Justin R. LesterFounder & AI-Ministry Strategist, TheoXTech · Pastor. Professor. AI Strategist.

What is an API? Every church leader needs to understand this.

15 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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1:03

In this brief promotional talk, Justin R. Lester (That Tech Pastor) urges church leaders to adopt Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to modernize their operations. He explains that churches typically rely on a patchwork of disconnected systems—websites, giving platforms, check‑in tools, media libraries—each holding isolated pieces of congregational data. Lester positions APIs as the connective tissue that can link attendance, giving, follow‑up, and care systems, enabling data flow, reducing reliance on spreadsheets, and cutting costs. He highlights the strategic advantage of integrating AI services such as ChatGPT and Claude via their APIs, arguing that churches that adopt these tools now will operate very differently in five years compared to those stuck on free‑tier chat tools. To make this transition, he recommends hiring a technical engineer and offers to provide five ready‑made job descriptions for anyone who comments “jobs.” The video closes with a call to like, follow, and a blessing.

Chapters

If your church is just getting on chat, you're 10 years behind and I'm here to change that for you. My name is Justin R. Lester. I go by That Tech Pastor, giving you the business for your business. And I wanna talk to you today about why your church needs an API. Your church runs on more systems than you think. A website, giving platform, check-in system, media library. And right now, most of, most of you, none of them talk to each other. Each one holds a piece of your congregation and none of them share it. APIs are the connection between those pieces. Attendance talking to giving, giving, talking to follow-up, follow-ups talking to care. The reason I want you to make sure that as you're thinking about things for your church, you're getting a ChatGPT API, Claude API, is that your stuff can talk to one another and it's gonna be cheaper for your organization. The churches building with this now will operate differently in 5 years than the ones still running on spreadsheets and logging into the free version of Chat and Cloud. So here to help you, be sure you begin to work through what it means to have APIs for your church and, uh, somebody who actually understands what the heck this stuff is. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, this is why I tell you you need to hire an engineer on your team. And if you comment the word jobs, I'll send you 5 job descriptions for the people who understand this so your pastor doesn't have to do it all. All right, see you soon. God bless you. Like and follow for more.