'AI for Pastors': Utilizing Artificial Intelligence for Sunday Sermons and Beyond

An AI platform designed to enhance pastors' sermon delivery will be launched this month.

Michael Whittle and Jake Sweetman have announced that Pulpit AI will be officially released on July 22, featuring both free and paid versions.

Whittle, who is based in Nashville, and Sweetman, senior pastor of Cathedral Church in Los Angeles, have been friends for over 10 years.

Churches and pastors can use Pulpit AI, a generative AI app, to upload any format of their sermons, such as audio, video, manuscript, or outline, according to Whittle.

Our app automatically generates various related content for pastors and churches based on the sermon.

Whittle stated that churches require a variety of materials such as devotionals, discussion questions, guides for small groups, newsletters, and social media content to communicate with their congregation.

The inspiration for Pulpit AI was to enhance the delivery of sermons to the congregation while reducing the workload of the church staff.

Whittle recounted how he ran into Sweetman one day and suggested building a tool that would allow users to upload their sermons to an app and turn them into daily devotionals for the congregation to read.

Two people inquired a Cathedral Church team member about her thoughts on the idea.

""So that was the genesis of the idea," Whittle said."

‘Valuable enough to live on'

According to Sweetman, who spoke with Planet Chronicle Digital via Zoom, pastors invest a significant amount of time into sermon preparation.

Sweetman stated that he devotes "between 10 to 15 hours weekly" to composing a sermon.

"For most preachers, their sermon does not endure beyond Sunday, except for possibly being uploaded to a podcast," Sweetman stated.

Pulpit AI is able to turn a sermon into additional content without "a huge time investment and a big cost investment."

He stated that the tool in Pulpit AI is very helpful from a discipleship standpoint and can turn a sermon into additional content without a significant time or cost investment.

Sweetman stated, "The introduction of Pulpit AI has opened up a significant opportunity for content distribution to churches. We anticipate spending 15 hours each week crafting sermons, which we believe is valuable enough to endure beyond the 90-minute Sunday service in the minds of our congregation."

Unlike other AI programs, which have been accused of inaccuracies and bias, Pulpit AI will not, say, suddenly start spouting heresy without warning, Whittle said.

"What you input into our app is what it outputs," Whittle stated.

So "you're uploading something that you have created."

Pulpit AI, he said, does not generate the sermon itself.

The sermon is directly based on the content and not sourced from various internet articles.

Whittle stated that it's not suitable for ChatGPT to compose a sermon from scratch.

"We will not include any commentary or exegesis in the app that diverges from the original purpose of the sermon uploaded by the author."

Skepticism of church's use of AI

Although Dr. Charlie Camosy, a professor of medical humanities at Creighton University School of Medicine and Msgr. Curran Fellowship in Moral Theology at St. Joseph Seminary in New York, did not dismiss AI outright, he believes the church should exercise caution in its use.

"Camosy advised Planet Chronicle Digital in an email to slow down and think, pray, and observe before taking any action."

I believe that using AI to aid human interactions is acceptable and can sometimes be even better. That's great.

"What would it mean if the craft of taking one's sermon notes and using them to create other documents goes away? Maybe nothing. But do we know that yet? Hard to predict."

He expressed concern that AI could potentially diminish human communication.

If the practice of using sermon notes to create other documents disappears, it may not mean anything. However, we cannot be certain about this. It is difficult to predict the outcome.

"The church prioritizes service and love of others, imitating Christ, rather than being efficient and time-saving."

""No one knows the consequences of using these technologies, and the church is uniquely positioned to take a long-term view on whether it's a good idea," he said."

A pastor who used Pulpit AI before its release found it user-friendly and straightforward, allowing his team to focus on other tasks.

Since the creation of the platform by Pulpit AI, Pastor Adam Mesa of Patria Church in Rancho Cucamonga, California, has started small groups on sermons and podcasts.

The system provides us with a large number of category summaries, which has allowed our team to increase the scope of our communication emails, small group questions, and content.

Mesa stated that Patria Church has approximately 12,000 members and many have expressed their satisfaction with the updated communication frequencies.

Pulpit AI is a massive benefit for me because it takes certain tedious things out of my team's workload, and they heavily rely on it weekly.

According to Mesa, it takes approximately five minutes to transcribe the entire audio file, regardless of its length, after uploading it to the app.

Mesa can produce two podcast episodes per week with the help of Pulpit AI, he stated.

"After loading, each tool will give us the [content] in just a few minutes," Mesa stated.

Mesa stated that the episode summary, transcription, discussion questions, key points, and e-mail recap were provided.

The platform has been loved by us overall, he said.