AI in our sacred spaces - 10 Qs with Dave Betts
Why AI is an opportunity for a new era of ministry and how it's shaping us
David Betts doesn’t want you to be afraid of AI.
The Alberta-based pastor and academic writes about AI and the church and how artificial intelligence is showing up in our sacred spaces. In this interview he shares how the digital frontier is a radically new landscape for ministry, why we should treat AI like humans, how pastors use it, and more.
I hope you enjoy this latest instalment of 10 Qs.
You have an interesting bio! Can you share a little about your academic career and how you ended up in Red Deer, Alberta pastoring a church?
I was radically saved at nineteen in the middle of training to be a session musician. Within six weeks, I’d dropped everything to intern at my church, but pursued studies on the side. My first undergraduate degree was in leadership and management, before moving from the UK to Canada to pursue a theological degree in British Columbia.
After graduating, getting married, and a year in Regina, Saskatchewan, my Manitoban wife and I felt it would be good to spend some time in the UK, which is where we eventually felt a call to Red Deer, Alberta. Since moving to Red Deer, I completed a Master of Divinity and started working one day a week as an Academic Advisor for Okanagan Bible College. There are, of course, a lot of details missing, but that’s the overall thrust!
You place your writing on AI and the Church in the “digital frontier” which immediately frames ministry beyond the physical, embodied spaces of traditional ministry. To me that sounds like at least twice the amount of focus or work is required for those involved in making church happen. How do you bring the world of the digital space, where we live all week, and the traditional space of the church together?
You’re hitting on a great question that I feel needs some unpacking. The phrase “digital frontier” is intended to help us recognize that we’re stepping into wholly new territory as the Church. It’s good to keep in view that, optimistically, only around 1.7% of Christian church history has had any kind of access to the Internet, let alone social media, or this new AI wave (which includes large language models, etc.), which currently sits at about 0.125% of our post-resurrection journey as the body of Christ. We’re breaking radically new ground in terms of the tools available to us and the cultural landscape in which we minister.
With that in mind, I think there are a few ways to approach the question:
First, it’s essential to acknowledge that the fabric of our society has shifted so significantly—and in such a short period—that ministry, by necessity, will look somewhat different than it did even a generation ago. That doesn’t mean the Church’s mission has changed, but the environment in which we pursue that mission certainly has. In the same way that the printing press reshaped preaching, or the telephone reshaped pastoral care, so too will digital spaces reshape the way we carry out our calling.
Second, some of this change is simply the outworking of being human. We shape our tools, yes—but our tools also shape us. As people now spend much of their lives online, the digital realm has become a place where formation, conversation, and even relationships are taking root. And so, over time, what we think of as the “traditional” church space will inevitably be touched and informed by digital patterns of life. The bringing together of digital and traditional ministry, then, isn’t about choosing one over the other or doubling our workload—it’s about recognizing that these spaces are already converging in the lives of the people we serve.
Third, as pastors, ministers, and Christians more broadly, our task is to approach these changes with wisdom. That means paying attention to the gifts this moment offers—new ways to connect, teach, reach, and serve—while also remaining clear-eyed about the distortions and distractions digital technology can introduce. Not everything possible is necessarily helpful. But also, not everything new is a threat. The call is for discernment: to engage digital culture in a way that is faithful to Christ, rooted in community, and aligned with the long arc of the Church’s witness.
Who are some of the writers and thinkers shaping your outlook on AI?
I found Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence and Stuart Russell’s Human Compatible particularly helpful. There are still not as many Christian thinkers exploring the subject as I’d like, however!
When did you start writing about AI—was there an “inciting incident” that put you on the path to writing a book and regular articles about it?
It was the end of 2022, and I was in a meeting with the staff at Okanagan Bible College. We were discussing the issue of AI in plagiarism for our undergraduate and master's students, which led me down a little bit of a rabbit hole regarding artificial intelligence and the Church. I was shocked to find that there was almost nothing available for churches, other than vague conversations about using AI to write sermons.
The thought of being able to contribute something new to the Church in a world where faithful theologians have covered almost every facet of church life was tremendously exciting to me. I dove in headfirst!
In a recent article on Church and AI you write, “I think we should make a habit of treating artificial intelligence like humans.” Two part Q:
Why do you think that? And, What do you think the way we use AI tells us about ourselves at this juncture in history?
I admit that this quote is extremely dangerous out of context! To answer the first part of the question, let me start by saying this: We must never mistake AI for humans. Artificial intelligence is little more than a pile of advanced predictive code, with no thoughts, opinions, or genuine emotions. However, I’m concerned that as we increase our engagement with artificial intelligence, we’ll start treating people the same way we treat AI.
In other words, I’m genuinely concerned that we could risk becoming more curt, rude, dismissive, and direct with our flesh-and-blood counterparts, and start to miss some of the wonderful nuances that come with human interaction. As such, I suggest treating large language models (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) like humans to help ensure we treat genuine humans with greater care.
To answer the second part of the question, the way we use AI today reveals a profound impatience in us. We’re impatient with relationships; we’re in a Google-ized world where we’re impatient to find—and deeply consider—answers, and we’re exposed to a news cycle that is impatient for exposure, often to the detriment of journalistic integrity.
AI “helps” us to avoid difficult conversations (because it agrees with us when we tell it to); it “helps” us to avoid wrestling with research (because it cuts straight to the answer); and it “helps” us to avoid opinions that we disagree with, shortcutting the need for us to use any serious form of critical thinking.
AI reveals what we already know; to quote my Gen Z friends, it’s time to log off and touch grass.
There’s a lot more we could say, but it would require a lot more space.
How do you see AI impacting church culture and the way we do church today? How similar or different will that impact be ten years from now?
You’ve asked another excellent but huge question. I hope I can do it justice and keep the answer relatively brief!
Currently, AI is already having a profound impact on our societies, economies, and relational connections, and will continue to do so in the next decade. As AI becomes as ubiquitous as water (just as the Internet, music streaming, and social media were before it), the cultural landscape will inevitably change, in turn forcing the Church to adapt with it if it hopes to minister effectively.
We should think of artificial intelligence not as some ominous invading force on the horizon, but as a quiet thief in the night. AI won’t announce its coming impact on Church culture with fanfare. Its entrance into our sacred spaces will be subtle and deeply formative, changing how we think, relate, and engage with the world long before it changes how we operate as churches.
I believe that as AI transforms us, it will also transform the Church.
That said, AI does offer genuine practical benefits. It can streamline administrative workflows, assist with planning and communication, and provide basic pastoral support, like answering theological questions or offering prayer prompts. Over time, it may enable multilingual worship and greater inclusion for the hearing-impaired through the use of live translation and augmented reality technology. The list is endless. These tools are already impressive and will only improve.
But the benefits come with risks. There’s a real threat that AI becomes a shortcut to pseudo-spirituality, where people (especially pastors) are formed more by technology than theology; where the digital musings of a supercomputer usurp the role of the Spirit. The question isn’t whether AI will shape us, but to what extent we’ll allow it to.
What are some of the AI tools that you use in your daily life and in your work as a pastor?
I primarily use ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, which have impacted most areas of my life in some way. For example, I use it to ask basic medical questions, get help with complex administrative and coding tasks on my computer, act as a trivia host on long road trips, find the best price for refrigerator filters—the list goes on.
I’ve stumbled on one particular use case that I’d love to see more people make the most of: I run ChatGPT’s audio conversation features while I’m driving (safely and legally, of course). In particular, I ask for a roundup of the day’s headlines.
It’s incredible!
I can interrupt it at any point and ask it to tell me more about any given headline. Even better than that, I can ask follow-up questions. For example,
“What does this mean for X?”,
“Where is the potential for bias in this headline?”,
“You referred to Y; can you define Y and tell me why this matters?”,
“What’s the history of this conflict happening in Z?”
Using AI in this manner has been a game changer in my general news consumption. (Power user tip: You can also ask it to provide the top ten headlines in local news, global news, AI news, etc.)
In my work as a pastor, I utilize AI to assist with public writing (e.g., newsletters and social media), as well as to support preaching (a sticky one, which I explore in more detail here). We’re even exploring the use of AI for ministry handbooks (read more about that here).
In ministry, my golden rule is this: Artificial intelligence can be a great tool to support ministry, but it can also be an abysmal crutch.
Do you think AI can or should play a role in spiritual practices?
As I just mentioned, I believe AI can be a valuable tool to support spiritual practices. But the minute we allow AI to replace or dictate those spiritual practices, problems will begin to arise.
For example, asking ChatGPT to give feedback on a sermon is great. Asking ChatGPT to write a sermon isn’t. Asking ChatGPT to help you compose a heartfelt, meaningful message to a friend who has just lost their husband is great. Asking ChatGPT to write that message for you because you don’t feel like it isn’t.
You get the idea. A tool, rather than a crutch.
Your book gives guidelines for the Church in response to AI. Can you share one or two that you believe are most critical for pastors and church members to focus on?
The subtitle of my book is Seven Guidelines for Navigating the Digital Frontiers. It’s hard to pick just one of the seven as they’re all connected, but one of the most pressing is the importance of prioritizing relationships. We live in a time where rampant individualism, increasing secularization, geographical mobility, social media, and changing sexual ethics (to name just a few issues) have wreaked havoc on the connections in our society. If we’re not careful, AI—the Great Exacerbater—will likely only increase these struggles.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that no community or organization can rival the relational beauty of the Church when fully outworking its calling. Too often, the Bride of Christ can find itself distracted by the allure of intellectualism, entertainment, and savvy marketing. Pastors become CEOs rather than shepherds in all but name. Ironically, these are the sorts of things AI can do a reasonably good job of. However, AI will never be self-sacrificial; it will never be able to hold the hand of a faithful saint on his deathbed as his body succumbs to the ravages of cancer. It will never share a genuine smile or pray an authentic prayer.
The Church can fill the increasing relational void in a way that no AI system (or any other community) ever could. My encouragement to the Church is to keep relationship at the centre of their ministry endeavours in these rapidly changing times.
People have strong reactions to AI, they love it or hate it, think its the solve to all our problems or fear it. What word of encouragement or advice do you have for Christians who fall into either of the extremes?
There are legitimate reasons to be optimistic about artificial intelligence, and equally legitimate reasons to be concerned. However, whatever the outcome, remember this: the Church’s mission will never change. We are still called as believers to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission, in the Spirit’s power, and bring about the glorious worship of God the Father.
We can rejoice that Jesus won’t return to an empty, barren wasteland and suddenly realize that humans obliterated themselves by their stupidity before he arrived.
He is sovereign, after all.
At the same time, Christians have an opportunity—indeed, a responsibility—to guide a humanity made in God’s image toward living out the God-given calling of the Church; to go and make disciples of all nations in Jesus’ name.
About David Betts
David Betts is the author of The Church and AI: Seven Guidelines for Ministry on the Digital Frontiers. He serves as lead elder of Centre Church (formerly Trinity Church) in Red Deer, Alberta, and as an academic advisor at Okanagan Bible College. Dave and his wife, Sharaya, are proud parents of three wonderful children, and, in typically British fashion, he's fuelled by an endless stream of tea each day.
You can follow Dave at his Substack
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Excellent and thoughtful article. Great comparison to other tech and innovation waves from previous eras. The primary issue always being how do we respond to them, and seek the Kingdom first. Thanks Andrew and Dave!