Should Pastors Be Worried About AI?: How to Start & what to Watch Out For
In this episode of the Engage Church Network Podcast, Mike Glenn sits down with Katie Allred to talk about the rapidly evolving world of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and how it is impacting churches, pastors, and the way we communicate.
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Mike Glenn: Hi, I'm Mike Glenn and I am the president of the Engaged Church Network, and we're glad that you have joined us for our podcast. Today's podcast is gonna be a fun one for, I know me, and a lot of us, because we're gonna be talking about AI. Uh, our guest is Katie Allred. I met Katie when she joined the Brentwood Baptist staff 12 years ago.
Oh, I'm getting old. Uh, but, uh, she joined our communications and Katie quickly became my teacher in all things social media. Uh, didn't understand how people were paying attention to this, didn't understand how it worked and why wasn't I more engaged. And she has continued to be my teacher in this whole world of social dynamics, and now she has a new book out on AI.
So as soon as I saw the book, I gave Katie a call and said, "Come be on my podcast, please." And she is here, and I'm very grateful for that. She is a native of Alabama, grew up [00:01:00] in Mobile, graduated from the University of Mobile, and got your graduate degree from Florida, and has been on the faculty, the online faculty there at Florida in the area of communications.
Now works at churchcommunications.com, and that will be a good resource for you to spend some time with for more discussions about this. So Katie, welcome. Thank you for being here.
Katie Allred: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Mike Glenn: And okay, let's go. Let's- What is AI?
Katie Allred: Let's talk about it. Yeah, I mean, artificial intelligence.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Katie Allred: Scary.
Mike Glenn: Yes.
Katie Allred: It's like robots.
Mike Glenn: It's gonna take over everything. It's
Katie Allred: gonna take over the world.
Mike Glenn: And preaching all my sermons- Right ... and all that. And you
Katie Allred: won't have a job- That's
Mike Glenn: right ...
Katie Allred: ever again. That's
Mike Glenn: right.
Katie Allred: Yeah, I mean, it's kinda like the printing press was. Mm-hmm. You know, a thousand years ago they said, "Oh, no, the people will read the Bible for themselves."
Right. "What will they do?" Right? Yeah. Uh, and then we found out it was good. It was good, yeah. Uh, yeah, it was good. It ended up well. But yeah, so artificial intelligence. It [00:02:00] is a lot of different things. It can do a lot of different things. Uh, but when I think about artificial intelligence, I think about large language models.
Mm-hmm. Which l- are like ChatGPT, which you may have heard of- Mm-hmm ... from OpenAI or, or Claude from Anthropic. There's quite a few different ones. Mm-hmm. There's Gemini from Google. Uh, but essentially what they are, are- Like language models, so computers that are trained on lots of words- Mm-hmm ... and know a lot of things, and can help you in doing research, can help you brainstorm, can help you think through things and organize your thoughts.
Mm-hmm. Uh, and soon will be able to help you as you are wr- uh, even now, can help you as you're writing your sermons or answering email or- Mm-hmm ... coming up with a presentation, all sorts of different things. There's AI now for, you know, creativity, for editing video, for everything to making images. You can [00:03:00] create a picture of Moses parting the Red Sea if you want to in- Mm-hmm
three seconds, uh, with Midjourney. So there's, there's a lot of stuff going on right now in the world of AI, and it's, it's exciting, but it's also, you know, it can be scary for- Yeah ... some pastors.
Mike Glenn: Okay. I'm pastor of a local church. Everybody keeps talking to me about AI, and I'm reading AI. Should I be scared?
Katie Allred: Well, no. I mean, it's just like any other technological advancement that happens. I think that with AI, I think the frustration comes with, well, it shouldn't p- it shouldn't write my sermon. It shouldn't preach- Right ... it shouldn't preach my sermon. Well, of course not. Of course it shouldn't do that. Right. Uh, the Holy Spirit lives in you.
It doesn't live in your computer. And so you should really think about- ... where that comes from.
Mike Glenn: That is so basic. Yeah. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Katie Allred: Yeah, but now the Holy Spirit, through you, using your computer, can help write the sermon, but- Right ... it's been doing that for years, right? Right, right. Yeah. I mean, uh, but now- 'Cause, 'cause
Mike Glenn: my [00:04:00] Bible software-
Katie Allred: Right, helps you.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Katie Allred: Yeah, and commentaries help you. Right. And so, uh, y-
Mike Glenn: Ah, I didn't even think of a commentary as technology.
Katie Allred: And it is. But it
Mike Glenn: is.
Katie Allred: Yeah, especially now that it's in, like, Logos and you- Right ... can search it. Yeah, it's 100%. Like, it's, it's software. It's technology. Okay. All right. So now these large language mer- models are trained on these commentaries.
Mm-hmm. Um, and of course you have to double-check and fact-check and decide what your theological leaning will be- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... and, uh, where the Holy Spirit's leading you in that research and not take what they're saying exact for, you know, granted. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But, uh, you know, I think it's a wonderful tool for brainstorming and for coming up with metaphors or helping you think of an idea to, like, uh, start a sermon off with.
Mm-hmm. Like, you're, there, you're like, "Okay, I'm preaching a sermon on, uh, the Roman road, but I wanna start off with a story from my life. What kind of story should I think [00:05:00] of?" And it could ask you questions, uh, to help you come up with that story or think about stories from your own life that you could start and- Wow
open the sermon with. So yeah, it's pretty powerful. It's reall- really exciting to be able to have someone to, like, work with all the time. It's like a, an assistant.
Mike Glenn: Having a research assistant- Mm-hmm ... with you all the time.
Katie Allred: Right.
Mike Glenn: Hmm. Okay. Uh, again, yeah, you, you know how, uh, naive I am. Let's, let's use the proper term naive rather than dumb on, on, on- That's
Katie Allred: not true
Mike Glenn: on, on all this stuff. Uh, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna write a sermon, and let's say I'm gonna pr- uh, preach on John 3:16. I sit in front of my computer. How does AI help me?
Katie Allred: So you can literally just open ChatGPT and say, "Tell me about John 3:16." John 3:16. And it will give you some data that it just pulls up- Right
about John 3:16. Now, for it to become better, [00:06:00] you have to learn how to prompt it, which is where, uh, this book that I wrote come in. Okay, show
Mike Glenn: them the new book. Okay.
Katie Allred: There's the, there's the book. I'm sorry, this is the author's copy. So it's got some really great imaging there, so. Uh, and actually, I created this, uh, cover in AI, so isn't that fun?
Like, this, this cover was built in AI. Uh, and- Okay, t- uh, name of the book. This is AI Prompts for Church Leaders. Yeah. And-
Mike Glenn: AI Prompt for Church Leaders. And- And it is available wherever you can get books, Amazon and- On Amazon,
Katie Allred: yeah ... yeah ... uh, mostly Amazon. It's, uh, I published it through Amazon, but, uh, what it is is just a book full of examples so that you can get started using AI- Yeah
and prompting AI because a lot of the times just getting started or, like, just trying it- Uh-huh ... is hard- Right ... becasue it opens and it's a blank screen. It's just like writing a book. Mm-hmm. And you're like, "I don't know how to start writing a book." Mm-hmm. Um, well, AI is very [00:07:00] similar. You have to, like, kind of back up and think, "Well, what's the ti- what's the purpose of the book?
What's the title of the book?" Mm-hmm. "How do I outline it?" And then you give those instructions to AI- Mm-hmm ... and it will help you do those things. Uh, but this helps you learn how to do that essentially. To,
Mike Glenn: to start that conversation. Okay. Yeah. And this book is available. Now, you have used the AI to write your own book, a children's book?
Katie Allred: That is true, yeah. I, uh, used AI to write this children's book, Child of Light, which is also on Amazon. Ah. And I put together in one day, uh, this is a book on, uh, it's Christian affirmations for kids. Right. And so all of the graphics and all the imagery, everything was created 100% just from AI using Midjourney and ChatGPT to prompt it.
And so, and it came up with some really beautiful images- Yeah. Look it, ma- yeah. Look at, look at- I know, right? ... these gorgeous- It looks like, you know, DreamWorks- Yeah ... over here. And, uh, it was, yeah, it was [00:08:00] so much fun, a great book, uh, and just a fun thing to put together in an afternoon. And you can do it, too.
That's the crazy part. I, I,
Mike Glenn: no, I don't, I don't think- You know? Uh, imagine- I, I think I would call you and say, "Katie, why don't you do it." Imagine
Katie Allred: how great this is gonna be for children's pastors.
Mike Glenn: Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah. Like, they- Or parents. Can, can I sit down with my child and let's write our own book.
Katie Allred: Yeah, 100%.
Yeah. Yeah. If you master the software, you can totally do that. You can have the book be about them if you want to. Yeah. Uh, you can even make coloring pages-
Mike Glenn: Yeah ...
Katie Allred: with AI, and so you can make a coloring page of Mary and Martha, um, at the feet of Jesus- Yeah ... you know, learning. So there's so many different things that, like, just weren't possible just a year ago that are possible now.
Possible now.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm. Okay. Uh, what should I be weary of?
Katie Allred: Yeah, i- it- Or l-
Mike Glenn: leery, not weary Yeah ... just leery. What sh- Yeah ... what should I be careful with?
Katie Allred: Well, it, it can hallucinate, which means it [00:09:00] can just make up stuff. So if you don't give it enough context- Yeah ... about your church- Yeah ... or about, like, say you're wanting it to help you write an, an event description- Right
for Easter coming up at your church. Okay. Well, you can say, "Write an event description for Easter," and it will write some stuff, but it's going to just pull from the internet. Yeah. And so it's gonna be very generic. It, it, well, it's,
Mike Glenn: it's gonna pull words from the internet, literally. Yeah,
Katie Allred: yeah, and it's just gonna be really generic and not the best, and it may make up a time that this- Yeah
Easter event starts. And it may, like, just make up all sorts of, uh, information. So you really have to give it a lot of context.
Mike Glenn: Not, not unlike some pastors I know who would just, under pressure, make stuff up.
Katie Allred: Yeah, just make something up. Yeah, and, and, or, like, hand their intern a thing and not- Yeah ... tell them anything.
Right,
Mike Glenn: yeah.
Katie Allred: That's the thing, is that you can think of- A- AI as your gr- intern, but you have to give it-
Mike Glenn: The, the, the- You have to
Katie Allred: give it some historical knowledge ...
Mike Glenn: instructions- Yes ... context, all that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. [00:10:00] So being lazy with AI-
Katie Allred: I mean, you- ... it can- ... will be able to be lazy. Yeah. Yes. At one point, like, you, you will be able to, like, once you train it enough- Mm-hmm
and it has some memory of you- Right ... uh, especially if you pay, have the paid versions, it will become more trained on, like, you can- Okay ... train it on your voice. You can build a custom GPT built on your writing, and it will know, like, all of your writing, so you could pull together different parts of your writing- Yeah
just from that.
Mike Glenn: And- Like, like me with 50 years of sermons.
Katie Allred: Yeah, you have a lot of sermons. I was thinking about that on the way in. I was like, oh, we could, like, totally just turn one of your sermon series into a book- Right ... with your, you know, monologues that you have written. Mm-hmm. And just say, "Hey, change this monologue sermon into a chapter for a book," and it will, it will do that.
Like, it will rearrange it so that it makes sense that, to read. To, as,
Mike Glenn: as, as a read.
Katie Allred: Yeah. Hmm. 'Cause we know that spoken word- Yeah ... is very different from wr-
Mike Glenn: Yeah ... like, written word. Yeah, wr- writing for the ear and writing for the [00:11:00] eye is very, very different. Yeah. Okay, so now I got something I can do this afternoon is go home and- Yeah,
Katie Allred: 100%
turn
Mike Glenn: all my sermon series into, into books a- a- and that kind of stuff. Why not? Yeah.
Katie Allred: I think we should. So- I was thinking about that ...
Mike Glenn: how will you see this being used by n- most of us as pastors?
Katie Allred: Yeah. I, I definitely think research is gonna be a big part of it. Mm-hmm. We have a tool at, uh, missional marketing or church communications- Right
that I, I work at called Sermon Spark. Mm-hmm. And Sermon Spark, uh, you can find it, sermonspark.ai. Uh, it does research. It ha- is trained on specific, you know, is trained on a model with specific prompting already built in for you. Right. So when you look up a Bible verse, it will help, uh, steer that research a little bit more clearly.
Mm-hmm. So you don't have to know exactly how to prompt it very well. Right. It's a little- Okay ... more d- the tool is more tuned in- Okay ... to what a pastor would need. Uh, and we're gonna see a [00:12:00] lot more of those type tools. So if you're, like, not interested in learning how to make ChatGPT be a good research tool for sermons, you could find a tool- Mm-hmm
like that, uh, to, to help you, um,
Mike Glenn: a- along. You know, when this stuff was first coming out, our mutual friend Daryl Guardia- Mm-hmm ... used to t- taunt me with sermons that he had written off of my s- previous sermons- I think I saw that ... that were found. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Where, where he'd say, "Here's your sermon for this week."
Katie Allred: Right, right, right. And it would be
Mike Glenn: all of my writings from, from various things that, that he had given the, the computer access to. Yeah. All right. So let me, let me help... I mean, let me, in my li- little brain here- Okay ... if I can help it. We have All the words of the world.
Katie Allred: Yes.
Mike Glenn: Okay. And they are written down, stored in various places.
Mm-hmm. Okay? AI has access, and I'm being really simple here in my, in my breaking it down Alabama- Sure ... style as I do. [00:13:00] AI has access to all these words.
Katie Allred: To a lot of it, yes.
Mike Glenn: Yeah, okay. So I can go to AI and say, "I want to know, for the context of this sermon, I would like to know the details of a Roman crucifixion."
Katie Allred: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: And it would, it would do the research for that, rather than me going to four or five of my books on the shelf.
Katie Allred: Mm-hmm.
Mike Glenn: You know, the, the image of, of, uh, you know, my favorite pastors historically, their, the, the great pictures of them are sitting at their desk, pen in hand, paper, legal pad- Right ... and four or five- 100 books
b- are open at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? That's the classic picture. Right. Okay. Though we don't have those books on our desk anymore. Right. That's- They're all on the,
Katie Allred: the shelf behind you ... yeah, on the shelf anymore. Yeah, yeah. So
Mike Glenn: they're off in the, uh, in the cloud somewhere. Right. AI goes and finds them and brings them to my computer.
Right. And then ask... It saves me all the time of that [00:14:00] research- Yes ... and allows me now to start crafting- Right ... this for, for the needs of my congregation.
Katie Allred: That is
Mike Glenn: correct. Okay.
Katie Allred: Yeah. That's the hope, at least.
Mike Glenn: That's the hope.
Katie Allred: And, and, you know, I think a lot of people still have a lot of feelings about, uh, plagiarism and what that looks like.
I think it's still the Wild, Wild West. Right. So we don't exactly know. Yeah. I think there's gonna have to be some grace for that because, uh, I mean, you can probably say, write a s- a sermon that sounds like Andy Stanley, and it will- It will do that, right ... produce something that sounds like Andy Stanley.
Now, will it be plagiarized? I don't know. Like- Yeah ... right now, I think it's still a little up in the air about- Mm-hmm ... what that means.
Mike Glenn: Yeah, when people say to me, "Man, I really, I stole your line from your sermon," I say, "Well, that's fine. The guy I stole it from is gonna be mad." I know, right?
Katie Allred: Yeah. Well, and that's, and that's kind of what I have to explain to a lot of pastors is do you, do you cite every commentary you pull- Yeah
from when you are, are writing your sermon? Uh, d- to, do you tell the congregation? Uh-huh. Because a lot of times they're like, "Well, [00:15:00] shouldn't I put in the bulletin or something- Yeah ... that, you know, we're using AI?" Right. And I was like, "Not necessarily." I mean, do you tell them you're using Photoshop? I don't know.
Like...
Mike Glenn: Yeah. And well, the, the old line of, uh, of, of preaching is you don't wanna le- leave your tools laying around. Mm-hmm. Uh, and if somebody comes and says, "Hey, I, I was interesting in the point that you made about crucifixion." Mm-hmm. "Can you give me some more resources?" Mm-hmm. Then you're able to tell them, "Yes, here's where I found the research, and here are some other books- Mm-hmm
or other sources"-
Katie Allred: Yeah ...
Mike Glenn: uh, kind of thing. But it, it gets a little suspicious when you either know you can't cite anything- Yeah ... or, uh-
Katie Allred: And, and, and I will say ChatGPT is getting better at giving you citations. Right. There is a, there is a new part of it called Deep Research- Mm-hmm ... that if you turn it on, it will pull and, and cite where it's c- pulling that information from.
Yeah. That is new. Uh, a lot of them still don't do that. Mm-hmm. So you are [00:16:00] still wondering, where did it come from? Yeah. But then, uh, there's other models like Perplexity that w- will give you even more citations, so I think that's gonna continue coming up. Also- To, to
Mike Glenn: work on, yeah.
Katie Allred: Yeah. Uh, uh, I think, too, with academic research and that kind of thing- Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm ... as it continues to grow, we're gonna see that we'll be able to filter by, you know, uh, academic research or- Yeah ... um, theological resources- Mm-hmm ... and those kind of things as it continues to grow.
Mike Glenn: I'm a, I'm a, I'm pastor sitting at my little desk. Mm-hmm. Got my computer up. I've just watched this podcast.
Yeah. How do I get started?
Katie Allred: Yeah, so you can go to chatgpt.com and open a free account.
Mike Glenn: Uh-huh.
Katie Allred: And literally type in there, my church's name is Mulberry Baptist Church- Mm-hmm ... which is the church I grew up at, in Maplesville, Alabama.
Mike Glenn: Maplesville.
Katie Allred: Yeah. And, uh- We're from
Mike Glenn: Alabama. We can laugh at that. You can't.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So
Katie Allred: that's right. You c- you can, you know, uh, and, and you gotta give [00:17:00] it some more context, right? Yeah. So, like, we're a church of 100 people. We're right beside Isabella High School. We have, um, you know, a youth ministry and a children's ministry called Little Stars.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Katie Allred: And I am preaching on Romans this week.
I would like you to write an email, um, welcoming our new members. Yeah. Or something like that. Okay. And then it will write an email for you. Now, of course, it, it only knows that much- Mm-hmm ... that you gave it, but it will write a pretty good email, uh, for you to find a place to get started. It's also really great for handling difficult subjects.
I think that was something that I, I found interesting working with pastors and AI. Mm-hmm. So, uh, the AI for Churches work that I do with, um, Missional is, it's ai-for-churches.com. I know, sorry. The other, the other URL was taken. But, uh, in it, we, um- We, we have a cohort and then we do training [00:18:00] specifically with churches.
But what we found is like, uh, pastors have used it for handling those difficult conversations or handling like difficult emails and stuff- Mm-hmm ... that they have to write. Uh, specifically or maybe even around like giving or like, "I don't know how to handle this situation." Mm-hmm. "How do I do that?" Right.
Like, "How would I start that conversation?" Like, "Give me some talking points." Mm-hmm. And it will help them think through those things. So not even just from a, like a, a writing, producing content sermon, but also like, uh, from a counseling standpoint. Like-
Mike Glenn: Right.
Katie Allred: Wow ... uh, it can help you think through how to handle a situation or, uh, how to word something in a way that still comes across- Mm-hmm
as compassionate, um, when, you know, you may not feel like you have any compassion left to give.
Mike Glenn: Well, you know that's why I drink coffee, right?
Katie Allred: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: So I can take a sip of coffee and-
Katie Allred: Yeah ...
Mike Glenn: even though I'm thinking that's the stupidest thing anybody's ever-
Katie Allred: Yeah. The, uh, I, I definitely think coffee [00:19:00] is the- ... is the Baptist's-
you know, liquor essentially. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's right.
Mike Glenn: What do you want us to be sure we know about AI?
Katie Allred: Yeah. Don't, don't be afraid. Uh- Okay ... try it.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Katie Allred: If it's not for you, that's okay. Uh, just know that it's, it's going to... It already has infiltrated your everyday life, even if you don't realize it.
The... When you open your phone with your face- Mm-hmm ... that is AI. If you go to Gmail and you write an email and it kinda finishes your sentence- Y- yeah ... that's AI. Uh, uh, all those things are already happening. Netflix's algorithm to recommend a new show to you. Yeah, things they, all,
Mike Glenn: all the recommendations I get from, from Amazon about what next book to buy.
Katie Allred: Right. All those things are already- All that, yeah ... AI. So just know like it's already a part of your life. Uh- And so embracing it now, just learning about it and getting- Mm-hmm ... some foundational information will help you kind of along that curve, 'cause, [00:20:00] uh, the church is what? Traditionally, like, 10 to 20 years behind on technology.
Yeah, I wish
Mike Glenn: we were that close, yeah.
Katie Allred: And I think 2020 pushed a lot of churches just to start streaming.
Mike Glenn: Yes.
Katie Allred: Yes.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Katie Allred: And I don't want some major pandemic or plague causing us- That, that, that- ... to have to finally-
Mike Glenn: Finally catch up with that, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's be more proactive on that. Yeah. Yeah. For
Katie Allred: sure.
Mike Glenn: Okay. How do people reach you?
Katie Allred: Yeah. Uh, churchcommunications.com, of course, is a great place to go. Mm-hmm. You can email me, katie@churchcommunications.com as well. I would love to have you in our AI cohort, and I can send you that information if you shoot me an email.
Mike Glenn: Oh, I'll be glad to do that.
Katie Allred: Yeah.
Mike Glenn: Katie has been my teacher for 12 years, and continues to be a great friend to me.
Uh, she can be your teacher as well, and it's katie@churchcommunications.com. Thanks for being here. Yeah. I am so proud of your work. Thank you. I am so proud of you, so. That's Katie Allred. I'm Mike Glenn, and this is Engage Church Network. Thanks for being [00:21:00] with us.
