Whether artificial intelligence can write a better sermon than a person is now a closed argument, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve seen it! The answer is an unequivocal ‘yes!’ Furthermore, people who know how to use AI well can write better sermons with AI than without it. Somewhere beyond the soulless slop AI can sometimes produce, and the stretched resources of the time-poor minister, lies an obviously better option: small groups of subject-matter experts augmenting their biblical and theological expertise with AI to produce weekly sermons for broad Sunday congregational engagement. Such an approach could release those in frontline ministry to reclaim hours every week for more worthwhile investment. Few ministers could rival such groups in creating sermons of theological rigour, depth, clarity, spiritual nuance, contextual discipleship, etc. Those who could would likely be grateful to not have to.
Some may argue that it has been a long time since a good argument could be made for having every minister write their own sermon each week from scratch. Perhaps the meteoric rise of AI, and the unrelenting demands of contemporary life and ministry, will create an inflection point in ministry that is too hard to dismiss: why do we keep doing this to ourselves? The time-consuming nature of preparing sermons, combined with the relatively limited fruit such highly customised creations produce, finds the whole approach wanting. Requiring every minister to learn the art and science of crafting sermons, and then expecting them to consistently produce high-quality sermons every week is a lot to ask. Sermon prep. must be among the most labour intensive, resource-hungry, and entirely unnecessary efforts the contemporary church engages in. (Many will be unaware that some ministers put up to a full day each week aside for this). Exactly why we are so committed to having every minister recreate the homiletic wheel every week at the cost of leaving so much else undone, I do not know. Picture it: every congregational minister writing their very own customised sermon to for their congregation every… single… week. All-too-often these sermons are not very good, and do not reflect well the effort that has gone into writing them. To put it bluntly, weekly sermon writing for each and every minister is a redundant task. The sooner the church can adapt to this new paradigm, the more effective (and potentially inspiring) it can become.
My question to the church is this: In a world of such need and suffering, is to do otherwise poor stewardship of our collective time and resources?
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