Artificial Intelligence and the Preacher’s Craft

Artificial Intelligence has arrived, and it is here to stay. From text message composition to the professional analysis of sensitive datasets, AI has been widely incorporated into the existing technologies and processes that we have grown accustomed to. Like any other epoch of rapid technological change, the church is now faced with the question of how it may use this newfound technology in a way that bolsters —rather than detracts from —its ministry to a world in need of the gospel. Whatever the right appropriation of AI may be, I would like to draw attention to an inappropriate use that has become a serious issue in many churches: the growing reliance of preachers on AI to generate their sermons. The danger of this practice was underscored when, on the 19th of February, Pope Leo XIV met with priests of the Diocese of Rome and warned them about the “temptation to prepare homilies with Artificial Intelligence.” That the Roman Pontiff felt compelled to address this issue directly shows how widespread the practice has become, and why it demands our attention. But why? Why, exactly, is it wrong to use AI to generate sermons? In what follows I argue that the outsourcing of homiletic labor to AI undermines the preacher’s vocation in at least three ways: (1) it removes the sanctifying toil that sermon preparation ordinarily works in the preacher himself, (2) it weakens the soft skills that ministry to others requires, and (3) it changes the nature of Christian preaching from testimony to information delivery.

First, relying on AI to generate sermons eliminates the sanctifying toil from the work of preaching. Paul writes in Colossians 1:28-29, “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” The ministry, though a noble profession (1 Tim. 3:1), is relentlessly hard work; so demanding, in fact, that it requires divine energy to be worked within the minister in order for him to rightly carry it out. Like an athlete in training, the preacher is formed through the discipline of ministerial work, including sermon preparation. Through the labor of exegesis, prayer for illumination, and the exercise of discernment in applying the Word faithfully to a particular people, the Spirit deepens dependence upon God and advances the minister in spiritual maturity for the good of his congregation. When the generation of a sermon is outsourced to AI, the labor through which God grows the preacher is exchanged for a synthetic substitute, stunting growth even as it accelerates production.

Second, this outsourcing of the preacher’s work weakens the soft skills that ministry to others requires. Emerging research on AI-assisted writing has shown that heavy dependence on AI weakens neural connectivity, as reduced mental engagement diminishes active thinking, concentration, memory, and problem-solving. In other words,

the mental soft skills that pastors need for interpersonal ministry atrophy when sermon composition is abdicated to AI. Ministers must be able to attentively listen to the needs of their congregation, to concentrate when studying or teaching, and to give wise counsel when a problem arises. More fundamentally, the preacher must be able to teach (1 Tim. 3:2), and part of that ability consists not only in possessing knowledge but in the skill of explaining and applying the Law and the Gospel to the specific needs of his congregation. He must be able to personalize his message to the people God has given him to serve, taking into consideration the trials they face. The diminution of mental soft skills hinders the minister’s ability to carry out this contextual work and is a disservice to the souls entrusted to his care.

Third, the reliance of a preacher on AI to generate sermons changes the very nature of Christian preaching by transforming it from testimony into the mere delivery of information. Fundamentally, preaching follows the apostolic pattern of proclamation rooted in encounter. As the apostles declared, “we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). Likewise, John describes proclamation as the declaration of what “we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1). Preaching therefore begins with the preacher’s own Spirit-dependent encounter with the Word of God in Scripture. AI-generated sermons, however, do something categorically different. Instead of merely informing the preacher’s labor, as do commentaries, they replace the preacher’s encounter with the Word with a mere summary of compiled data. That is, something essential to preaching is lost when it is no longer the prophetic witness of a preacher who has himself wrestled with the Word. What is preached may retain a sermonic form but is like unto a whitewashed tomb, having been stripped of all vitality. God may still work through an AI-generated sermon, to be sure, but the apparent vacuum of conviction and toil behind it does not help the church’s hearing of it. Whatever the benefit and proper use of AI might be in relation to the preparation of a sermon, it is not at all a worthy substitute of the thing. If our preachers would serve their churches well, they must hold fast to the apostolic pattern of toil, they must keep their minds sharp, and they must never give up the Spirit-dependent encounter with God in the study of Scripture that is so vital to the preacher’s craft. The church does not need men who abdicate their responsibilities —we need men of the Word!