The age of artificial intelligence is here. And it’s not going away.

For some time, AI has been used by social media giants and large corporations behind the scenes, shaping our social media feeds, recommending shows on our preferred streaming platform, and suggesting routes on our phone’s maps app. 

But now, the possibilities of what AI can do seem limitless, with breakthrough capabilities announced weekly or even daily. AI has moved into the rhythms of ordinary life, impacting everything from how we work to the recipes we cook for our families. ChatGPT alone now serves more than 700 million weekly users worldwide, competing with other AI applications like Claude, Gemini, Midjourney, and Perplexity for market share. 

I know Christian leaders who use AI to do research and write grant proposals. I know people who have uploaded blood test results to their preferred large language model (LLM) and gotten both a plain-English breakdown and a detailed plan for improving their health. Others turn meeting recordings into strategic plans, with Zoom calls sometimes attended by more notetaking bots than humans. Students are using AI. Professors are using AI. And the people attending church with you are using AI. 

So the question for Christians (and especially Christian leaders) is not whether AI is here. It is. The questions are: What do we do about it? How do we lead faithfully in the age of AI?

I want to suggest that the most important word in that question is not "AI." The most important word is "we." Because what we do with this technology will reveal what we believe about human beings, about God's call on our lives, about his mission for his church, and about our responsibility to steward the world he's entrusted to us.

The Temptation of Every Age

From the dawn of the Iron Age, a thousand years before Christ, to the transformational impact of the codex instead of the scroll, every major technological shift in history has forced God’s people to think again. The printing press transformed how the Bible spread across the known world. The industrial revolution reshaped work, family life, and the rhythms of the week. Radio and television changed how preaching reached the masses. The internet rewired how we communicate, learn, and form community. 

Every era and technological advance has pulled Christians in two opposing directions. On one side, rapid change can stir panic: This technology will destroy us. On the other side, Christians can respond with passivity: This doesn't concern the church; let someone else figure it out. But both responses fail to live up to what the moment requires. Panic misses what God might be doing through new tools, neglecting the rich heritage of past Christians who have engaged new technologies to reach people with the gospel. Passivity cedes cultural influence to the self-serving interests of technology developers, who tend to prioritize profit or “progress” over human flourishing—an especially pronounced concern with the latest iterations of AI technologies.

But historically, the church has flourished not by avoiding technology in either panic or passivity, but by asking deeper questions: How does this technology serve the gospel? How does it serve people? Who is included and who might be left behind? What does it do to us, rather than just what does it do for us?

AI deserves the same treatment.

Not Hype. Not Fear. Flourishing.

In thinking about technology and AI, I keep coming back to a single term: flourishing. 

Not efficiency. Not productivity. Not even safety. 

Flourishing. 

Economists and technologists are making predictions about how AI will change the job market and enhance productivity, with outcomes ranging from universal abundance to catastrophic poverty. Yes, change is assured, but only God knows its precise shape. What’s more, Christians have never measured technology primarily by productivity. We have always focused on God’s creative and redemptive purpose for his world, through flourishing.

That word isn’t just a flowery, feel-good idea, but is loaded with theological weight. It includes the Hebrew concept of shalom: wholeness, peace, right-relatedness. Flourishing happens when human beings live fully into their identity in the image of God, in the right relationship with their Creator, each other, and the world. It's not just the absence of harm. It's the presence of what God intended.

So the question isn’t whether AI is useful. Instead, I'm asking: Does this technology help us to be more fully human? Does it strengthen our relationships, our vocations, and our capacity to love God and love our neighbor? Does it serve what is deepest and most important about us?

Those are harder questions. And they require a Christian framework to answer well.

I'm asking: Does this technology help us to be more fully human? Does it strengthen our relationships, our vocations, and our capacity to love God and love our neighbor? Does it serve what is deepest and most important about us?

A Better Question

The popular conversation around AI tends to focus on both optimization and prevention. Optimization asks, "How can we use this to grow?" while prevention asks, "How do we prevent this from harming us?" Both questions are reasonable and worth asking and answering, yet neither is deep enough.

The better question is the question Christians are (or should be) asking: “How does this tool help us live into our calling from God to live as his missional people in the world?”

That question doesn't end at productivity. It touches fruitfulness, formation, and virtue. It touches how we love our neighbors, raise our children, serve the vulnerable, and pursue justice. It asks not just "What can AI do?" but "What is AI doing to us?"

Far from irrelevant, the church is precisely equipped to answer these kinds of questions. We have answers to the most important questions about the most pressing technological issues of our moment. We have centuries of wisdom about technology, power, formation, and flourishing. We have theologians, ethicists, pastors, and practitioners. We have a living tradition rooted in Scripture and a community shaped by the Holy Spirit.

We can’t sit this one out. Sitting it out wouldn’t just miss an opportunity. It would abdicate our responsibility.

The Call to Engage

I'm not calling for uncritical adoption of every AI tool that comes down the pike. I'm not saying every church needs an AI strategy by next quarter. And I'm certainly not saying AI will solve the church's problems.

I am saying that Christians, and especially Christian leaders, need to engage. Christians don't have to choose between the hype and the panic. We have a third way: discernment. We need to have conversations as local congregations. Our approaches must prioritize the spiritual formation of Christians, cultivating competency and wisdom around AI. We must address tools like ChatGPT and Claude Code, and also point out how AI influences our lives under-the-radar, like deciding what we see in our social media or streaming feeds.

We can’t meet this moment passively. This moment calls for what the church has always offered at our best: discernment. Not fear, not hype, but the kind of careful, prayerful thinking that asks: What does it mean to flourish as human beings made in God's image in this moment?

That question doesn't have a simple answer. But it's exactly the right kind of question. And the church is uniquely positioned to ask such questions and offer answers—if we have the courage to show up.

The age of AI is here. Will the church be late to a conversation the world is having without us? 

I believe we can, and we must, show up.