AI for churches—How to automate, create, & connect more effectively

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Technology is changing the way we do ministry, and artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming a powerful tool for ministries. 

While AI for churches might sound intimidating or futuristic, its practical applications can help pastors and their teams streamline their work, improve communication, enhance discipleship, and ultimately reach more people with the gospel.

Many pastors and church staff feel stretched thin—balancing sermon preparation, discipleship, event planning, administrative tasks, and social media engagement. 

AI tools for churches can help by automating repetitive tasks, generating high-quality content, and providing insights that enable everyone to make better decisions. 

Let’s explore six practical ways to leverage AI to multiply your church’s impact, along with AI tools you can try out today!

1. Multiply church content creation with AI

It’s no surprise that people spend hours every day scrolling through social media. So, how can your church better connect people with your gospel-centered messages and content? 

The key is to repurpose your church’s content—like sermon videos, Bible studies, and other ministry content—into small, easily shareable pieces of content. While this sounds simple, this process is time-consuming and requires staff or volunteers with video editing and social media skills. 

Today, new church AI technology like Pulpit AI instantly converts your sermons into over 20 pieces of powerful content. For example, simply upload your sermon video and within minutes you’ll have:

• Sermon clips for social media
• Sermon video captions
• Devotionals based on key sermon points
• Small group discussion guides
• Newsletters & emails

This allows your church to reach people beyond Sunday morning, keeping them engaged throughout the week. The more people interact with your resources, the more they’ll be connected with your church and your message! 

Other AI-powered content tools to try out:

• ChatGPT—Helps with research as well as drafting sermon summaries, social media posts, and email campaigns.
• Claude—Similar to ChatGPT, Claude can help you write with a more natural human voice.

2. Enhance discipleship with AI-powered resources

AI can personalize discipleship resources for church members based on their spiritual journey and needs. For instance:

• AI-powered Bible study apps like YouVersion offer personalized devotionals and Scripture recommendations.
• AI tools can help brainstorm and create interactive discipleship plans based on sermon themes.

Use these tools for research, brainstorming, or to prepare for writing. It’s helpful to think of these AI tools as your personal assistant. Start a conversation, telling them about your project, your goals, and any other details before you get started. 

AI isn’t meant to write your sermons and discipleship content for you, but it can help with research, study, and improve your messages. Be sure to edit and double-check AI content to ensure its accuracy and that it aligns with your doctrine and theology.

By leveraging AI, churches can provide more tailored resources that keep members engaged in their faith throughout the week.

Free AI tools for creating discipleship resources:

• Gemini (by Google): Assist pastors and church leaders with tasks like sermon preparation, creating engaging content, and streamlining administrative work, allowing them to focus more on ministry
• Copilot (by Microsoft): Helps researching for sermons, creating presentations, composing emails, and managing schedules.

Try out these AI prompt examples:

Prompt 1: Discipleship plan

• “Create a four-week discipleship plan based on our 1 Corinthians 13. Be sure to include devotionals, prayers, and practical life applications.”

Prompt 2: Daily Bible reading plan

• “Generate a daily Bible reading plan for Holy Week. Provide key insights into each of the scriptures and how they relate to Easter, Holy Week, and the everyday lives of Christians.”

3. Create custom sermon art & church graphics

Beautifully designed sermon art can help create excitement and keep people’s attention. Technology has advanced to the point where you can share your sermon ideas with AI and ask it to create illustrations, graphics, and other images. 

You can also use AI to generate graphics for promoting your events, holidays, or other important gatherings. 

• Canva’s AI design tools: Assists with creating visually engaging church graphics, sermon slides, and flyers.
• Grok image generator: Grok’s powerful image creator allows you to simply type in your ideas to get custom art, graphics, and images. 

Tip: Check out Subsplash’s free library of professionally-designed church graphics that you can customize for your sermons, holidays, social media and other church events!

4. Improve budgeting & financial stewardship

AI-powered financial tools can help churches make better budgeting decisions and ensure wise stewardship of resources. AI financial tools can analyze giving trends, predict seasonal donation fluctuations, provide HR and payroll insights, and help create more accurate financial reports.

Finance AI tools for churches:

• QuickBooks: Offers AI insights that help churches manage their budgets efficiently.
• Gusto: Empowers better payroll and HR budget decisions with AI-driven tools, notably a custom report generator.

These AI-driven financial tools can act like your own personal financial expert, ensuring your funds are used wisely while planning for future growth.

5. Reach multilingual communities through AI translation

Many churches serve diverse communities with different language needs. AI-powered translation tools can break language barriers and make sermons, worship services, and ministry content accessible to more people.

AI translation churches can use:

• DeepL Translator: High-quality translations for sermon transcripts and bulletins.
• Google Translate: Assists with quick translations for outreach and communication.

Using powerful AI tools for churches, pastors can better serve their multilingual congregations and reach new communities with the gospel.

6. Use AI for event planning & church growth strategies

Planning church events like retreats, vacation Bible school, or conferences requires a lot of careful thought and coordination. AI can help by:

• Suggesting event themes based on church demographics and trends.
• Brainstorming and writing event programs.
• Automating guest registration and email reminders.
• Analyzing past event data to optimize future attendance and engagement.

AI event planning tools:

• Meta AI: Helpful tools to help churches identify trends, connect with their members, and share their message.
• ChatGPT: Easily generate creative event ideas and marketing strategies.

Sample prompts you can try out:

Prompt 1: Vacation Bible School Themes

• “Provide a list of the five most popular Vacation Bible School (VBS) themes for this summer. Include a brief description of each theme, along with suggested activities and decorations.”

Prompt 2: Planning Church Events

• “Identify trending church events held during the year, excluding holidays and weddings. Offer guidance on how to plan and execute these events, including tips for promotion, budgeting, and volunteer coordination.”

With AI, churches can plan impactful events with less administrative stress and more engagement.

The future of AI for churches

AI is not a replacement for church leaders—it’s a tool to help them be more effective. By using AI to automate tasks, create content, streamline administration, and enhance discipleship, churches can focus more on building relationships and serving their communities.

As technology advances, churches that embrace AI will be better equipped to reach people in new and innovative ways. 

Ready to take advantage of AI for your church? Try Pulpit AI today and transform your sermons into powerful content that reaches more people than ever before.

Start your Pulpit AI free trial now!

More resources you may find helpful

• How pastors should (& shouldn’t) use AI for sermons
• Sermon transcribers made simple: How to choose the right one
• 6 key church metrics & how to track them
• Church software—10 solutions to help grow your church
• Pulpit AI: What it does, how it works, & why it’s a gamechanger