2024 in a Tech-Shaped Culture: 5 New Year's Resolution for The Church

Happy New Year!

As we turn the page to another year, here are five resolutions that I hope the church can keep in the months ahead. Each of these resolutions addresses or aligns with the values that shape our tech-shaped culture (values that I wrote about in "Grace and Gigabytes").

Resolution 1: Preach More Lived Stories and Fewer Theological Abstractions

Secularization has accelerated. Church attendance has plummetted. Belief in the trasncendent, let alone the dogma of organized religion, is constantly contested. In this default context of fragmentation and disbelief, the church cannot afford to preach the language of abstraction.

What is abstraction?

Abstraction is a claim about God that is made without a supporting story, example, or illustration.

In the year ahead, let's resolve to tilt the balance in our preaching towards to the lived stories of God's work in our contexts. Let's resolve to proclaim so many lived stories in our context that we discern a common "watch word," or statement of how God shows up in the particulars of our time and place.

Resolution 2: Enrich In-Person Conversations through Digital Content

As we continue to move beyond the pandemic, live streaming has become less appealing as a regular worship habit. According to Gallup, only 5% of Americans are attending services remotely.

Still, digital ministry will continue to serve as the front door to visitors and guests, necessitating that we continue to offer online worship.

What will happen to digital ministry? We might shift to a content-supported model of digital ministry, in which we create and distribute digital content in service to furthering the dialogues started through our liturgies. We might move from events (streaming worship, for example) to posts and stories that enrich our understanding of a topic and expand our theological imagination. This is the model we've tested at Good Shepherd with "Conversation Sundays" - discussions that start in worship and are furthered through digital content in the week ahead.

Resolution 3: Make Space for AI Experimentation

AI is a once-in-a-generation technological leap. AI will shape our culture, and how our culture makes meaning, in ways that we can only begin to imagine. This new technology will inevitably change not just how we execute tasks but how we process information - how we come to learn something, how we come to believe in something.

It's no exaggeration. AI will change what it means to have faith.

The church cannot sit by idly and observe the AI disruption. We must be active experimenters. From creating digital content based on sermon manuscripts to writing newsletters with chatbots, from using ChatGPT to help us articulate personal faith stories to using text to image generators for our newsletter and website, we must resolve to voraciously experiment with these new tools.

Resolution 4: Teach Tech Sabbath as a Spiritual Practice

Just as AI has the potential to be used for purposeful ministry, it can also create a vicious cycle that further retrenches us in digital isolation. As AI creates better content it will command more of our focus. As it consumes more of our attention, we become more enmeshed in the content of our screens.

Tech Sabbath, whether practiced regularly for an hour or for an entire day of the week, is the defiant claim that these vicious cycles do not have ultimate power over my being. To practice a Tech Sabbath is to remember that we are created for much more than digital consumption.

Resolution 5: Model Gratitude as a Leadership Practice

I recently heard Professor Tom Thibodeau define servant leadership in three parts. Prof. Thibodeau suggested that the first job of a leader is to define reality. The second job of a leader is to say thank you. Everything in between is service.

We live in a world where gratitude is missing - or where it is so shallow and superficial that it loses all meaning. When our technology accelerates our communication, we tend to jettison that which is most essential: expressions of thanks, and articulations of our stories. Each is fundamental to the formation of trust. Yet both become increasingly absent the faster we move.

In the year ahead, let's resolve to model how to set aside the drive towards productivity to give meaningful thanks for the service we receive, and to give thanks for those who serve at our side.

In all contexts, in any forums, we are called to partake in the spiritual practice of gratitude in ways that are deep, meaningful, and enriching.

--

@ryanpanzer would like to wish everyone a Blessed 2024!

--

Churches and Content: How to write better prompts for ChatGPT

This post is the fourth in a series on the intersection of Christianity and artificial intelligence. The previous post in the series, which explores why AI might push church communities offline, is available here.

Since the November 2022 release of ChatGPT, much has been said about what AI can and cannot do. For example, ChatGPT can write a simple five paragraph essay. It then struggles write prose that is truly creative or authentic. ChatGPT can come up with a coherent lesson plan. It's less effective at coming up with hands-on activities that facilitate learning. Thus, AI right now is more of a tool for organizing your thoughts, rather than an autonomous creative agent.

But while its true that ChatGPT has technical limitations, its constraints aren't always due to algorithms, models, and predictions. Across all domains, if we want to get more out of AI tools, we need to ask better questions. The prompt, or our request to an AI system, is the most important and most overlooked aspect of AI. When we ask vague questions, AI gives us vague answers. When we prompt AI with context and even nuance, we get outputs that are more useful, more likely to evoke our own creative response.

On a recent episode of the Freakonomics podcast, the host interviewed a prompt engineer, someone tasked with finding the best ways to ask questions of AI. And while we are unlikely to staff prompt engineers in most ministry contexts, the church out to think about the ways we prompt AI systems. What questions should we ask? What context do we provide? And how should we respond to the answers we receive?

Several marketing blogs have come up with ideas to write better prompts, with suggestions ranging from instructing ChatGPT to adopt a particular persona to specifying to instructing ChatGPT to write with language suitable to various levels of educational attainment.

Across each of these recommendations, you'll find consistent encouragement to:

• Define the role of the chatbot - tell AI who you want it to be (ie, you are a Sunday School teacher at a suburban congregation)

• Define your role - tell the chatbot who you are (ie, I am a director of children, youth, and family ministry)

• Specify structure and style - tell the chatbot where you want it to focus (ie, write a 300 word lesson plan that can be shared with a team of volunteers)

AI for ministry requires a similar approach, with a few modifications unique to churches. Here are three ChatGPT prompts to help church leaders utilize AI efficiently:

Don't just ask ChatGPT to create a Bible Study lesson plan. Ask ChatGPT to create a Bible Study lesson plan that:

• Defines your audience. Be specific on whether your audience is youth or adults, traditional or progressive, in-person or via Zoom.

• Places the lesson within an overarching curriculum. Is this group meeting one time, or is this a weekly meeting? Is this study taking place on a retreat or at a workweek lunch?

• Reflects on one key question the group is currently engaging. Are they working through a strategic plan, or a staffing transition? Are they exploring a particular topic like care of creation or inclusion?

Example prompt: We are a Lutheran summer camp in Waupaca, WI. Create a Bible Study lesson plan based on Genesis 1. This Bible Study is for youth ages 10-16. The Bible Study will take place outdoors on a camping trip. The themes of the study should focus on care of creation and environmental stewardship.

Don't just ask ChatGPT to write your newsletter. Ask ChatGPT to write a newsletter article that:

• Addresses a specific audience. Is the article for new or established members? Is it for visitors? Defining the readership makes sure the tone aligns with the interests of the audience.

• Includes a catchy subject line. Once you've drafted your newsletter, ask ChatGPT to generate 10 subject lines for your email that will lead to the highest open rate. Select the option that seems most relevant.

• Reads free of misspellings or grammatical mistakes. Paste your email text into ChatGPT and prompt it to proofread and spell check. AI is a great tool for better grammar!

Example prompt: This week our church has worship Sunday at 9 with a pot-luck to follow. Our first Confirmation night of the year is Wednesday at 7. Parents should attend. And our Men's Group is meeting Friday morning at 7 AM. Next week we'll be looking at Romans 14 during worship. Use this to generate 10 subject lines for our announcements email.

Finally, don't just use ChatGPT to generate ideas for a sermon. Ask ChatGPT to come up with ideas for what types of stories or illustrations could align with the scripture passage and the themes of your message.

Example prompt: This week we are preaching on Romans 14:1-12 and the theme of hospitality and inclusion. Generate 10 ideas for illustrations or stories I could include with my sermon.

While these systems will never be great theologians or caring pastors, they can serve the role of virtual assistant. Whether we are intrigued, afraid, or enthused by artificial intelligence, we can learn how to use systems like ChatGPT to communicate and create more effectively. When we practice writing better prompts, we can find use cases for ChatGPT far more expansive than what we initially imagined.

--

@ryanpanzer teaches classes on religion and technology for Luther Seminary's Faith + Lead.

--

ChatGPT and the End of Digital Ministry

I thought I would write about artificial intelligence and digital ministry, until I realized that ChatGPT could write on my behalf:

---

Since March 2020, most Christian communities have tested new models of digital and hybrid ministry. We sought to bring the church online because we saw the web as a place where faith could be nourished through content and conversation. We imagined that Christian community could flourish in digital spaces where real people were increasingly focusing their time and attention.

The goal of these models was not to replace in-person forms of church but to convene and revitalize new expressions of community. During the pandemic, the goal was simply to create some semblance of church community for a time of distress and distancing. More recently, the goal has shifted towards inclusive outreach, with digital seen as an accessible entryway into the life of the church.

Yet underlying this experiment in digital ministry was a core assumption: that the conversations we had, that the stories we encountered, would reflect the real, lived experiences of other human beings striving to express the inexpressible.

We inhabit a world where the concept of authority is murky and misunderstood. Still, we know that digital content and conversation from our church is authentic and trustworthy because it emerges through real relationship.

The online prayers and perspectives, the digital stories and the sermons, they work to edify communities because they come from people who we know and trust.

This, incidentally, is the reason why we watch online worship with low quality production value, or why we'll listen to a podcast episode with scratchy audio. Because the content originates from a familiar source, we understand it to be authentic and trustworthy.

For all of the patchy audio and shaky camera feeds, digital ministry carried the church through a pandemic because it brought together real people to express and respond to concrete encounters with a living God.

But what happens when a chatbot can write a sermon as effectively as compelling as the most gifted preacher, in a fraction of the time? What happens when AI-generated words can masquerade as someone's actual creative work?

---

Chat GPT should not push us away from ministry in digital spaces. But this technological upheaval should force a reckoning with the purpose, or the ends, of digital ministry.

In an AI-infused world, content creation and consumption cannot be goals, or the ends, of digital ministry. As AI comes to create better content than we can, such an approach will create a vicious cycle: more and more high quality content leads to more individual content consumption, which drives us away from lived encounter with the neighbor. The view, the like, and the retweet can no longer be key performance indicators to the digital minister.

The world is about to be bombarded with technological changes we still cannot understand. All we know for certain is that this new technology will be captivating, addicting, even all-encompassing. In such an environment, digital-only forms of church community will only turn us further inward. Moving forward, the goal of our digital ministry must be to nudge an outward turn from a self-absorbed world.

In this model, digital ministry will offer an inclusive word that pulls us back to human relationship. When done well, digital ministry will become a lifeline that pulls us back to the face-to-face and the analog. In that sense, we have reached the end of digital ministry as a separate alternative to analog, offline church.

As I write this blog post, I am looking ahead to Sunday, May 21st, 2023, when I will preach a sermon on the 17th chapter of John at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Madison. Given how busy I've been lately, maybe it's best that I outsource the creative process.

Or maybe, I'll crack the spine of my Lutheran Study Bible and try to understand what all of John's talk of spiritual unity means for today's church.

Maybe I'll try to find relevant stories from the congregation, or anecdotes of my own experience. I'll likely turn to my usual preaching resources - podcasts from Luther Seminary's WorkingPreacher, and aging Bible commentaries my grandfather left me.

Perhaps I'll even include a joke about Lutherans and coffee. It might take more time. It might not be as clear or succinct as what AI could generate. But it'll be authentic.

Whether watched in-person or on the church's YouTube feed, my prayer is that the sermon may lead to real conversations with actual people. Whether viewed on Facebook or recapped in our email newsletter, my hope is that will tell a specific story of what God is up to in our world. And in the post-pandemic, post-AI church, that must be our purpose.

---

@ryanpanzer is the author of "Grace and Gigabytes" and "The Holy and the Hybrid." Neither were written by a chatbot.

---