AI & The Church

In this episode of AI & the Church, host Michael Whittle talks with Brady, founder of Church Candy, about how a failed $500 Facebook ad campaign at a Houston-area church plant turned into a company that's now helped connect over 400,000 people to more than 1,000 churches across North America. Brady shares the origin story — including how a conversation with fellow church-media pioneer Brady Shearer led him to reframe his company's mission from "work with more churches" to "connect a million people to a local church."

The conversation shifts into how Church Candy uses (and deliberately limits) AI. Brady draws a hard line against using AI chatbots to handle pastoral follow-up or spiritual conversations, arguing that once someone discovers they were "talking to a pastor" who was actually an AI bot, the trust damage is often irreversible — and that churches, unlike gyms or chiropractic offices, can't afford to substitute automation for human connection. He also walks through a practical AI challenge his team solved: early attempts to train AI on a church's social media captions or website copy just produced generic "AI slop," because most churches were already using ChatGPT to write that content. The fix was pulling from sermon transcripts and pastor onboarding calls instead, to actually capture a church's authentic voice for ad copy.

The episode closes on a broader warning — that outsourcing sermon writing or spiritual reflection to AI makes pastors and believers worse at exactly the skills they're trying to build — and Brady's conviction that the local church, built on real human relationship, is one of the most "AI-proof" institutions there is.

In this episode of AI & the Church, host Michael Whittle talks with Dr. Drew Dickens — who holds a doctorate in theological anthropology from SMU focused on generative AI and spiritual direction, founded the Encountering Peace app (300,000+ daily listeners), and built Kingdom Work AI as a resource hub for ministry leaders — about where pastors really stand on AI, and why so many are using it privately while staying quiet about it publicly.

Drew and Michael dig into recent industry headlines, including the temporary pause on Anthropic's Fable model, and unpack why frontier AI labs often amplify fear around new releases. They explain the shift from generative AI (ask it something, it generates an answer) to agentic AI (autonomous tools that act more like a new employee), and how churches can use that shift practically — from building real-time dashboards to setting up automated email briefings without any coding background.

A major focus of the episode is the move from traditional SEO to AI-optimized search (AEO): why Google's AI Overviews and tools like ChatGPT and Claude are replacing "blue link" search results with direct answers, why Reddit has become one of the most-cited sources for AI-generated answers, and what churches can do — FAQ pages, Google reviews, backlinks, Reddit AMAs — to get cited when someone asks an AI assistant to recommend a church nearby.

The conversation also turns to preaching and pastoral ethics: using AI as a research and communication sparring partner rather than a ghostwriter, real examples of pastors digitizing decades of handwritten sermons, and the importance of church-wide AI policies after a cautionary story involving giving data uploaded to an AI platform without proper safeguards. Drew closes with a candid theological reflection — drawing on 1 Samuel 28 and the Urim and Thummim — on AI's pull toward "frictionless faith," and offers two simple starting points for any pastor who hasn't tried AI yet.

In this episode of AI & the Church, host Michael Whittle talks with Dr. Mark Chironna — a bishop and pastor with over 50 years in ministry, holder of multiple doctorates including applied semiotics and future studies, and author of more than 40 books — about how technology has shaped his ministry across five decades, from cassette tapes and Christian television to podcasts, Substack, and now AI.

Drawing on Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message," Dr. Chironna offers a framework for understanding each technological shift: radio and tape extended the preacher's voice, television selected which voices got amplified, and AI generates voice outright — which he argues is a fundamentally different and more serious shift. He walks through his own AI workflow in detail: using it to organize research from theologians and church fathers, stress-test his arguments, and refine phrasing, while drawing a hard line against letting AI write in his voice or replace his own critical thinking. He also shares a memorable story of a subscriber accusing him of using AI to write, only to find the "AI-detection" tool flagged decades-old personal writing habits as machine-generated.

The conversation turns serious around AI's limits: Dr. Chironna is direct about refusing to use AI for pastoral counseling or therapeutic purposes, citing the risk of people mistaking a responsive program for a real relationship. He also discusses training younger staff and pastors under his oversight to use AI wisely without letting it replace their voice or critical thinking. The episode closes on a note of hope, as Dr. Chironna reflects on the global growth of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity — particularly what he's witnessed firsthand in Brazil — and why he believes the next generation is positioned to steward both their faith and new technology well.

In this episode of AI & the Church, host Michael Whittle talks with Nona Jones — whose career spans Meta, YouVersion, and the board of Gloo — about why intentional AI adoption is no longer optional for churches. Nona argues the church's real challenge isn't whether to engage AI, but whether it will help shape AI for faith communities or be shaped by tools that were never built with Christian values in mind.

She breaks down the difference between frontier AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) building general-purpose intelligence and applied AI companies that adapt it for specific communities — and points to the Flourishing AI Benchmark, which shows every major frontier model currently falls short on measures of human flourishing from a Christian perspective. Nona also unpacks the "toy vs. threat" mindset many church leaders default to, why AI's real value lies in helping small church teams surface engagement, giving, and congregational health patterns they'd otherwise miss, and why misusing AI — not AI itself — is what makes ministry feel less human.

The conversation covers practical territory too: what she'd fix first for pastors (time and margin), how purpose-built tools like Pulpit AI and Trends AI differ from generic AI wrappers, and why scripture accuracy has to be a non-negotiable standard for any AI used in ministry. She closes with a direct challenge to leaders who haven't engaged yet, and an honest, both/and answer on whether she's hopeful or cautious about where AI and the church will be in five years.

In this episode of AI & the Church, host Michael Whittle sits down with Pastor Charles Metcalf (Transformation Church, Tulsa, OK) and Pastor Filmore Bouldes (One Church, Seattle, WA) to talk honestly about how AI fits into church life — both in creative work and in the pulpit.

The conversation covers two main areas: AI and creativity — where the pastors draw a clear line between using AI as a workflow assistant for admin, systems, and design production versus outsourcing the actual creative or artistic vision — and AI and preaching — where both pastors walk through their personal sermon-prep processes, including how they use AI as a research assistant to gather theological perspectives, stress-test arguments, and refine language, while insisting the core thesis, conviction, and voice of a sermon must come from the preacher's own study and walk with God.

Key themes include the idea that "you have to think first, prompt second," why AI can accelerate research but should never replace theological judgment or personal accountability, and why the hardest part of preaching in the AI era isn't writing faster — it's a young preacher finding their own voice. The episode closes with both pastors sharing why they're hopeful, not fearful, about the future of the church in an AI-saturated culture.

In this first episode of AI & the Church, Michael Whittle — VP of AI at Subsplash and founder of Pulpit AI — introduces the series and lays out the convictions behind it. He shares the story of building Pulpit AI, the surprising backlash from pastors and seminary professors when it launched in 2023, and how dramatically the conversation has shifted since then.

This episode answers questions like:

• Should the church use AI in ministry?

• How are pastors actually using AI today?

• Is AI a threat to the calling of the pastor?

• What is the difference between what AI can do and what only a pastor can do?

• How should church leaders think about AI tools for sermon prep, discipleship, and communication?

Nona Jones—author, preacher, and business leader—joins us to share her passion for bringing the mission of the Church into digital spaces. Plus, Nona offers insight to pastors feeling the tension between participation on Sundays and ongoing engagement throughout the week. 

Learn more about Nona Jones: https://www.nonajones.com/

In the final part of our interview, Carey Nieuwhof describes how technology—along with strategy—can have a big impact on the effectiveness of ministry. Plus, Carey offers insight into the key components churches should keep in mind when developing their own theology of technology.

Download The Finish Strong Challenge ebook: https://bit.ly/3P9ws1b

Learn more about Carey Nieuwhof: https://careynieuwhof.com/

Carey Nieuwhof—leadership expert and founding pastor—is back on Equip & Engage to discuss personal well-being, church health, and how to maximize resources beyond Sunday. Plus, Carey offers insight into effective church volunteer recruitment.

Download The Finish Strong Challenge ebook: https://engage.subsplash.com/finish-strong-challenge-p

Learn more about Carey Nieuwhof: https://careynieuwhof.com/

Chris Larson—president and CEO of Ligonier Ministries—joins us to discuss Ligonier’s 50+ year history of investing in technology to make the gospel more accessible. Plus, Chris dives into the 500-year legacy of the Reformation.

Learn more about Ligonier: https://www.ligonier.org/

Download the Ligonier app: https://subsplash.com/ligonier/app

Check out the State of Theology report: https://thestateoftheology.com/