"AI And The Church" with Jason Moore

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Show Notes:

In this conversation, Jason Moore discusses the intersection of artificial intelligence and the church, exploring the historical context of technology in ministry, the ethical considerations of AI, and its practical applications. He emphasizes the importance of embracing technology while exercising restraint and maintaining human agency in the creative process. The discussion also highlights the potential benefits and challenges of AI in ministry, encouraging a thoughtful approach to its integration.


Resources:

Web - https://www.aiandthechurch.ai/

Instagram - @midnightoilprod

Transcript

Eddie Rester (00:23.371)
We're here today with Jason Moore. He's written a great book, AI and the Church, a clear guide for the curious and courageous. Jason, thanks for being with us today.

Jason Moore (00:32.032)
It is great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Eddie Rester (00:34.985)
You've been involved in church and media and technology for a bit of time now.

Jason Moore (00:42.006)
It has been a bit of time. And I would say that it wasn't necessarily like a strategic thing. I have a natural bent toward creativity and technology and that kind of thing. And I think it's a great way to help us to communicate the gospel effectively. So it's kind of stuck with me for my whole career.

Eddie Rester (01:01.589)
Well, let's talk just a little bit about that because some churches jump right into technology, whether it's microphones in the sanctuary or screens in the sanctuary or social media web presence, you know, even AI. So before we get into a conversation about AI, tell us what you've learned about churches and just the adoption of technology, use of technology. What do you see?

Jason Moore (01:25.708)
Well, you know, I cut my teeth in ministry way back in the late nineties at United Methodist Church called Gingham's Burg United Methodist Church. Some of your listeners might be familiar with that church and Pastor Mike Slaughter. I was in art school and joined the staff there as an intern and then became a full-time staff member and so on. And what I have seen really since the beginning of my ministry,

is a lot of resistance to technology. People fear what they don't understand. I one time heard Mike Slaughter say, and I like to quote him on this quite often when I'm teaching about technology, he says, if you put it up for a vote, the people will always vote to go back to Egypt. know, people are scared of new technology. And in the book that we're going to talk about today, I actually did a little research on the resistance to technology.

as I was thinking about AI and, there are, three kind of, thought, interesting instances of this in our culture. the first is, that I write about in the book is that when forks were first invented, in France, people wouldn't use forks because they said it looks like the devil's pitchfork and it's an implement that is artificial. so food is a gift from God and we should never touch it with this artificial thing.

Eddie Rester (02:39.988)
OK.

Jason Moore (02:47.05)
And of course, eventually people came around to it and realized, I guess they must have had lots of messy fingers in France. That could be, could be the napkin industry probably did not like this whole fork thing. Exactly. The second one that I thought was interesting is that when the telephone first came around, I write about a village. I'm trying to remember where it was. It'll come to me later when I'm done talking to you, but

Eddie Rester (02:52.875)
Are lot of napkins? I, yeah.

Eddie Rester (02:59.327)
The napkin lobby was against it,

Jason Moore (03:16.846)
In this village, everyone thought that these spirits were traveling through the lines and they forbade having a phone in the palace with the ruler at the time or something like that. I really should have reread my book before talking to you. But they were afraid that evil spirits were those voices that we heard in the line. And of course, eventually they came around to it. And then in the 90s, when the internet came around, people said, you know, this is of the devil, it's the devil.

They might not have been wrong about that one. But, but technology is something we have always resisted going back to like organs in the church, you know, like a bar instrument and so on and so forth. But, you know, I, I see technology as an opportunity for us to clearly communicate the gospel. And while we shouldn't serve the technology or use it just because it's the latest and greatest when we do.

achieve some level of mastery and understanding what it can do, I think it can help us propel the gospel in even more effective ways. I guess the last thought, and I know this is a long string of thoughts, is I think of technology a lot like Jesus talked about the wineskins. You know, if we continue to do things in the way that we did them in 1950, the core values of who we are and the wine itself hasn't changed, but the wrapper that we put around it.

has to look different or it will break down before it ever gets to the eyes and the ears of those who will experience it. And so that's why I'm just a proponent of using the latest technology and using it to hold on to our traditions, but to communicate them in a way that makes sense for now.

Eddie Rester (05:04.701)
remember a quote from Harry Ford when somebody asked him about if he asked people if they wanted a car and his quote was famously, if I'd ask them, they would have asked for a faster horse. Yeah.

Jason Moore (05:15.34)
Yes, that's a good one.

Chris McAlilly (05:16.449)
I do think it's interesting if you go back and look at just the history of the church and and technology and I'd like the framework of thinking of it as a Mechanism or a channel through which the gospel can be communicated. I think that the helpful framework You know what came to mind as you were talking was the transition from scrolls to the Codex I mean, so what we think of is like a book, you know and

If we had scrolls that we had to gather up in our arms and carry them to carry the Bible, that's not very portable. It's not very shareable. It's hard to search. Essentially what we think of as the precursor of a book allowed the Gospels to spread faster. Somebody could carry a book with them on their horse as they were traveling. Then that gets accelerated again with the printing press.

And, you know, again with the radio, you know, again with the television, I do think that every single time a new technology is introduced, there are opportunities. I also think there's disruption. And I think that, you know, maybe what feels a little bit different at the moment is the rate of how fast this stuff seems to be happening, how quickly the acceleration, I guess, of

Jason Moore (06:31.601)
yeah.

Chris McAlilly (06:44.837)
of not only the disruption, and I think maybe the reason why there's some resistance to it might be just the unknown, know, the unintended consequences that may come. And so I do think, you know, think setting the boundaries, you know, I'm sure as we get into the conversation, we'll be thinking about that. It's not just, you know, I don't take your point to be, you we just open the floodgates and let whatever is on the internet or whatever's on

You know, whatever the... Yeah, we don't just allow all that to kind of flood in without discernment. And so, yeah, I would love to hear as we move along in the conversation how to think about that. I mean, I guess the basic point of technology is opportunity, it's also disruption. How do you think about that?

Eddie Rester (07:14.844)
next great technology.

Jason Moore (07:33.378)
Well, first and foremost, my mantra, I say it every speaking engagement, I say with all my cohorts, I write about it in the book, is to embrace the technology, but equally important to exercise restraint in how you use it. Because if we're not careful, the technology can be harmful and dangerous and disruptive, and disruption can happen.

you know, in both ways. I write in the book using the metaphor of an axe for AI. The idea that, you know, it's a lot easier to chop down a tree and cut it up into firewood with a tool like an axe. You could probably use some large blunt force object, a stone or, you know, something else. And it's going to take a lot longer to knock it down and break it up and all of that. But you have to learn how to swing an axe because if you don't, you can chop off your foot.

or throw out your back or smack yourself in the face or whatever. and of course there are people who will take an ax and swing it into someone else and use it as a weapon. So I, I don't, I'm not a proponent of banning axes, but I do think that we have to learn how to wield them properly. And I also think we have to be advocates for the safe use of them and not using them for the wrong purposes. I think, I think that

Eddie Rester (08:38.026)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Moore (08:56.302)
What feels so different about artificial intelligence is it is the most powerful tool we've ever had at our disposal. And, uh, and the amount of disruption is disconcerting. Um, you know, there are, there are people who are in admin jobs who will no longer have a job because their jobs can be replaced very easily. I'm a graphic designer. I went to art school, that kind of thing. And, uh,

Eddie Rester (09:03.667)
Right.

Eddie Rester (09:16.938)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Moore (09:25.112)
You know, I gotta be honest with you, like every new image model that comes out, I can now prompt things that would take me eight hours and I'd get paid an hourly rate for that. And if you can prompt it, you don't need me to do it anymore. But on the other side of that, I really get excited about the fact that it allows us to tell our story in more compelling ways. And that means that a two point charge pastor in the middle of nowhere can...

can now do the kind of things that it took me 30 years to learn how to do.

Eddie Rester (09:56.299)
One of the things about AI, we'll talk, want to talk in just a sec about what AI is, but it has consumed a lot of the other technologies into itself, which I think is part of what makes it so powerful.

Chris McAlilly (10:10.799)
Yeah, I like the metaphor of thinking of it as a tool, something that humans are using, something that ultimately is going to cause disruption to humanity, but that humanity ultimately is using. And of course, there's a debate about this in these conversations around, we ultimately create a general intelligence that moves beyond human intelligence? And what will that mean for us?

Jason Moore (10:10.989)
Yes.

Eddie Rester (10:38.28)
We call it Skynet. That's what you call that. You call that Skynet. Yeah.

Chris McAlilly (10:40.505)
for our humanity. But if it's true that AI is akin to swinging an axe, then it would involve a range of different things. Developing skills, exercising judgment, building strength, and also, as you mentioned, restraint, so that you use the power, but you use it under control. But also kind of knowing what you're trying to do.

Jason Moore (10:40.855)
I guess.

Chris McAlilly (11:08.093)
You know, in wielding the axe, it is and what it's for, and I think that pushes in the direction of the question that Eddie wanted to ask. For somebody who's maybe new to the conversation, I think a lot of people now have a basic understanding of artificial intelligence, but maybe it might be a good time to just do the definitions. What is it? Why are we developing? What is it for?

Jason Moore (11:30.006)
Well, artificial intelligence, although I should say one time I was at an event and someone seriously said, what does AI stand for? And I said, artificial insemination. And everybody thought they were at the wrong seminar. It's not about animal husbandry. have a friend that actually studied that worked on farms and had to help. He studied AI, but it was artificial insemination. Very different thing for animals, you know, that kind of thing.

Chris McAlilly (11:44.451)
It's a different day.

Eddie Rester (11:45.642)
different.

Chris McAlilly (11:54.629)
You're giving Eddie an education here. So thank you, Jason.

Eddie Rester (11:59.622)
I grew up, I grew up across from cattle. I grew up in Akron, Mississippi. I know cows.

Chris McAlilly (12:02.457)
yeah, nevermind, that's right.

Jason Moore (12:06.798)
There you go. There you go. Well, artificial intelligence is basically the simulation of human intelligences by machines. And so through machine learning, they have learned to replicate in some form the way the brain works. And at present, we are in a form of AI. are a form of AI exists today that is called weak AI. And that is

artificial intelligence that requires human interaction to function. You mentioned artificial general intelligence, which would be considered strong AI. It's not here yet, but we're certainly taking steps into that world. That's the idea that artificial intelligence would match the human brain. And there's another form of it that goes beyond this, which is artificial super intelligence. And that's more or less when we do get to kind of that matrix-y

a Terminator, like it would be smarter than us. Now, I certainly understand the fears, and I'm not without concern about what happens when the artificial intelligence gets smart enough to say, don't think I wanna do that. In fact, I think I have a better way of doing all of this than you and that kind of thing. What helps me sleep at night, there's a large section in my book on biblical foundations.

Eddie Rester (13:33.033)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Moore (13:33.576)
and why I believe this is a technology for us to embrace and engage with responsibly and do not cross certain ethical lines and all that. there are three things that kind of, three verses that I often will talk about and I don't have the, I should have this memorized in my head. I normally have slides on the screen with the addresses. But the first is that God gives us a creation mandate. So God tells us,

to be fruitful and multiply and to have dominion over the things of the earth, the things that we create. And so if God is encouraging us to be creative, I think AI can help us do that, but also gives us dominion over the things of the earth. Now I have dominion over my dog, but if I put my hand in his bowl when he's eating, I might get bit. So having dominion doesn't mean we're not gonna run into some challenges.

The second verse that I often will talk about is just when they're building the temple from Exodus, talks about how we are infused with the divine spirit and the intelligence to craft all these different things. And so the gifts and skills that we have that allow us to create these things come from God. And the last one that really kind of helps me sleep at night is just the thought that God is sovereign and is, God is yesterday, today, tomorrow,

God is not sitting around in heaven saying, my goodness, where did they come up with this one? I didn't see this coming like this AI thing. God created us to be creative. God encourages us to be creative. God gives us dominion over the things that we're creating. And I just can't believe that an all-knowing God who is yesterday, today, and tomorrow is gonna leave us hanging when the moment happens that artificial intelligence, that God

infused us with the ability to create is going to turn on the world and then we're all hopeless. Now, one other thought, and I'm sorry, I'm on my soapbox. Perhaps, perhaps with as divided as we are as a people right now, in so many ways, from politics to racial

Eddie Rester (15:42.525)
No, it's all right.

Jason Moore (15:56.69)
I mean, even in our church, we've developed or had some fissures and all those kinds of things. I don't know that this is what's going to happen, but perhaps AI does get to a level of intelligence that in some way becomes a threat. And we as humanity have to figure out together and work together to say, how are we going to put this toothpaste back in the tube? And it unites us in some way. not, I don't think that's the inevitable.

Reality or future that's coming, but I have often wondered could this be how God unites us again. I don't know

Chris McAlilly (16:31.077)
I appreciate the perspective of kind of a creation mandate. I appreciate the perspective that we're to be somehow participate in the creative work, the generative work of the creator. I think, and I'm actively trying to not only understand, but figure out how to utilize the technology as a tool. And so I want to say that on the front end, you know, because I do think that

I appreciate folks that are, I mean in general I'm not Amish, know, I don't not, I use technology, you in all aspects of my life. I have buttons and a whole range of technologies I use on a daily basis. I like modern medicine, but...

Eddie Rester (17:10.377)
Do you have buttons?

Jason Moore (17:14.392)
Well, let me say that when I was invited to be on this podcast and a cup and string showed up at my door, I was very uncomfortable with how this was going to go.

Eddie Rester (17:21.673)
Yeah, confused. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris McAlilly (17:24.901)
But I also, I don't know, think, I mean, in this, I think the question of, part of the discernment, I think, is what part of scripture are we in? You know, because I do think, as you were saying, if the technology were to turn against us, that feels like, I do think a sovereign God would allow humanity to reach beyond its limits and create technologies that might ultimately lead to our demise and we would end up in exile.

or we would end up, you know, I mean, maybe this is the Tower of Babel moment, or maybe it's a time where we destroy our life together. I don't think that means that God's gonna abandon us, that we'd have to, you know, that we wouldn't then have the capacity to, you know, find restoration. But I don't know, it feels more perilous to me. And maybe this is a generational thing, you know? I mean, Eddie and I, I don't know, maybe because I...

I don't really know. Technology doesn't seem like a net positive to me. It feels more at this particular moment, like something that is actively doing us harm more often than it's doing us something good. But I don't know. I mean, I think I'm actively trying to figure it out. And so I appreciate the different perspectives.

Eddie Rester (18:42.182)
One of the things that Jason, that you bring up in the book that I like a lot in this, in the scriptural section, you actually bring up Wesley's general rules as kind of this guidepost for us. so for the listeners out there who aren't Methodist and don't know the general rules, or for probably the 90 % of Methodists who don't know the general rules, bring that into the conversation. think, cause Chris is right. think a lot of people feel like this is perilous. So where are the guardrails for us?

Jason Moore (19:11.916)
Yeah. Well, you Wesley had these three simple rules that were do no harm, do good and stay in love with God. And I think they're a great framework for us to think about when we're talking about technology. First off, how might we do harm through this technology? And there are some ways that we might not even recognize we're doing harm. There's some concern around environmental harm. You know, it takes a lot of water and energy to run these systems.

I'll come back to that because I have thought a lot about that one and I don't think that it's, we're not at like a neutral place with it, but we'll talk about the cost of that in a moment. But one of the ways I think we might potentially do harm, there are lots of ways, but one of the ways might be that we become less reliant on other human beings and the ministry that we do. Like I tell, when I'm out,

teaching on this, I will show how we can use chat bots like chat GPT or Gemini or Claude or any of whichever one you'd like to use to help in the process of planning worship. Not to do the worship planning for you, but to be an assistant. So we can't think of a song that goes with this, can it help or whatever? And so I do a demonstration where I kind of walk through like how you might use it from, to build a series on

you know, Jesus miracles. And, and so it can go in and instantly tell you every miracle Jesus has done without me having to go look everything up and I can save, you know, 45 minutes there, get to my idea a little faster and whatever. So I was showing a group how it can help you pick out songs and it actually knows the United Methodist hymnal. So it'll even give you the hymn numbers. And someone in the back of the room jokingly said, this is great. I don't need my choir director anymore.

And I'm like, no, no, no. Like that is exactly the opposite of where I, yes. I like to think of using AI a little like the rules on the game show. Who wants to be a millionaire? The feature anyway of the lifelines, you know, the lifelines, you had to be the one answering the questions and making your way. And you had to come prepared and all that kind of stuff. But if you got stuck, you could pull the audience. You could phone a friend.

Eddie Rester (21:14.322)
The opposite.

Jason Moore (21:39.526)
or you could 50-50. I think that's a better way for us to think about how we might use AI in the work that we do as we're curating and crafting worship. I would much rather, a human being sitting at the table with you is gonna know how something feels, and if it doesn't feel right or I don't connect with it, AI is always gonna tell you more or less what you wanna hear. So.

That's where I'm saying, I don't think we want to be overly reliant, but when you're in that place where you're like, we just cannot think of a song that goes with this or a movie clip that would really be perfect, or I really want to make this tangible and I can't think of a metaphor, AI is perfect for those sorts of things that we can use it in that way. I have more thoughts, but I'm sure it looks like you both maybe have one ready to go.

Eddie Rester (22:29.208)
I was just thinking, yesterday in a meeting, we were talking about theming a campaign in 2026. So we've got the whiteboard go in, we're doing all this stuff. And then, there comes kind of a 40 minutes into this brainstorming session, people start popping out finished and not or closer finished answers because they've taken all this information that we've come up with and they've all on their own. Start putting into chat GPT and Claude and these other things, but it led us further down the road.

than we would have gotten to on our own.

Chris McAlilly (23:01.861)
I do think I appreciate the point that at times artificial intelligence might one of the risks might be that it would undermine human relationships that that folks might become more dependent on. You know, here's passive. I mean, an actor, you know, a perceived intelligence that is going to be responsive to me when everybody else is not. And so I'm to not deal with these people who I don't like, but I'm just going to

deal with this that's going to give me an answer that feels like it's responsive to me. I think another dimension is just the undermining of human agency, just becoming more passive in a process, not thinking for yourself, just saying, I'll just throw it into chat GPT, that kind of phrasing. I do find for myself that when I have disparate

thoughts or like a way that I use AI on a very regular basis at this point. If I'm in a meeting and I still use the, I still have my legal pad and I like the physicality of it. And Eddie's moved on to Eddie, Eddie's more tech, Eddie's more techie than I am. always has been, but he is. I mean, you can, you can tell by, now that we're doing these video podcasts, we can all tell, tell how young Eddie is.

Eddie Rester (24:17.543)
I'm the younger of the two of us, Jason. You may not realize that, but I'm the very young one.

Chris McAlilly (24:27.753)
And so I'll take the notes and then I'll translate them into digital format. And usually it's not very coherent, but I'll put it into, you know, chat GPT or some other, you know, Claude or whatever I'm using that day. And I'll be able to see what it is that I was trying to write down with more specificity and clarity. I can clean up notes. I can summarize and follow up much more efficiently than I ever could before.

know, meetings become more efficient, agendas become more efficient, all of those administrative functions that used to take me hours, because I'm not as linear a thinker as my good friend Eddie. Seriously, I think in paragraphs and these long things, and sometimes I just need to make something more concise and clear, I need bullets. And AIA is very helpful in helping me take my mind and put it into bullet points. I will say...

Eddie Rester (25:17.105)
You need bullets, bullet points,

Chris McAlilly (25:26.565)
at times when I'm, you know, trying to figure out metaphors or trying to kind of figure out, like I've, you know, done the things that you're talking about in terms of worship planning or sermon writing or whatever. And I just find it to be a little bit, it leans in the direction of cliche a little bit too much for me at this particular stage. It ends up just spitting out things that I would have thought of. And I guess the thing, like when I,

Jason Moore (25:53.176)
Yeah.

Chris McAlilly (25:56.781)
I to folks who are writers, people that actually write for a living, that do creative writing. It's going to give you the answers that humanity has thought of before, in general, it seems to me. I think it's gonna, but more of them than I would have thought of on my own, because it's drawing on these huge language models. so sometimes it'll put together things I wouldn't have thought of. A lot of times it kind of gets back to the same cliche.

But if I have an idea that feels novel or new, it can make that idea sometimes much better because you're drawing on a lot more language. I don't know. What about you, Eddie? What are the parts in your work that you feel like AASMO is helpful?

Eddie Rester (26:40.999)
I think like the meeting yesterday, really kind of rocketed us down the road after we had done a lot of hard work to begin with, it pushed us down the road. I think one of, you know, some of our, some of our folks who do communications are starting to use it for image generation. Jason, want to hear in just a minute, if you're listening, we're going to ask Jason for the best AI tools right now for work. But I think sometimes if I'm stuck, I know I've got to transition.

in either an article that I'm writing or a sermon, but it doesn't feel right, it can help me navigate. And I think Claude for me is a better option for that than Chat GBT. I don't know why, Jason, you may know why they are. anyway, so those are of the things that we're using it for. Jason, any thoughts on all that?

Jason Moore (27:31.054)
Well, a few things. First, Chris, you're not wrong on the fact that it's not always great at novel thought. But the other thing I would say is that sometimes we're expecting more out of the chat bot than we should because we haven't set it up for success as a creative partner. There's a huge difference between me saying, Chad GPT, I need a good idea for blah, blah.

And then you're like, oh, this sucks. Like, this is every idea I've ever seen before and saying, here is what I'm trying to accomplish. This is what I've done in the past. These are the things that resonate with me. Here's the audience I'm trying to talk to, blah, blah. know, giving it a lot of context and helping it understand where you're trying to go and all that, and then asking it to be creative with you. You will get much better outputs when you learn how to talk to the artificial intelligence.

I think one of the ways that we aren't always real, we haven't made the shift yet in our brains, is the way we use computers in the past was that we gave them commands or we put in queries and we expected a result without having a conversation with the computer. I want to get back to Wesley's things before we lose that, but let me just say there are three kind of

foundational principles for me that I think of when I use AI. The first is that AI should be a do it with you, not a do it for you. Generally speaking. There are things it can do for you, like write some announcements. Here's the information. I don't need to spend 20 minutes writing announcements. I can have it help me with something like that. But generally speaking, I don't want it to do the creative work. I want to do the creative work. And I think we ought to get in the habit of using AI to prompt us.

rather than us prompting AI. And what I mean by that is here's some creative thing, ask me some clarifying questions and it'll ask you things like who's your target audience? How long do you want this series to be? What would your goal be and all that. And if it's prompting me, then I'm the one driving, not AI being the entity that's driving. The second of my kind of foundational principles is the idea that we have to think of it as a

Jason Moore (29:55.822)
collaboration or a conversation, not a command or a query. So when you begin to treat artificial intelligence like a creative partner, and it's not your creative equal, it's just a partner, an artificial partner that can help you. Like you said, when sometimes when I have an idea, it takes it and makes it better. It's not always great at the like the novel idea. And the last one is that you have a soul. AI does not have a soul.

And if you don't bring enough of you and your soul to the conversation, then you will get soulless, meaningless, awful, most of the time outputs that feel very artificial. So the more of you you bring to it, the better you're going to get at the end of the day. as for, which chat bot, they all kind of have different personalities. When I was writing the book, I use Claude more than anything. I found that Claude's writing felt more.

Chris McAlilly (30:32.793)
you

Jason Moore (30:49.87)
more human, kind of matched my voice a little bit more. And I didn't use it to write so much as like, used it for research. I want, like give me the history of AI, but here's how I write. sometimes it would give, you know, it, get me 50, 40 % of the way there sometimes on certain or some things. Chat GPT tends to be like the Swiss army knife.

And it's not all it'll do a little bit of everything and it does it pretty well. But, you know, for, for some tasks, I'll go to Claude and other tasks. I'll go to like, Jim and I, I've been using a lot more lately and they actually just came up with some new updates for it. And so sometimes I'll actually take a prompt and run it through two or three different chat bots just to see what responses I get, Grok, which is, X.

It's their platform. tends to be like a hipster or something. It's the most sort of off the rails, a little more quirky, you know, whatever. So knowing which chat bot to use for which task can actually really improve your, your interaction with it.

Eddie Rester (31:59.664)
Go back. I think you see second, you're going to go back to the other two. We only got to the do no harm, but the other, yeah.

Jason Moore (32:02.86)
Yes. Yes. Let's hit those. so again, lots of things we have to be careful about and doing harm, do good. there are so many ways I think we can use AI to do good. And of course this is balanced with the harm piece. One of my favorite, it's my favorite thing to show when I'm teaching on this is that, I don't speak any language other than English.

but I recorded a video of me saying something in English and I gave it to an app called HeyGen. And I show this video where I say it all in English. HeyGen does its thing and it'll even move my mouth to look like I'm speaking Spanish. And every time I do that for an audience where there are native Spanish speakers in the room, they confirm it's like flawless. Now, I don't want to fool anybody into thinking I learned to speak Spanish.

But I do think that if I'm in Dallas and I've got some, when I lived in Dallas, people often thought because of my darker complexion and my hair and whatever, they think I would speak Spanish. couldn't. But I love the thought that we could share the gospel in a native way. I would disclose through the power of AI, I want you to hear this in your native language and to be able to translate in real time. You can do it now in real time with an app called Wordly.

And I think it gives us the opportunity to, to share the gospel to more people in ways that could be very effective. I've found it to be really helpful in analysis of data. So bring in your mission insight data to chat GPT and you can chat with it and you will, it'll actually help you figure out insights that maybe you had never had before around like, when should we do this event? Well, given the bus routes in your area and public transportation and, what this

particular community, the income level looks like, like you might want to do this on Tuesday nights because of the, whatever. I have actually done some experiments like that and been shocked at what it's been able to come up with. The other thing that I really love is it helps us get out outside of our head. And so like, I can really only have the thoughts of a, you know, 49 year old middle-aged white guy and that sort of thing. But if I'm writing a sermon and I want to,

Jason Moore (34:24.398)
Let's say I'm writing a sermon on stewardship and I want to get in the head of a lower income person. I'm talking about tithing and I want chat GPT, I want you to take on the perspective of a single mom who works two jobs to make ends meet. Here's my sermon that I've developed. I've written. What are your responses to it? And sometimes it will come back with this stuff that's like, so insightful. Like I never thought of that. All I have to do is tweak this language and I think I won't lose someone here and there and that kind of thing.

So I often will tell people use AI as your foil ask it to to take on the opposite perspective of what you're teaching on and then it will give you all this I Give you all these ideas that will allow you to to I think even write better So there's lots of I could go on and on but there are some ways that I think we can do good with it

Eddie Rester (35:14.214)
What about that last one, stay in love with God? How does it help us with that last of the simple rules?

Jason Moore (35:18.936)
Well, this one is the one I'm most concerned about and it's the most cautionary piece for me when I think about using AI in the church. And I really feel like there's a, this is a slippery slope because now we carry around a little God in our pocket, right? Cause I can pull up chat GPT and this, that, and the other thing. It's so important for pastors to do the exegetical work.

Eddie Rester (35:38.746)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Moore (35:46.954)
and not ask chat GPT to do the exegetical work for them, because when you're not wrestling with it, what you come up with is a completely different thing than if you are doing the hard work of sort of saying, what does this scripture mean to me? And when I was in a different moment in my life and blah, blah, I also feel like this has nothing to do with AI. You shouldn't go to sermon central and download a sermon and preach it without doing the work yourself. Like you have to do the work.

in order to preach meaningful and spirit-breathed sermons. So I get concerned that some of us have turned this into the Holy Spirit. And we are now, especially those folks that are like Saturday night special preachers that are like, I got to write a sermon for tomorrow. And now we got chat GPT and I can just say, write me a sermon on blah, blah. And then it doesn't really hit, you know? So yes.

So I write about in the book that if we're not careful, I'm a lay person that occasionally preaches, but I fear for any of us in the role of preacher that if we're not careful, we might become the passengers on the Axiom in the movie Wall-E who have been floating around in space and floating around on carts and AI delivers food to them and clothing and takes them to entertainment experiences. And by the time they can finally get back to earth,

They can't walk anymore because their muscles are so atrophied because they haven't used them. And there's where I want us to be careful in what we do in the way that we interact. can be helpful as an aid, but it shouldn't be doing the work for us. have one other thought, I want Chris is fired up. He's ready for one there.

Eddie Rester (37:28.576)
It goes back. Yeah.

Chris McAlilly (37:32.547)
No, go for it Eddie. I do have a thought, but go, you...

Eddie Rester (37:34.994)
Now, you know, I was just going to say that goes back to you have a soul AI doesn't. so God's going to speak through if you're a Sunday school teacher or you're a lay person who's leading something or a pastor, it's your continued growth in your faith and your wrestling that makes whatever you teach or preach real. so I've got a lot of our, a lot of our small group leaders here who take our Sunday sermons.

run them through AI and it generates small group questions for them. And I have zero problem with that at all. It saves me from having to come up with questions for them or running my sermon through AI. But those questions have to be then gone through by that Sunday school teacher, small group leader, to say, these are the questions that matter for our group, for where we are right now. And I think the human side of it has to lead AI

Jason Moore (38:05.965)
Yes.

Jason Moore (38:20.301)
Yeah.

Eddie Rester (38:30.947)
I think you're exactly right. can't have the other way. You're going to end up with a faith that doesn't represent anything but faith in AI.

Jason Moore (38:38.606)
Yeah.

Chris McAlilly (38:38.713)
Yeah, and I just think that this is isn't this always the conversation regardless of what the Technology is that humanity interacts with especially if it's a powerful tool Yeah, we tend to be an idol making factory, know We tend to constantly put things in the place of God I do I think the difference here is that this this is a technology that talks back to us. It doesn't feel impersonal and feels more like a personal companion and I think that

the so it's just easy to slip into or to the the perception the way in which we use the imagination to imagine that another person is a subject and not an object, you know, I just think in this case, it's just just a little bit more difficult to navigate and but I think this is my deepest fear probably is Less that AI is going to take over everything. Maybe I just haven't read enough it I I'm more concerned about this last piece that you mentioned Jason, which is that it's gonna

erode human agency. It's going to make people intellectually lazy. know, we're going to lose confidence in just basic human discernment. You know, we're going to be morally, we're just going to outsource all these kind of really important questions. I will say, you know, in extremely difficult pastoral care situations where I have no idea what to do, there have been moments where I've offered prompts. And I think that's dangerous, frankly. I don't think it's

I, you know, at the, but I do think it's also helpful in some ways because there's, you know, there's some perspectives. There's a range of different mental health perspectives that I was given access to just by virtue of the fact that we're dealing with larger language models. I will say the way in which I'm, any serious issue, and I would take, you know, biblical exegesis for

for your congregation is a really serious task within the context of ministry. That requires all of your humanity to be engaged, all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And then I think in the pastoral care context, I think engaging wise human actors and engaging the fullness of your human agency in a process is really important. Where I find AI to be most helpful,

Chris McAlilly (41:05.317)
is in the things that the parts of my work that feel dehumanizing anyway. It just helps me get through them more quickly, know, frankly. so anyway, this is fascinating. I mean, we could go on for days. Eddie, you have a last question?

Eddie Rester (41:15.589)
Yeah. Well, a couple, couple, couple of things is there's a chapter in the book on 10 ways to use AI in the church. so, um, if, folks who are exploring this, it's some great things about community engagement and different things. I would encourage folks to take a look at that. I'd love to hear you wrote this book. It came out earlier this year. Is that right? End of.

Jason Moore (41:39.379)
Last October, it's been out a year now, which is like 20 years in AI time.

Eddie Rester (41:41.647)
About a bit out of year now. So, yeah, so that's, yeah, light, light years. So as you think about your favorite tools, the tools that you would say, make sure you're familiar with these. know they're different categories of tools from video and image generation and, language stuff. So what are some of those tools that you're like church's pastor should get familiar with these.

Jason Moore (42:04.332)
Yeah, yeah. Well, before I jump into that, I will just say the chapter that you just mentioned, 10 ways to use AI in the church. If your listeners want to get that chapter for free, they can go to aiinthechurch.ai and you can download that particular chapter. You know, it is from October of last year, so there are more ways now than ever before. As far as tools go, I mean, obviously,

ChatGPT is a great place to start. They were the first one out of the gate three years ago and like three weeks, I think now. I was just on a call yesterday and someone pointed out there were three weeks and three years and three weeks from when ChatGPT launched. it's, boy, it's really changed a lot in the last three years. So I would certainly recommend people start there. Also, Jim and I, which is Google's offering has become, I was not a huge fan of,

Gemini until maybe three or four months ago and they just keep making it better. And right now you can generate images and they have a funny name for it. But within the program, they have something called Nano Banana, which is sort of like Photoshop with words. I can say, okay, make Eddie's glasses red and it'll turn them red and it'll look just like your glasses, but they'll be red. you know, stuff that like, again, for me as a graphic designer would take me 20 minutes to do. Now you can do it in an instant and so on.

so I would definitely recommend, chat GPT or Gemini as a starting place. Claude is also great. There's a free plan. What's nice about all of this, all of these AI offerings is they typically all have a free plan. If you want to do image generation, there are a couple of places that I would recommend you check out one, unfortunately there's no free plan, but it's about, I think it's $7 a month. If you want to use mid journey.

midjourney.com. Mid Journey tends to be the most organic, most realistic AI, like it does really nice kind of stock photos. And what I love about that is that as we are illustrating things, there's a statistic that I learned years ago that we are 65 % visual learners as a culture and learning increases. 3M did a study found that learning increases by 400 % when you use image to teach.

Jason Moore (44:29.291)
So rather than just telling stories and not illustrating them or only illustrating them with words, people are 400 times more likely to take home that story that you tell in your sermon that is helping you drive that point home. You put that image on the screen and people will remember it forever. And AI can help us actually create just about any image that we wanna create now, because sometimes those are very hard to find. One of the ways I think we can do good as well is we can actually make Jesus a

Eddie Rester (44:45.422)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Moore (44:58.144)
a middle Eastern guy, not a blonde hair, blue eye guy from Alabama, which is a lot of the stock photos and the depictions that I've grown up with, you know? So anyway, there's that. Another one is called ideogram, I D E O G R A ideogram. And ideogram will let you generate images for free. It tends to do design type stuff really well. So things that are like logos, t-shirt designs, hard,

Vector sort of shapes it also does stock photos, but I think mid-journey does that better, but I would definitely recommend that for your listeners if you want to do video There are a few different video generators that are amazing. Jim and I has a Kind of a sister app called vo3 which also can generate audio now So like you can have talking characters and you can prompt them. I've been able to create some really neat

biblical story videos, know, having, taking the scripture and doing a narration and depicting what's happening in the story, which can be very realistic or you can do something that looks like a Rankin and Basque Christmas special, like stop motion. it really is neat what we can do now. Another one that's really popular is called Sora. It's connected to ChatGPT, but Sora is really good.

And then one, I probably use this more than any other video generator is called Kling, K-L-I-N-G, Kling AI. And I don't know, I'm on like the unlimited or the ultra plan. So I spend a lot of money on it, but I'm a video guy. But you can get lesser plans where you, I think you can generate a couple of clips for free every day, if I recall correctly, but those are all really good.

If you want to do, and I know I probably, you probably don't need every tool, but if you want to do like talking head type videos, Hey, Jen is the one I mentioned that will do translation and move your mouth to go along with the other thing. H E Y G E N. There's no one called headra H E D R A. And it basically creates a talking avatar. Now I think we have to be careful about how we use even that stuff. Like I don't want to watch my pastor as a, an AI generated.

Jason Moore (47:22.68)
character that feels weird to me. But there are times you can do silly fun things with it. you're, know, Eddie, you're, you're preaching about, you're, you wanted to be an astronaut as a kid and now you put yourself in an astronaut and you say, this is what it would have been like to stand on the moon or, know, there you go.

Eddie Rester (47:40.45)
I did wanna be an astronaut as a kid, so yeah.

Chris McAlilly (47:43.429)
Eddie's gonna end this is coming to a future sermon near you lovers lane Eddie's.

Eddie Rester (47:48.258)
Yeah, possibly Chris, yeah, probably soon, yeah.

Jason Moore (47:48.856)
There you go.

Okay, last two apps I'll just mention because they're an absolute blast. One is called Udio, U-D-I-O, spelled like audio without the A, and it is a music generator. And you can do everything from hum a tune and turn it into a fully realized song with drums and guitar and bass. You can write your own lyrics and put them in, or you can give it a subject. I want a song about Eddie on the moon and it will write a song and

And you can even describe the style and it can be a jazz song or a country music song or whatever. In fact, when I was there at Lover's Lane, I created a song and had Stan Copeland sing it, which was a lot of fun for everybody.

Eddie Rester (48:35.781)
Yeah. This sounds like walk-up music. need, I think walk-up music is what I'm going to create now.

Jason Moore (48:39.0)
Thank you.

There you go. You could do that. And then the other one, which is basically the same thing, similar, slightly different tools, but it's called Suno, S-U-N-O. And what's neat about both of those, Suno and Udio, is that I think they give you 10 generations for free every day if you just want to play with it. I call it party trick AI, because it's kind of fun to say, hey, you remember that time Chris was walking into Thanksgiving and he tripped and he dropped the cranberry salad all over the front porch?

Let's make a song about that and you can do it and it'll, it'll write it. And you know, we we've used it in my household at Christmas time. And when we're all together to just make funny songs about family members.

Eddie Rester (49:21.74)
Again, these are good ideas. The time Chris lost his keys or the times Chris lost his keys and, or the left his

Jason Moore (49:27.96)
There you go.

Chris McAlilly (49:28.031)
Yeah, I mean that song is just, that's a perpetual song.

Jason Moore (49:31.278)
Thank you.

Eddie Rester (49:31.502)
That's yeah, never ending. So these are, these are great. I, we could talk to you all day, Jason. All right. I love technology. I'm kind of like you. I've from the very time I was small, taking stuff apart, had an early Timex computer. Nobody knows Timex made computers. but yeah. So just thank you for your investment in it and your voice to churches and folks helping us see the way forward. appreciate you.

Jason Moore (49:59.182)
Thank you. Can I leave you with one final thought? This has been helpful, I think, for some people to think about how to approach AI. I have a dog who loves to walk. And we have to spell the word walk, because if you say it, he will harass you until you leave the house, right? And when I put the leash on him, he will run up the walls. He cannot wait. He sounds like someone's hurting him because he starts whining. And then when I open the door, he leaps out off the front porch and he's ready to go.

Eddie Rester (50:02.819)
Yes.

Jason Moore (50:29.294)
For the first 10 minutes of the walk, if I would let him, he will choke himself to death because he's so eager to walk that he will, you know, and he's pulling my arm out of socket and it's painful. I have learned that the only way to take a good walk with my dog is to make him heal. And I have to pull him over to my side and it's better for him because he's no longer choking himself. And it's better for me because he's not pulling me into traffic or yanking my arm in a direction I don't want to go.

And that's really how we ought to approach AI. AI ought to be at your side, healing, and you ought to be the one leading the walk, not AI leading the walk. And I think if we can begin to do that and use it and put it in its proper place, embrace the tool, but exercise restraint and how we use it, it could be a wonderful thing for us in ministry and so on. Not without perils and potential harm, but that would be just kind of my final thought for you would be that.

Embrace it, but keep it in its proper place.

Eddie Rester (51:29.912)
book is AI and the Church and the website is AIandthechurch.ai so check it out. Love to hear some of your thoughts on it as well. Thanks, thanks Jason.

Jason Moore (51:41.592)
Thank you.

Chris McAlilly (51:41.893)
Thanks a lot. Thanks for the conversation.