Justin R. Lester (self-described "tech pastor") explains how AI tools can help local churches by streamlining sermon preparation, communication, graphics, and research. He walks through three specific tools — ChatGPT for sermon outlines and study questions, Canva for branded social-media/event graphics, and Perplexity for deeper research — and emphasizes that these tools are accessible (free tiers exist) and intended to assist, not replace, pastoral work. He closes with calls-to-action pointing to his website, ebook, and masterclass.
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Foreign. I'm Justin, AKA Well, I like to call myself that Tech pastor. I get to pastor a church. I also love technology. I believe in the merging of faith in tech. And this stuff is always so fun to me. And so today I wanted to talk about how AI tools are taking over. They're everywhere. And if you didn't know, use AI every single day. And so today I wanted to talk through how AI tools are taking over. What does this mean for your church? You can use them. Let's talk about it today. Welcome to, I don't know, another version, another SEAS session with that tech basket. Did you know that 77% of tech insiders are now using AI tools? It's more than some, more than just Google, right? It's. It's AI tools are transforming the way that people work, the way that people research, the way that people communicate. But here's the big question. What does it mean for your church? Well, I want to show you how you can use tools to revolutionize preparing your sermons, how you can communicate with your congregation, and even do outreach. So first of all, why AI matters to churches. AI isn't really just for tech companies anymore. It's being used to streamline tasks, create content, manage communications, all of which is crucial for your church. Think about the hours you spend preparing sermons, writing newsletters, even posting on social media. AI can now make these tasks faster and easier, allowing you to focus on what really matters, building community and sharing the gospel. So tools like ChatGPT, or tools like Canva, or tools like Perplexity, AI helping churches around the globe get smarter and not harder, work smarter, not harder. And it's beautiful. And, and the beauty of all of this is these tools are accessible to everyone. And there's free versions of all of them. Now, the pro versions turn it up a notch, but they're free for everyone. So whether you're tech savvy or not, you don't need a degree in computer science to be effective in your ministry. So let's walk through these tools. So the first one is ChatGPT, and let me talk about ChatGPT. So first we have ChatGPT, and to me, this is amazing tool for helping to develop your sermons, even generate Bible study questions. For example, if you're preparing a sermon on grace, let's say this. So let's say, give me a sermon outline for a sermon on grace. And in ChatGPT, now I have the Pro version, but in Chat GPT you're able to see here, give me a sermon outline on God's grace. Now, you can see here, I'm not telling you to preach this sermon. What this is going to give you a chance to do is see some scriptures, give you a definition on it, give purpose to it, and it's going to cultivate it as we're writing right now. Now, this is not the voice of God. Rather, this is giving you ideas for it. Now, before you get weird and say, oh my God, ideas, name a pastor. Name a preacher who hasn't gotten an idea from somebody else. So now, instead of you getting an idea from a person on YouTube, getting an idea that's new, that's been developed and different online, don't get weird. This is not the voice of God. It helps you manage through some of these things and also it gives you a chance to research tricky theological questions and get inspiration for some of the series. It's like having a research assistant at your fingertips. And that's what I love about using this when it comes to pastoring and preaching. So that's my first tip. Take a look at ChatGPT. Use it, have some fun with it, don't preach it, but allow it to give you inspiration to think through some things for your ministry. Now let's talk about social media, graphic creation and different things like that for visuals. So whether you need graphic for social media, your flyers or your church events, Canva has you covered. The greatest part to me about Canva, you don't need to be a graphic designer. Everything is pretty much drag and drop. So if I wanted to edit something, you can drag and drop, you can magic write, you have different elements. You can play around with the cool thing too. If you have church colors, you can literally change the colors with one click. You have, you can draw on here, you can upload your pictures to it. So I have so many different pictures that you're able to upload directly to here. You can brand it, like I said, get your text and if you want to literally change the entirety of all of your text, you can do it and simply move it. What I love about this is in the pro version, you get so many different opportunities to do it as well. And then what the cool thing is you can print, you can make it into a website. Canva gives you a chance to do so much. And one of the cool parts about Canva people overlook is in the app section of Canva, there's AI powered apps and most of the apps that we talk about with AI, even ones I've talked about on my channel, are already in Canva. So if you want to make an avatar, if you want to make an emoji, if you want to color things, if you want to do any of these fun things, even create a logo. All of this stuff is in Canva. So you can even do a really QR code like if you really want to as well. I mean there's some really amazing things you can do just built into Canva to help your church out. So try out canva, try out what it means to you. Hopefully this stuff will help you become all that God's called you to be. It's simple, easy and to the point. You can make professional looking content in no time. The last tool I want to mention for all of us today is perplexity. So perplexity is like having a research assistant in your hands. It's perfect for deep research. You're preparing an in depth Bible study or theological paper. Perplexity gives you clear context, rich answers with sources. It's useful for when you want more than surface level information. If you want real in depth work to your teaching, it's not going to research scholarly journals. That's another site. I can show you some other time but. Or you can sign up for my masterclass and get all of these things from me. But in perplexity, let's do a search for something. So we talked about grace earlier today. So let's do something like this. Give me 10 articles on Grace in the New Testament compared to grace in the Old Testament. Explore how it is different in light of Jesus. What I love about perplexity is perplexity is going to give you all this information and give you all this clarity and it's going to make life a lot easier for you to understand this. It's going to help you dig deeper. So you're teaching and your preaching has a deeper level insight. Look at this. So looks at how like even in this we're talking about grace, how it's manifested God's covenant relationships, living to Israel. The New Testament looks like grace to the person working Jesus Christ. Accessibility, scope, permanence, empowerment, revelation, justification. Here's the thing I want you to understand about preaching. And when it comes to this stuff, history is never going to change. This stuff is just it's happened, it's historical fact, right? But the revelation, the exploration, the the how God is calling you to explain this into the world. That's what changes. So what we use this research tools for is to help you understand the gospel and to preach it and teach it with clarity to the people God's called you and teach you to. Let's look at the bigger picture of all of this. AI has the power to transform how we do ministry. Yes. Think about the time you spend on repetitive tasks, writing emails, planning events, managing your social media. AI can automate all of this, freeing you up to do what really matters preaching, teaching and serving your community. By using AI tools, you can create more engaging content, connect with your community in different ways, even expand your ministry beyond the wall goals of your church. AI is here to help you work smarter, not to work harder. So if you're a church leader and a volunteer, I encourage you to explore these AI tools. If you go to my website jerrylester.com I have a free ebook that you can download as well. I have a master class on artificial intelligence on local church and have a lot of videos and even a podcast out about all this information so you can grab a hold of this. I believe God is not surprised by any of this if he could utilize it to build his kingdom. Now don't forget to smash that subscribe button like and follow for more and let me know if you have questions and thoughts about this comment and come back around for the next video as we continue to explore what it means to navigate the world of AI and church. All right, God bless you.
