uses. It all starts

[00:21:40] right after these messages from our sponsors. Hang on. Thank you for listening to the tech arts

[00:21:52] podcast. Be sure to tell all your friends about us, give them the website, tech arts podcast.com

[00:21:59] to find out more. More great content is coming up right after this.

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[00:22:55] video video, video lighting.com. That's audio video lighting.com. Welcome back to the tech arts

[00:23:04] podcast. Joining us today is the editor in chief of church tech today.com. He's also the founder of AI

[00:23:12] for church leaders.com in church growth workshops.com. He served as church online pastor for one of

[00:23:21] outreach magazines, top 100 fastest growing churches in America. He is also a certified story brand guide

[00:23:29] and CEO of big click syndicate, a strategic marketing advisory firm, helping Christian leaders build digital

[00:23:37] engagement engines that work. He has earned a master's of divinity at Princeton theological seminary

[00:23:45] university at Columbia business school and a BA at Duke university. So in simple terms, he's smarter than me.

[00:23:54] Please welcome to the tech arts podcast, Kenny Jang. Hey Kenny. Hey, good to be with you guys.

[00:23:59] It's good to have you on the podcast today. Hey, we just did a church tech tip with Corey from sermon shots

[00:24:05] and I asked him to hang out with us for this discussion. Corey, welcome back. Thanks.

[00:24:09] All right, Kenny. I got to jump right into this. What the heck is AI?

[00:24:16] It's better than what the heck is Al? Some people think it's Al if you look at it. And so

[00:24:22] AI, it stands for artificial intelligence. And basically it's all around us today. It's a type

[00:24:28] of technology that allows computers, right? To perform tasks that are normally require large amounts

[00:24:35] of human intelligence, like this just brute force brainiac stuff. So things like learning, problem

[00:24:42] solving, understanding language. It just is something that is at our disposal right now.

[00:24:48] And this latest version, probably the reason why we're talking about AI today in popular culture is

[00:24:54] there's a flavor of AI called generative AI. And it just means that this AI systems, they're being

[00:25:01] trained to mimic the way that we actually talk to each other and it's able to create new things,

[00:25:07] new works of content, of art, of audio visual stuff. So we are able to create new things with AI.

[00:25:15] And so it's just been an amazing innovation front to watch and experience. And we're here. It's,

[00:25:21] I think it's going to be part of everybody's lives that's listening in today.

[00:25:25] Well, when we did this sermon shots demo with Corey, and he mentioned some of the new AI tools,

[00:25:31] for me, it just, it feels like an, it just feels like a new label. Like, I mean,

[00:25:36] Google's been out there and they've, in my opinion, been doing the descriptive of artificial

[00:25:42] intelligence for a while, but I mean, is it a new label? I mean, is it just some marketing thing

[00:25:48] or is this something that's real? Is it here is like artificial intelligence by computers happening?

[00:25:53] Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely real.

[00:25:56] And I don't think this new flavor, generative AI, it's not just a new label. It actually represents

[00:26:02] a leapfrog, a significant advancement in the broader AI technology. It goes beyond what

[00:26:09] we call traditional machine learning. So the things that you can do with the today are being done by

[00:26:17] every normal day people. You don't know, you no longer need some nerdy computer science degree.

[00:26:23] You don't need to work in a lab. You don't need to actually be a scientist. You don't need to

[00:26:28] actually have this upper level knowledge. It's accessible to anybody that understands just how

[00:26:33] to talk to another human being. And largely because it has this natural language processing component

[00:26:39] to it that translates what we are trying to say to the machine. It goes off and does its brainiac

[00:26:45] stuff and then comes back and translates it back to something that we understand. So that translation

[00:26:52] part into human ease is just the part that's revolutionary and that's changing the whole

[00:26:58] ballgame with computing.

[00:26:59] Well, Corey, how did you, yeah, how did you, um, how did you bring it into your company? Like,

[00:27:07] I mean, is AI is like this thing that I can't put my hands on? Like, I mean, how does it,

[00:27:13] how do you get it involved in this, in the sermon shots specifically to where it works for you? I mean,

[00:27:18] is it like coding or what, I mean, what, what are you, what are you doing?

[00:27:21] Yeah, I think I can answer that question along with a different perspective of the question you asked

[00:27:26] Kenny, uh, and a different answer perspective. So from the business side on sermon shots, it's,

[00:27:32] uh, I can tell you when we first started a couple of years ago, I knew this component was going to be

[00:27:37] very important. It's helping the user figure out what the good parts of their sermon are. Right.

[00:27:43] And it two, three years ago, when we were thinking about this, that was going to require a huge number

[00:27:50] of an investment and time, because I knew how it was going to have to happen. I was going to have to

[00:27:55] create a model. I was going to have to run hundreds of thousands of hours of sermons into it and,

[00:28:00] and all this stuff that that's what it would take. It would have been multiple hundreds of

[00:28:03] thousands of dollars to, to do that thing. That was not possible for me at that point. And so we

[00:28:08] didn't do that. But when, uh, when this AI capability started coming out for everybody to use,

[00:28:13] including me as a business owner and a, and a developer, we were able to tap into what open AI

[00:28:20] and Claude and all of these models are doing and just piggyback off of what they're doing.

[00:28:26] And I was able to do what was going to take me hundreds of thousands of dollars and who knows,

[00:28:32] a year, uh, or longer to do all this with, with my, uh, opportunity. And we, we were able to do it

[00:28:38] within a few months and basically, I don't, I'll say not as much of an investment, I guess, in the

[00:28:46] amount of money. And so we took what was going to be almost not possible to possible within a few

[00:28:53] months. So, so that's pretty cool. I mean, you're basically saying you, you were going to spend

[00:29:00] tons of money and with this technology, it allowed you to speed things up and then really help the

[00:29:05] consumer. But, um, my familiarity with, uh, AI is a chat GPT and, uh, kind of typing things in and

[00:29:13] just kind of having fun with what it types back. I've used it for some social media and stuff like

[00:29:18] that, but there's a movie that I watched when I was much younger called Terminator. And so I talked

[00:29:26] to a lot of people and, you know, they make this jump that AI is the end of the world, that the

[00:29:32] Terminator is coming and it's going to take over the world. Like, is that something we should be

[00:29:37] worried about? Is it dangerous? I mean, are we just over the top with this thing? Absolutely. It's coming

[00:29:42] and, uh, they're going to take over on Thursday at two 30. You want me to send the calendar invite?

[00:29:46] I can send you the calendar invite for it. Yeah. Send me the calendar invite that was automatically

[00:29:50] generated by your AI. Yeah. I mean, I think you're seeing the fear narrative that we've seen in

[00:29:58] Hollywood and human storytelling for several decades now. Right. And so that's what we have

[00:30:04] in our own library of culture is Skynet, Terminator, things that are coming afterwards, man versus

[00:30:12] machine. After all in Hollywood, in storybooks, that's what, you know, makes for a good story,

[00:30:19] right? This major conflict. And, uh, like I say, I think the last decade has been occupied by social

[00:30:26] media and has generated FOMO. Um, this next decade is being occupied by artificial intelligence. And

[00:30:33] the new word of the day is full low, which is fear of looming obsolescence, fear of looming obsolescence,

[00:30:40] like they're coming to get us. And I think this is one of the things where, um, practitioners like

[00:30:45] Corey and myself are trying to basically, um, heed the call to educate the masses, uh, to really

[00:30:53] bring awareness and education to the space to show, man, this, this actually isn't that narrative.

[00:31:00] Uh, it's a choose your own adventure. If you want to go down the narrative, then your behavior is

[00:31:04] going to go one way. It's going to be fear-based. Um, if you go the other direction and choose the

[00:31:09] other pathway that's available in front of you, then I think you're going to see potential for a

[00:31:14] lot of human flourishing at the end of the day. Corey, let me ask you this. And then Kenny,

[00:31:19] I'd love to hear you answer this question too, but how do you harness it? How do you limit it? How

[00:31:23] do you control it? How do you make sure with your product, uh, that it doesn't run off the rails,

[00:31:29] Corey? I mean, what, what, what guardrails are you putting in there to make sure it doesn't become

[00:31:34] Terminator? Well, I can say my use case probably isn't going to get it to, to the place where it's

[00:31:40] going to go do some crazy things. You're not Skynet. I'm helping. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

[00:31:44] maybe, maybe it's learning something from me. I don't know, but, uh, I think there's very specific

[00:31:52] use cases where it, it's just a huge time saver and that, that it, and it can't really go outside

[00:31:59] of that in, in what I'm using it for. I'm sure there are many ways that we can go the fear-based

[00:32:08] route that, that Kenny's talking about that can, many leaps that, that get us there. Uh,

[00:32:14] but in, in my use case of what I'm using it for, not just in, not, not just in the way that users

[00:32:21] can use it, but ways I'm using it in my business as well of just talking to it, talking to it,

[00:32:27] like it's like it's a person and understanding that the answer, I'm not just taking as, uh,

[00:32:35] I know it's a hundred percent correct or not even question to answer, but just giving me suggestions

[00:32:39] on ways of doing things. I'm still using my brain to, to take what, what they're saying. I'm,

[00:32:44] I'm utilizing it as a, uh, a helpful person that has given me advice and I will take it if I want

[00:32:50] it, leave it if I don't. Um, so there's it going further than that. There's a huge leap to go,

[00:32:57] to, to go into the Terminator, at least the way I see it.

[00:33:00] Yeah. So you're using it as a tool and as something that's giving you advice and helping

[00:33:04] to move your company in a certain direction. But Kenny, I know everybody jumps there. Like,

[00:33:08] how do we, how do we harness this, this, or should we harness it? Should we just let it go?

[00:33:13] Should we just let it be? Yeah. I mean, I think the number one thing that we have to

[00:33:17] spur on today is have conversations, conversations with your teams, um, because there's a lot of

[00:33:24] questions and they are valid questions. It's new technology. Um, the number one thing that people

[00:33:30] stumble upon is the obstacle of ethics, right? And, uh, we just did a, uh, landmark study, uh,

[00:33:38] church tech today.com and exponential AI next just put out a state of AI in the church report for 2024.

[00:33:46] And we found that, uh, over a quarter of leaders say that ethics is the number one obstacle for

[00:33:52] implementing AI in their own organization. And yet 73% of church leaders have not yet led a discussion

[00:33:58] about AI with their teams. Right. And so what do you actually talk about? I mean,

[00:34:02] I think you can start anywhere, but we have this like little starter kit that we say there's four

[00:34:08] questions that you start to ask, uh, your teams and really figure out where you, where you fall on it.

[00:34:15] One is what, you know, what do you put in it is important. So, um, that's issues of privacy,

[00:34:22] security about all your data. Um, when do you use it? So is it relegated to all ministry aspects,

[00:34:29] or is it just for the mundane administrative back office type of activities, or is it, um,

[00:34:36] available to everybody? Uh, where do you disclose it? So transparency attribution,

[00:34:42] that's very important in today's day and age. I mean, you don't, you're not disclosing that you do

[00:34:47] a Google search every time you write something, but that's the norm that people understand that. So

[00:34:52] until it's the norm that we are all using AI tools on a daily basis, I think you need to figure out

[00:34:58] where, you know, where you actually disclose it. It doesn't need to be everywhere. And the last

[00:35:02] question is the what, when, where, and how, how are you going to use it? Um, I think that's in terms

[00:35:07] of the context of your question is we want to make sure that there's fact checking, that there's

[00:35:12] not an over-reliance. You don't want bias to come in and be introduced without you understanding

[00:35:18] that it's actually happening. And so how do you control it? How do you make sure it's, you know,

[00:35:23] head on being used the way you intend to do it? So you don't have unintended consequences. You got to

[00:35:29] say, you know, what do you put into it? When, when do you use it? Where do you disclose it? How,

[00:35:35] how do you actually use it? I think those are the four first questions that will start to answer,

[00:35:39] you know, that, that problem obstacle that you've identified.

[00:35:44] So Kenny, you live and breathe AI. Uh, tell me some use cases where you've used it

[00:35:50] in a way that's really helped either a church or your business or even your speaking kind of go to

[00:35:56] the next level. Yeah. I mean, where are we not using it? I'm using it all day, every day. Um,

[00:36:01] it's like, I don't Google things first. I actually, you know, in what, as of this recording,

[00:36:07] um, perplexity.ai is my favorite tool to go to. It incorporates live Google or data, you know,

[00:36:16] web searches along with generative AI responses. And so I'm actually asking perplexity before I

[00:36:22] ask Google for most things. Um, so you're going to see a lot of basic daily behavior change, but

[00:36:29] beyond that, um, I think in the church world, um, again, that state of AI in the church survey,

[00:36:35] we asked pastors, how are you actually using this all in your staff meetings and things like that?

[00:36:40] How are you using it? So the top, the top use cases that they're asked actually using it right now,

[00:36:45] not in the future. Uh, number one is communications. Um, so stuff that Sherman,

[00:36:51] sermon shots does right. Repurposing your sermons to, to different formats, um, helping you with emails,

[00:36:57] helping you with advertising. If you do ads, helping you with your bulletin inserts,

[00:37:01] helping all communications. Um, second one was analyzing data, uh, really helping you with

[00:37:08] taking, um, unstructured data and creating order out of it. Uh, administrative workers for sure.

[00:37:14] Event and project planning. Sermon prep was on the list, um, of the people who actually, uh,

[00:37:21] prepare sermons that responded to the survey. 43% have said they already started using some sort of AI

[00:37:27] tools in their sermon prep process. You're almost at half, half of the pastors who are writing sermons

[00:37:32] are starting to use it. Uh, member engagement, outreach, evangelism, discipleship pathways.

[00:37:37] So, uh, it's almost like you need to ask the, the converse, where are you not using AI today?

[00:37:44] Where is it not applicable? Yeah, I agree with you. I even started seeing some things that I think

[00:37:48] would help, uh, technicians, uh, that are coordinating volunteers and things of that nature.

[00:37:53] If you look at some of these, um, auto programming, Instagram, social media stuff, they tell you,

[00:37:59] Hey, here's the best time to send your post. Here's the best time. And so they're using some AI

[00:38:04] tools to help you program your marketing. And I started thinking about, I'm like, when's the,

[00:38:08] you know, when's the best time to have a volunteer meeting, uh, and using AI to kind of understand

[00:38:15] your team and how they work and what time to meet. We all say, Oh, well, six o'clock on a Friday,

[00:38:22] you know, but is that the best time? Can AI help you determine when your volunteers should be meeting

[00:38:28] and how that should happen? I think there's some, some really cool uses that where it could be

[00:38:33] applied, but Corey, tell me like some things you're looking for in the future that you think AI is

[00:38:39] going to help you with. Uh, so me personally, I can tell you one thing before I go to the future.

[00:38:45] One thing that, um, I could expand on too, on, on some, like how it's been helpful for me is a lot of

[00:38:51] the, like conversations that I can have with it too. So it's like, well, I can use kind of Kenny's

[00:38:58] example of Googling something, right? Like when you Google something, find an answer, it spits out

[00:39:03] some things. And I don't know, sometimes if I'm doing something complex, it's like, okay, that kind

[00:39:09] of answered it, but I wish it like, that's not quite my fitting. That's not exactly how I asked it or

[00:39:13] okay. But all of that, like I can have that conversation. And so I just one example recently, I,

[00:39:21] I'm looking to adapt some of the messaging I'm using on a landing page that I had, for example,

[00:39:28] and testing it out. And I asked it to give me some examples, or I actually even gave it some of

[00:39:34] my examples as well of what I had. And it said, well, what about this? And it like, it spurred a,

[00:39:40] like an idea in my head. I was like, oh, that's great. And so then I typed in like, okay, I like that

[00:39:45] one, but can we combine it with this one? Or like, uh, what, what was the other, like,

[00:39:52] oh, but I don't like this word. And so it, I had a conversation about probably 25 back and forths

[00:39:58] of getting a little bit closer to what I wanted. And I finally got it. And, uh, that previously

[00:40:06] might've been five emails back and forth over three days with somebody, uh, somebody that I hired or on my

[00:40:15] think, think that thinking about how it's not just a answer or a question and answer back. It's like a,

[00:40:23] it really is a multiple conversation that you can get to where you want to go.

[00:40:27] I don't know if that exactly answered what you were asking, but

[00:40:29] No, it does. It does. But you're kind of blowing my mind. Cause you keep talking about, uh, talking

[00:40:35] to it. And, uh, up to this point, I'm kind of old school. I'm like typing and getting my responses

[00:40:42] from chat GPT or whatever it is. You're actually, you're actually talking to a computer.

[00:40:47] Yeah. I mean, so one of the most popular, if you're using chat GPT, I'll just jump in. You need

[00:40:51] to download the chat GPT app. And because you can actually talk to the chat GPT app on your phone,

[00:40:58] just like Siri. Uh, the only difference is it comes up with an intelligent answer, not like Siri.

[00:41:03] Right. And you can actually have a conversation and the voice is actually quite soothing. And so it

[00:41:07] sounds like you're actually having a conversation with a friend, but that's, it's, I think Corey

[00:41:11] is saying you could do it using typing, but I think the future, maybe that's one of the things

[00:41:16] Corey, that both of you and I are going to wish for in the future is that all of these interfaces,

[00:41:21] you're not going to need a keyboard. You're just going to be able to talk to somebody,

[00:41:24] give it commands, have a conversation back and forth. That lot, that reality is here. Um, even

[00:41:30] perplexity. I use voice most, most times, uh, because when I'm Googling, when I'm Googling on

[00:41:37] perplexity, Google's the verb there. When I'm Googling on perplexity, um,

[00:41:42] it's the same experience that Corey has, you get something back and it's not exactly what you want,

[00:41:46] but you want to give it context and then you help have it reframe the answer based on your context.

[00:41:52] Well, I want to circle back to the ethics piece, Kenny, that you were talking about,

[00:41:58] because I think a big deal, uh, most everybody's seen the, you know, the law that Tennessee passed

[00:42:04] to help protect artists in terms of, of AI and their music being, uh, kind of stolen. But,

[00:42:11] but talk a little bit about ethics and come at it from the viewpoint of, you know, how does this concern

[00:42:18] the low level volunteer or tech in the organization? From a leadership perspective, I think leaders can,

[00:42:24] can grasp it right away. Um, but Hey, I'm just a tech at the church. I mean, how is AI affect me from

[00:42:33] an ethical standpoint and how I'm communicating and what I'm doing? I talk a little bit about that.

[00:42:39] I that's, that's, you intrigued me a little bit there. Yeah. I would say, I would say for the most

[00:42:44] part, volunteer roles are not going to come across ethical issues as much as key executive leaders in

[00:42:51] an organization, because usually volunteer roles are task oriented and you really don't have that many

[00:42:58] blurred boundaries, especially if you're in the AV tech, uh, side of the house. Right. And so, um,

[00:43:05] I think there's a lot of newfangled things that are going to come down. Um, you know, one of the cool

[00:43:10] features that sermon shots released recently, um, I think it's live, uh, Corey is camera tracking. Um,

[00:43:18] and so one of the biggest problems that when we're editing social media videos is that the pastor keeps

[00:43:24] on walking all around. And so if you're creating a vertical video, you actually have to move your

[00:43:29] framing of the pastor as they go through. So it's not like as easy as push a button and just, you know,

[00:43:36] re you know, resize the video because you actually have to follow the subject around on stage. Um, AI now

[00:43:42] is being able to do that. It's being integrated into products like sermon shots, but, um, you're,

[00:43:47] you're, you're having that, uh, face tracking already on a lot of cameras, right? There's,

[00:43:53] you're seeing that even on my, uh, my actual webcam, um, has face tracking. And so if I move to the left,

[00:44:01] it will actually follow me. You're seeing that on live stream cameras and recording outputs, et cetera.

[00:44:06] So, um, there are things that are just going to make things much easier and better. Um, the other

[00:44:12] thing I would say, the other side note is for church leaders, AI feels like this foreign thing

[00:44:19] that we actually have to take our time to evaluate before integrating, et cetera. Yet all your

[00:44:25] volunteers work in the secular world for companies that are going 6,000 miles ahead with AI. They

[00:44:33] cannot get AI into their workflows fast enough. Um, I've been to, I think five, um, non church related

[00:44:41] conferences this year, like business industry conferences. And I would say the lowest number of

[00:44:47] workshops probably was like 30 or 40%, 40% or more of the workshops had some AI component in it this year,

[00:44:55] right? That's what all people are talking about. They're trying to figure out how do we take

[00:44:59] advantage of AI. And so your people in your congregation are in organizations and companies

[00:45:07] that are already being exposed to air at a level much higher than you and your staff are.

[00:45:14] I think you have to sit on that for a second to understand what that means. Like we're so

[00:45:18] hesitant, we're fearful. We're worried if our people can't adopt it, et cetera. And yet they're

[00:45:23] in their daily lives, right? They're only with you one day a week, five days a week,

[00:45:28] they're in the office being asked to use AI to the max. And so it's a, it's a very different dynamic,

[00:45:34] um, inside and outside of the office in the church. Yeah. I believe churches a lot of times are

[00:45:40] behind the curve when it comes to newer technology, new things that are out there. And just in the tech

[00:45:47] world, um, you know, churches were still using projection when led was, you know, coming out and

[00:45:52] really at the forefront of things. But when we kicked off this, this segment, um, Kenny, you,

[00:45:59] you, I think the word you used was generative AI. Yes. Um, talk a little bit more about that because

[00:46:06] you, you kind of recapped it pretty quick. Um, so kind of help, help the audience understand what

[00:46:13] that is. And it sounds like that's the next level. So when we talk about churches kind of getting ahead

[00:46:17] of the game, let's understand that and know what it is. Yeah. I mean, generative that word

[00:46:23] is just talking about the ability for the technology to generate new original content rather than if we

[00:46:31] want to call legacy or old school AI that's been around for decades, that sweet spot, you know, for the

[00:46:38] most part has been analyzing and processing existing data. When you think of like IBM Watson and the chess

[00:46:45] machine, right? It's, it's the idea that this computer AI can make 50,000 permutations of, oh,

[00:46:55] what chess moves will be, you know, what are the combinations of the future chess moves? It's like

[00:46:59] war games, right? You're trying to figure out versus a human can only do a certain number of limited

[00:47:04] number of chess moves in our brain at a per minute or per second, whatever. That's the old AI

[00:47:10] analyzing, processing existing data. But the generative part refers to the new models capabilities

[00:47:16] to create these novel outputs rather than just recognizing patterns and making predictions.

[00:47:23] You're now having these computers trained on large data sets of existing content. So they're consuming,

[00:47:31] you know, at some point it's going to be every webpage that's on the web, every book under the sun,

[00:47:38] all the works of art, music, video, et cetera. And so they're training on these large data sets of

[00:47:44] existing content. And they're going to learn the underlining patterns and structures and statistical

[00:47:50] properties of the data. That's what, that's what that brainiac old school AI stuff is doing.

[00:47:54] But the generative part means when it's prompted, when you're, you and I are talking to it,

[00:48:00] they can then use what they've learned in representations of the big data,

[00:48:06] synthesize it down to create new content that mimics the characteristics of something that you

[00:48:11] would create as an original work of art. Does that make sense?

[00:48:15] Yeah, I think it does. And what's really cool about it is, let me ask you this first,

[00:48:21] before I say what's cool. What I was going to talk about is how, I think, how churches could utilize

[00:48:27] this to understand where their audience is and where they're going and how they're going. But

[00:48:31] before I kind of talk about that, is anybody out there using generative AI?

[00:48:39] Yeah. I mean, ChatGPT is generative AI. Claude is generative AI. You know, Jasper is generative AI.

[00:48:46] Any of these AI tools that have come out recently where you're able to create new things is using

[00:48:51] this newfangled flavor of AI.

[00:48:54] So here's my question. I'm a church. It sounds like I could use AI, and this is what I was about

[00:49:02] to talk about just a second ago. It sounds like I could use AI to figure out like where my audience

[00:49:09] is going to be, where I need to reach my audience. Very similar, I think, to how Facebook kind of uses,

[00:49:19] maybe it's AI, maybe it's not, but Facebook uses algorithms to figure out, you know, where audiences

[00:49:24] are going to be and where groups are going to be. It feels like churches could utilize this at a whole

[00:49:31] new level for reaching visitors.

[00:49:33] Yeah. I mean, it's more than just that, but yes, that's one of those things that if you took,

[00:49:40] I don't know, ACS Technologies has a product called Mission Insights, which basically gives you

[00:49:45] demographic reporting of who lives in your community. And then you can start to look at the

[00:49:52] data and analyze it, right? You could even just analyze your own data from your church management

[00:49:59] software or your giving data. Like we had an exercise with the church recently where we asked

[00:50:04] it to analyze the average giving for every single person in the church over the last year or two,

[00:50:09] I think it was two years. And then identify anyone for whose giving has dropped more than,

[00:50:16] I think it was 40%. So in the last quarter, has your behavior of giving dropped more than 40% of what

[00:50:22] you did on average in the last two years? Why does that happen, David, right? Either your sermon

[00:50:29] pissed you off, right? On a given weekend, you stopped giving, or there's a ministry opportunity

[00:50:35] that might be there, right? So it might be job lost. It might be you're fighting with your spouse.

[00:50:40] There might be some health issues that's disrupting everything. There's something there. And so could

[00:50:46] you do all this manually? Absolutely. Can you actually use the, we used GPT, which is the underlying

[00:50:53] technology under Chachapiti in a Google spreadsheet to identify that list of people. I think it came out

[00:50:59] with like seven people. And so what do you do now? You can be surgical and strategic as a leader.

[00:51:05] Look up, do those seven people, do they belong to a small group? Are they on the volunteer team?

[00:51:09] Meaning do they actually have some other one-on-one relationship with a team leader,

[00:51:14] small group leader or something, right? So then you can use them to reach out and just make sure that

[00:51:20] they're okay, how they're doing. Is it a time to check in to see, you know, how are they doing? And so

[00:51:25] there's, there's all these things that the church leader now has the ability to do. I think all our

[00:51:32] tools are going to start to integrate it more and more. And it's just going to become easier over the

[00:51:37] next year, two years, three years and beyond. You are giving me some pause. My brain is really opening

[00:51:45] up. I think you're also opening up everybody else's brain in terms of how it can be used. Data analytics.

[00:51:50] I wasn't even thinking, I was thinking like, you know, something I can touch and feel, but

[00:51:55] just taking data and analyzing it at a much faster and quicker pace so that you can figure out, you

[00:52:02] know, giving and groups and all the things that you just mentioned.

[00:52:07] Imagine if you did a survey, some churches do annual surveys of their people, right? Imagine if

[00:52:13] you started doing that and you asked some questions around felt needs. And then you actually took in the

[00:52:21] data also of their people profiles of, do they actually have families or not? What's their marital

[00:52:26] status? Where do they work or what industry they work? And then you can ask the AI to start to think

[00:52:31] through what is your sermon calendar actually look like? Does it make sense to actually have a

[00:52:38] relationship series? Does it make sense to have something about if everyone is starting to show

[00:52:46] signs of financial stress with our economy or sudden shifts and changes, or they say their housing costs

[00:52:53] have gone up, food costs have gone up, right? There's all these things that we are experiencing

[00:52:56] that are subtle. But can you find those things out and then find pattern recognition and then prioritize

[00:53:05] what are those felt needs? Because when Corey answers a survey and you answer a survey and I answer a

[00:53:11] survey with an open-ended field question, we might not say the same things, but we all might exhibit,

[00:53:20] oh, there's financial stress going on in our families, right? We might say it in different ways.

[00:53:25] And in a Google sheet or Excel spreadsheet or something, just looking through all those responses

[00:53:31] in sentences, it's hard to capture that sentiment that understands that, oh, this is actually the

[00:53:37] issue at hand. And so just looking at unstructured data and creating order out of it gives you so much

[00:53:46] more insights to be more precise, to be more responsive, to take the ability to increase the trust

[00:53:52] that you have with your audience and go deeper so that you can actually become more relevant to them.

[00:53:58] That's insane, but it brings me to a question. Corey, I want to hit you with this question,

[00:54:02] and Kenny, I'd love to hear your insights on it. And there's this thing we, you know,

[00:54:06] in church call the Holy Spirit, and we feel like that guides us. So how much should we use AI,

[00:54:15] Corey, you know, in the church to come up with our answers? And then the Holy Spirit here, like,

[00:54:23] like, it feels like there may be a tug of war on that too. You know, I would tell people all the time,

[00:54:28] I would say, you know, as Digital Great Commission Ministries, we would come in and look at their

[00:54:32] stream and how to make it better. And I'm like, sure, you want thousands of people to watch.

[00:54:38] Let's don't talk about the gospel. Let's just throw a bunch of weird stuff on and, you know,

[00:54:42] be crazy on the platform. And then, you know, you'll get a lot of clicks and a lot of views. Well,

[00:54:47] that's not what we're here for. We're here for church. So Corey, starting with you,

[00:54:51] and then Kenny, I'd love to hear your answer. You've got AI, it can analyze the data,

[00:54:56] it can help you with the data, but then you have the Holy Spirit too,

[00:55:00] which at the end of the day is your guide. So how do you balance that?

[00:55:03] I know a lot of people go to like, if you're using AI, you're not using the Holy Spirit,

[00:55:08] but I don't, I don't think they are using one doesn't remove the other. You can use both just

[00:55:13] like you use both for Google searching, just like you use both for any other tool that you might use

[00:55:19] in your church. With AI, kind of using the example I said of having a conversation back and forth

[00:55:25] with it, right? I don't have to remove the Holy Spirit from that. The AI gives me some suggestion,

[00:55:32] just like another person might, and I can use, I can use the Holy Spirit in inspiring me to get back,

[00:55:39] to get back and ask the question in a different way, or should I use this? Or is this the right fit

[00:55:43] for my church, right? All of that is completely possible if you're using AI. Now it can, I do

[00:55:52] think that AI could get into this place where you have the tendency to get to a, it does such a good

[00:55:59] job a lot of times that you might be like, oh, just copy paste and not think about it. I think that's,

[00:56:04] that's where we can get ourselves in trouble is maybe using it in a starting to get lazy with it.

[00:56:10] It, it, it could get, because it's so good, you could kind of go that direction, but I don't,

[00:56:16] you don't have to at all. Yeah. From my side, I would say, look,

[00:56:19] it comes out to this one core question. And if once you answer this, then our conversations go in

[00:56:25] widely different ways. And that is, does your theology allow for divinity in the digital?

[00:56:32] Do you believe that God gave us technology and AI specifically as a gift for human flourishing

[00:56:39] or is it an obstacle that Satan has put in the way of us getting to know God in a much deeper way?

[00:56:47] I think there's some theological concepts that, you know, pastors and church leaders need to think

[00:56:51] about, you know, in the Imago Dei is like, at the end of the day, are we here trying to retain

[00:57:00] what aspects of humanity are vibrant and life serving, or are we here to replace it in terms of

[00:57:08] the idea of wisdom and discernment? You know, are we able to use AI while modeling intentional use of

[00:57:16] wisdom, humility, dependence on God? It's not an easy staples button. That's the one thing, right? AI is not

[00:57:24] the staples easy button. And are you able to see that the Holy Spirit is working with you in that

[00:57:32] wisdom, discernment of use of it as you make decisions on various issues at work with AI, right?

[00:57:38] And at the end of the day, I think the other side, you're, I think you're making a very common

[00:57:44] argument or inquiry, but the other part tends to be forgotten that what can we gain in terms of AI?

[00:57:51] Think of the idea of Sabbath. Are we trying to squander our time or save it? Because God wants

[00:57:59] us to prioritize rest and renewal and our relationships with God and with each other. And

[00:58:05] can the use of AI be used in a way that's informed by that idea of the Christian approach of responsible

[00:58:13] use of technology so that we can actually have Sabbath and rest and be fully serving in our capacity

[00:58:21] ministry? Productivity is probably the number one thing that people reach for. There's all these

[00:58:28] other benefits, I think. But can AI give you enough efficiency and productivity so that you can actually

[00:58:36] spend more time with your people one-on-one and actually focus on the humanity of ministry?

[00:58:44] I don't know any pastor that woke up today and say, I wish I just had 600 more emails. I wish I had more

[00:58:50] emails and meetings to go to, right? I wish I had more work to do, more tasks on my to-do list. I don't

[00:58:58] know any pastor. I think every pastor would love to remove all of that and then get out of the death

[00:59:05] by meeting cycle and actually be able to spend time with the people that need God and Jesus in their

[00:59:11] lives and be the shepherd that you actually were called to be at the very beginning of your vocation.

[00:59:16] And so I just want to call that out. Like, yes, there's all this stuff we have to protect.

[00:59:20] And I think there's, again, you have to have conversations with your teams to talk about

[00:59:24] all that stuff. You need an AI policy. Every church needs an AI policy to set the guidelines and

[00:59:30] boundaries in the context of your own ministry expression. But at the same time, can we look at the

[00:59:36] upside of what AI is going to allow us to do? I think that's where you have to identify it,

[00:59:42] you have to protect it, and you have to go after it with abandon. We don't want to be,

[00:59:47] we don't want to be the servant when the master comes back and say, sir, here's your talent back.

[00:59:53] Wait a minute. I just have to dig it up because I buried the talent and I didn't multiply it.

[00:59:58] You know, just hold one second. I got to dig it up.

[01:00:00] Um, and so I think that's where AI is able to give us some flourishing

[01:00:05] in everything that we do in ministry. If, if we use it in a responsive way.

[01:00:10] Yeah. What I hear you saying is something that I say a lot about tech gear, and that is

[01:00:16] the guitar player on the stage is playing an instrument of worship.

[01:00:20] Yeah.

[01:00:20] They're playing an electric guitar.

[01:00:23] The sound guy is on, or gal is on an instrument of worship. They're mixing on a sound console.

[01:00:30] It is an instrument of worship that you use to lead people or to guide people into worship.

[01:00:36] If the electric guitar ever becomes your God, if you're holding that up, you know, brightly for

[01:00:43] everyone to look at and see, then you've gone off the rails and you've kind of moved in a direction

[01:00:50] where you're not listening to the Holy Spirit and you're not feeling what's going on in the room.

[01:00:54] You've, you've held that electric, you know, if, if your sound console becomes everything,

[01:01:00] it's your, it ends up being your God, right? Then, then it's no longer an instrument of worship.

[01:01:05] It's, it's your God. I mean, you're, you're, you've gone off the rails a little bit.

[01:01:09] I'm looking at AI the same way. It's an instrument of worship that the Lord has given us to help us,

[01:01:18] you know, process data quicker and all the benefits. But if we hold it up as our God,

[01:01:23] as our go-to, as, as the, as the determiner of our truth, then we've gone off the rails

[01:01:30] and it's no longer an instrument of worship. It is worship. We are worshiping it. And at that point,

[01:01:37] I think it's, it's probably wrong. And there is a balance. And I think, like you said,

[01:01:41] having an AI policy and things of that nature would bring a lot of, you know, help to this

[01:01:48] situation. But, you know, Kenny, a lot of people don't know how to do that. So some of the insights

[01:01:53] that you've brought to the podcast today are pretty amazing. But if a church needs guidance

[01:01:58] on this subject, how do they get ahold of you? Where do they go? What's, what's the first step for

[01:02:04] them to, to bring you into the situation to help them with this?

[01:02:07] Absolutely. That, the, one of the things that I've learned, um, living in different innovation

[01:02:13] fronts over the years is that there's too much happening for you to actually know it all yourself.

[01:02:20] If you, if you come across any leader that says, look, I know definitively how to use AI,

[01:02:25] this is the way you should be using it. You should not look elsewhere. I, you need to run.

[01:02:29] Um, we are better together as a community, as we grow and learn together. Um, you know,

[01:02:36] the reason why Corey and I are friends is because very early on we started to trade notes and learn

[01:02:40] from each other and encourage each other to push the boundaries and see where things work. We,

[01:02:46] as entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, our, our job is to fail fast. We want to fail at so many different

[01:02:52] things of using AI for this, for that, for that. Let's fail at using it so that we can fail forward

[01:02:57] and find the use cases that it's really good for. And so, um, the number one call to action I would

[01:03:04] say is join a community. So like we have a Facebook group called AI for church leaders

[01:03:09] and pastors, AI for church leaders and pastors is the name of the Facebook group. We're on our way to

[01:03:14] 6,000 people. We're just trading notes. I think Corey could testify to, it's a pretty active group,

[01:03:21] right, Corey? Like, and you've learned something. I've learned something from that almost every week.

[01:03:25] I, uh, I'm learning from all kinds of people. What's, uh, what's working, what's not. Uh,

[01:03:30] I, I picked up a lot of great tips. Yeah. And so you don't need to be an expert.

[01:03:34] You can be a very basic beginner, but even if you've been using AI tools for

[01:03:38] the last several years, I think it's something, there's something for everyone there. And it's,

[01:03:42] it's a place where, again, you can see what other people are doing with AI. I think that's just one

[01:03:48] of the things that, um, is super, super important when, whenever you're in a new innovations front,

[01:03:54] because we can imagine how we might use AI, but I'm telling you that no matter what you imagine

[01:04:00] and how creative you are, there's probably a hundred other different use cases that you didn't

[01:04:05] think of that might be even more exciting, more effective, um, you know, more impactful.

[01:04:11] And that's why you need to be in a community. So, um, that would be my number one call to action

[01:04:17] inside the group. You'll see there's an ebook that I wrote. Um, it's, um, unlock the power of AI.

[01:04:22] The, you know, it's like the ultimate, ultimate starter guide for pastors. Um, that's free inside

[01:04:28] the group and we've got a training platform. We've got monthly workshops, et cetera, but

[01:04:32] get inside the community, say hello and just watch, um, you know, watch what other people are doing.

[01:04:38] That's the first step.

[01:04:38] So let me say that again. The Facebook group is AI for church leaders and pastors. Is that correct?

[01:04:45] Yes. That's the name of the group.

[01:04:46] Yeah. So if you're listening, it's AI for church leaders and pastors. Also, uh, it sounds like you

[01:04:51] manage church tech today.com. Is that another good resource for people to go to?

[01:04:56] Yeah. So we're, you know, obviously AI is increasingly being covered there. We actually have a new category

[01:05:02] called AI for churches that you can actually nerd out on different tutorials and articles and things

[01:05:08] like that. I recently posted some stuff about, uh, theological reflections. Um, we are publishing,

[01:05:14] uh, like I mentioned earlier, uh, a landmark study, the state of AI in the church. And so we're going

[01:05:20] to have a webinar. We're going to release that study on church tech today.com. That's in,

[01:05:25] that's in, um, association with exponential, which is another big faith community. And so, um,

[01:05:31] you're going to start to see a lot of stuff at church tech today, um, on the AI front as well.

[01:05:35] This discussion has been amazing. You've brought a lot of insights, Kenny and Corey to, uh, the

[01:05:40] podcast today. Uh, I have a feeling a part two may be coming at some point. We may have to do this

[01:05:46] again, maybe in three or four or five months. Um, now that I have my brain a little bit more

[01:05:51] wrapped around what all AI can do, but thank you, Kenny for coming on. Thank you, Corey,

[01:05:57] for coming on the podcast today.

[01:05:58] It's been a pleasure. And thank you for the work you're doing.

[01:06:00] Uh, with this podcast and all the other things that you're doing.

[01:06:04] Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was a good time.

[01:06:05] Well, that wraps things up for today's episode. I can't wait to talk to you on the next tech

[01:06:10] arts podcast until then I'm David Loishner signing off by wishing you a great day and praying God

[01:06:16] blesses every moment of your week. See you soon.

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