Church & Pastoring

Andrew and Joel sit down with Scott Hurst, a self-described 'average' Toronto pastor, to hear how the AI conversation actually sounds between pastors. Less 'should AI write your sermon' (nobody is) and more rental agreements, meeting minutes, the capacity for mystery, and the pain points a shepherd should never automate away.

Crossway gave the show permission to play a whole chapter of Andrew Wilson’s Remaking the World, “Machines: Becoming Industrialized,” read by the author himself. All three hosts then respond: whether the AI moment is a second Industrial Revolution or what Joel would rather call an autonomy revolution, why Austin thinks the internet is still the closer analogy, why the Luddite comparison turns dark around data centers, and what the invention of marketing did to who gets to speak in a church.

SEO is dead, so Andrew reframes the whole question: communication is how we love our neighbor, which means choosing the right medium. The hosts work through email, group texts, church apps like Planning Center, a Google Voice text ministry, and the new robots.txt era of search.

A constructive case for using AI well in Christian life and work.

John Knox on the state of the faith-and-technology conversation right now.

What happens to reading, writing, and teaching when AI can do the homework.

Setting the tone: neither breathless nor fearful, how to talk about AI with wisdom.

Michael Graham on benchmarking AI models for Christian use and what the results reveal.

Smart glasses are coming to the pew; the hosts on presence, distraction, and worship.

Paul Hoffman on AI in ministry, the shepherd's irreplaceable work, and what machines cannot pastor.

Kelly Kapic returns on limits, finitude, and the freedom of being a creature who cannot do it all.

Cory Hixson on finding your place and calling in the Christian technology world.

Responding to Wes Huff's history of technology and Christianity, and what a tech-savvy faith looks like.

Ian Harber on stewarding testimony and story online without turning the self into a brand.

Pastor Luke Simmons on making local, faithful digital content for a real congregation.

Caleb Wait on building durable institutions, not just audiences, in digital ministry.

First in a series on church and tech: Chris Martin on marketing the gospel without manipulation.

Cam Pak on building Faith Tools, a directory of Christian apps, without turning faith into self-service.

Jay Y. Kim on how noise rewires our craving for silence, and why analog presence transforms where digital only informs.

Devin, Sora, and a flood of releases: the hosts try to make sense of an AI moment moving faster than anyone can track.

From CES 2024, the hosts look past chatbots to embodied AI and robots, and ask how Jesus would meet a machine with a body.

As OpenAI's board drama unfolds, the hosts read accelerationism and caution through a Christian frame.

Ian Harber joins to weigh AI companions, a fragmenting internet, and what is real when the feed is full of bots.

PulpitAI's CEO makes the case for extending sermons into devotionals with AI, and faces the question of what only a local pastor can do.

Chris Martin on the anxiety social media breeds, the gap between our front- and backstage selves, and how churches should show up online.

John Dyer on what changes when Scripture moves from print to screen, and whether the People of the Book are quietly becoming the People of the Screen.

ChatGPT has arrived. The hosts ask what it means that we make AI in our own image, and where moral agency really lives.

FaithTech founder James Kelly on the difference between exploitative, responsible, and redemptive technology, and why lament belongs in the conversation.

Can we be fully present in a virtual world? A look at the metaverse through embodiment, the incarnation, and what actually makes us persons.