Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 I'm sure this is gonna rub some people the wrong way, but I believe that AI and chat G p t specifically, can make you a better preacher. I want to tell you all about it in this conversation. Let's do this. You are listening to the Reach right podcast, the show dedicated to helping your church reach more people and grow. Hey guys, I'm Thomas.
Speaker 2 00:00:24 And I'm Ian.
Speaker 0 00:00:25 And today we're talking about five ways that AI can make you a better preacher. Um, I think that should be a, hopefully that's a provocative enough title, uh, because yeah. Uh, we have said on many episodes before that you cannot use AI and chat G P t, and it's like, uh, to write entire sermons. So let me get this out there as a disclaimer. We are not saying in this episode that it is okay for you to open up chat g p t or Bard or whatever you use and type in write a sermon about Matthew chapter 11 verses one through five, right? Yeah, don't do that. That's not what we're talking about. But, uh, we, we wanted to take some time to talk about how you can actually use it to preach better sermons and make you a better preacher. And yeah, this all came from the fact that we were, we've done several episodes on AI about ways you shouldn't use ai, about ways you can use ai.
Speaker 0 00:01:21 We did one episode, we'll link to it up here where we talked about how, what would happen if we told AI to write a sermon about a topic in the style of Stephen Furtick. So, right. Check that out here if you wanna see that episode. It was really a fun experiment to see how it, uh, played out. So I won't spoil it for you, but do watch that. Yeah. But on these, um, videos we've put out there, we have got several pieces of, I'd call it, like pushback, uh, or at least comments about, um, about chat, G B T. And I feel like there's still so much confusion about it. We wanted to dig into that today. But I don't know, maybe you can kind of, we, we have a few of the quotes that we got from we comments. We do so many of our episodes here at retr. We, for the podcast, we invite people to comment, and we love to discuss some of them on the show here. If you have any questions, uh, do leave us a comment down below if you have anything you'd like, like us to discuss in a future episode. But yeah, Ian, why don't you share some of the feedback we got from people on the, uh, on these, uh, these episodes that we've done.
Speaker 2 00:02:23 I'm glad, uh, to do that, Thomas, these, some of these are very interesting and, uh, the first one I almost didn't want to read, but thankfully I did not say it, uh, out there, but, uh, this first one here that we received was chat. G P T is the Holy Spirit because it reflects on human subconscious creativity, therefore, it is the collective consciousness in action. Hmm. Yeah. So,
Speaker 0 00:02:48 Um, I think that if I was standing next to that guy, I would kind of like, you
Speaker 2 00:02:51 Know, yeah. Lean, I, I might run actually. So, but, uh, get out of
Speaker 0 00:02:55 The way a little bit there.
Speaker 2 00:02:56 And then this next one here, in an era where ethics are lacking miserably among church leadership, do we have any doubt this is going to happen? Pastors get up on stage and preach entire messages by other pastors without ever given a stitch of credit? They'll be using chat b uh, G P T for sure. Ugg. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:03:17 There's that. He was referring to in this one, just the, like, will it happen that pastors will start using chat G p T to write entire sermons? And so, yeah, I, I'm sure that it's already happened somewhere that someone has been crunched for time and, you know, said, Hey, you know, write a sermon for me on this. I'm sure that's happened. Sure. But yeah, again, you shouldn't do it. Don't do that. That's not good. But yeah, this guy is, uh, I think onto something there. So
Speaker 2 00:03:42 Yeah, next one here is funny too. Loved the video. As someone who's always struggled to stay awake during long sermons, <laugh>, I can't wait until chat. G p t takes over preaching duties. Just kidding. Kind of
Speaker 0 00:03:57 <laugh>. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Oh, we've all been there. We've all heard sermons like that before, but yeah, that's good
Speaker 2 00:04:02 Pastor's. Long-winded there. So, uh, last but not least, uh, this one, you know, where AI comes from, right? Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:04:10 I think he's implying, I don't know if he's implying the devil or Google the devil and their, or or where it comes from, maybe like Google and their, our tech overlords, or it's some kind of a, a secret plot to have them give us all their information. And I don't know, it probably, who knows? I'm sure that their motives aren't 100% pure and just to be the blessing to humanity that they're trying to be. Uh, so, um, you know, who knows with that? But there's all these thoughts when it comes to ai. I think it's important for us to realize that, you know, as much as we are seeing pushback against AI right now, and you're hearing, you know, we gotta be cautious about this, it's totally true. I, I agree that there we need to be, we need to ethically consider some of the things that we're doing and whether they're gonna be good for us or not.
Speaker 0 00:04:54 The fact is that we've been using AI for years and don't even care about it. Yeah. I mean, it's AI that is gonna put, if you're watching this on video, it's AI that put this video in front of your eyes because it made a decision. Whether you found it on a search or you found it in the, the YouTube algorithm or Yeah. However you saw it, it's because an AI made a decision to show it to you, and that's why you're seeing it. Yeah. Unless you physically, you know, somehow new to type in, Hey, you know, show me videos, uh, by reach, right about, maybe it doesn't have total ai, but there is AI involved with that. There's AI involved with, um, self-driving cars and not just that. Yeah, there's AI involved with, uh, backup cameras and, you know, when they beep when they're getting close to certain things.
Speaker 0 00:05:36 Yeah. There's AI involved with everything that we do in our modern life now. It's just now it's being put into our control in some ways with chat G P T and other types of tools like this, for the first time, the average person without any investment can start using some of these, these AI tools. And so it's become an important conversation and that leads to all kinds of people, you know, trying to, uh, pontificate or theologize and give us their reasons why it's, uh, bad for us or something we have to be careful of or something. We should just start trusting right away. So, um, yeah. So to that end, we wanted to dig in a little bit and talk about how, if you're not supposed to use it to write your sermons, how should you use it to help you in creating or crafting better messages to become a better preacher, to have a bigger impact?
Speaker 0 00:06:28 What are some ways that we can do it in the art of preaching specifically? Yeah. And so we came up with five ideas. Uh, I have used, uh, three of these at least. Um, so we'll, uh, kind of spit them out. Um, but let me say this as a caveat. I, I think that with everything we're about to say today, do never trust what chat g p D tells you or any AI as the authoritative source on these things, right? Right. You know, kind of like we used to say, we used to joke, well, it's on the internet, so it must be true. Right? Right. That used to be a thing. Now, like you can take most a a lot of things, if you can reference it a few ways, it was on the internet, like I'd say the vast majority of what you read on Wikipedia is probably true today, right?
Speaker 0 00:07:13 Yeah. There are still some mistakes and things that are on there, or people that are using it to try and get across some kind of an agenda, but the vast majority of it is true. Yeah. But with chat G B T, we're still in a very young season of it. And so a lot of the things that'll tell you are what they call like illusions. They're, they're, um, hallucinations. I've heard it used as the term for what it describes is like if you say, Hey, give me some stats on things, some of the stats will probably be real, but sometimes it'll just make up stats, much like a human being. It'll just kind of make stuff up <laugh> because it can't really figure it out, or we just don't know off the top of our head. So before we get into any of these, I want to say, don't ever trust anything that chat g p t tells you.
Speaker 0 00:07:56 Always verify with another source that what it told you is right. But even with that caveat, I still think it's a great time saver and tool that we can use to preach better messages. So the first one, and this is probably the one that I've used the most when it comes to prepping messages. I used it just this last week, I preached at my church. I did use this for, uh, but it's, uh, it's biblical references. Yeah. So chat G B T is a great tool to use if you're trying to find a reference to maybe certain keywords or verses that are like other verses or other ways to back things up. You can ask chat g p d for help in finding these verses basically. Yeah. You don't want it to write verses for you, obviously, and you wanna make sure that the verses it tells you really are the correct verses.
Speaker 0 00:08:43 But there's nothing wrong if you're preaching a message on tithing. Let's say for instance, you were to go in and say, uh, Chad Shipt, tell me all the times in the Old Testament where it talks about tithing or verses related to tithing. Right? And, uh, it'll give you a list of, I haven't tried it, but probably 10, maybe 20 different verses that are about tithing. And most of them, I think almost all of them should be correct. I have had one time where it's given me a verse that wasn't the correct reference. It was still a verse, it was an actual verse that just didn't have the reference. Right. So, um, you can ask it to do those kinds of things for you and how, how big of a time saver is that, right? Like, you know, it's like, and I sometimes people have this, this resistance toward it because it's like, well, I don't want an AI to tell me that, but we're fine to trust some other person that just made a blog post about versus about tithing.
Speaker 0 00:09:39 That's true. And we'll read whatever they say. That's true. That's true. So I, I think that this is something that is a big time saver. It can be used to, to help you just get through things and find ideas quickly, but what it's doing is it's supplementing what you're already trying to do and just making you faster at that topic. So, um, yeah, I think this is a really good use. I use it for that. Um, I, I don't always use it. Sometimes I have verses that I have in my mind and I already know where they are. Yeah. But if I'm trying to find further references, I think it's a great way to do it. So, thoughts? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:10:09 Well, it's funny, the, the saying that came to mind when you were talking about all that is trust but verify, right? Yeah. Um, but, uh, but I think in this case, maybe not totally trust for sure, but verify for indeed. Yeah. Uh, verify it. So, but, uh, no, I think time saver you mentioned Thomas and, and, uh, and I mean, yeah, I mean, uncovering, I think the average pastor is very familiar with, with scripture and, and, uh, biblical references and those types of things, but it might uncover a scripture you just weren't thinking of either and give you an extra nugget. So. Yep,
Speaker 0 00:10:44 Absolutely. That's
Speaker 2 00:10:44 It. So next one, I, we think where it can be helpful is historical context. Yeah. So that's where you can use it. So I mean, again, I, I not only think of time saver, I think big time saver with this, you know, especially if you're going into, uh, you know, historical context when it comes to, you know, if you're preaching, uh, in the, through the book of Galatians, you know, and getting historical context as to what was going on during the culture at that time and, and what, where Paul was at and all of that. I mean, you, you're gonna probably uncover a lot of stuff that you never thought of. And of course, yeah, you can verify that historical reference and cross-reference it, but I think this is where, uh, in a, in a positive sense, a pastor can uncover, um, just getting some rich historical content and, uh, that will enhance your sermon. Uh, 'cause stuff that you have would've not found on with your own research, you know? Yep. Trying to go to different sites or different books even. And so, um, let AI uncover it, then verify it again, find out that it's a true historical reference, and that'll add even more, again, rich content to your sermon.
Speaker 0 00:11:54 Yeah. This last week I preached, uh, on Ephesians chapter four, um, the second half of it. So it's about, uh, putting off the old self and putting on the new self and some of the ways that we do that. Uh, and for context it's in Ephesians, and we know that the Temple Artemis, or the Temple of Artemis or Diana was there in Ephesus, and I actually used chat G p t in part of my sermon prep, uh, to get some more information, or at least like a starting point for information on what the temple of Artemis was like when it was destroyed. Some of those kinds of things. And then I, it, it got a couple of these wrong, I want to get that out there. Like it wasn't all correct, or at least there's, I dunno if it's wrong or not, but I'll say it at least was pulling things that people would disagree with, uh, as far as some of the dates and some of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 0 00:12:44 But it did get me off on the right kind of footing to kind of start researching some of these things here. So this is one that is, uh, absolutely helpful, I find. Um, but again, definitely one that you want to verify before just trusting. Right. Um, unless you're willing to go stand in front of your church and say, Hey, chat, G P T says that the Temple of Artemis was this <laugh>, you're that bold. Yeah. Yeah. You don't wanna, I wouldn't recommend that. So you probably wanna do some additional research, but it'll probably get you about 90% of the way there, and you can do some follow up on that.
Speaker 2 00:13:14 That's good.
Speaker 0 00:13:15 All right. Here's another one that I've used it for. Uh, it's for interpretations, uh, that are other than my own interpretation of scripture. Uh, so, uh, this is one that I think is actually an underused tool for pastors in general, uh, yeah. Is that we have to remember when we're preaching sermons that people are coming in with all kinds of ideas about how to live life Yeah. And objections and those things. And one of the best rhetorical tools and sermon delivery is putting the objection out there for them. Saying something like, Hey, well, maybe you're sitting there thinking, Hey, I don't want to do this. Or may, why would the Bible say this? You kind of deliver the objection before and not just let people walk away with their objection. Right? You want to put it out there for people. So I think this is a great way to do it.
Speaker 0 00:14:03 And one that I've used is asking people, asking chat, g p t or another ai, how, um, what are some other interpretations for this passage of scripture? So maybe you're going to do a message. So, uh, I'm part of an egalitarian movement. I'm a four square pastor. Uh, and so maybe I was preaching on, um, the value of women in ministry, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and why we believe in women in ministry, but I wanted to get some other interpretations of that. So, hey, can you give me some other interpretations chat, g p t about what? About, um, what people might think about not having women in ministry according to Paul's epistles? And it'll give you verses that people would reference and some ideas behind that there. And it just helps you to think through some of the objections. Um, yeah, it's great with apologetics ideas and what people would say to these.
Speaker 0 00:14:50 It's kind kind of a good way to bounce some of these ideas off. And because I don't want to give too much credit to that one comment before about how it reflects the, it is the Holy Spirit because it reflects the, the whole of human consciousness. <laugh>. Yeah. That's, that's not true. No. But what he is saying is that it probably is a pretty good representation of what the average man on the street or woman on the street would think about some of the things that we're saying in our sermons. So if you ask chat g p t for what its thoughts are, or what the average person might think about, or maybe objections they may have to this idea, it'll help you to figure out what objections do I have to answer so my audience will be fully equipped and be ready to Yeah. Take the gospel to their community there. So yeah, that's kinda the way I think about it. It's one that I've used and I found it helpful.
Speaker 2 00:15:36 Yeah, I think that's a different one. Not much to add, but I will say, I think just that word interpretation, uh, may scare some pastors off when it comes to utilizing chat G B T. Just because, you know, when you, when you think of interpretation, you think of, okay, well I'm, and we most certainly, uh, say with all of this Pray <laugh>. Yeah. And, and get discernment from the Lord, uh, regarding your message. And yes, the Holy Spirit does give you different, he, he knows who's coming to church on Sunday and knows different perspectives and maybe different things. He will, we know that there is no replacing that. But I would just encourage, based on what you said, don't be afraid to go in there. 'cause I, I, you know, you, every pastor despite having spiritual discernment, is not gonna know every interpret, have every interpretation in mind or, or know what everyone is thinking in that room. Only God does. Right? Yeah. So it's a good tool to, I think, just reach people a little more broadly with your message. So I would just, I would just say because of that word, don't be afraid of it. Yeah. Uh, thanks for saying that, Ian.
Speaker 0 00:16:37 I was, I, I put, I probably should have been more clear about that. Do not use Chachi bt for your own interpretations of scripture. Yeah, yeah. <laugh>, don't ask it. How should I interpret this passage and trust what it says? That's a bad use. Um, so yeah, that's it. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying on that. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:16:52 No, and I love this next one. This one I think is just kind of almost a no brainer. Yeah. For use it, uh, for illustrative stories. Mm-hmm. I mean, again, we, we know in my opinion, uh, the best sermons, and I think most would agree, and you would too, are ones that have amazing illustrative stories. Now there's no, I think comparison, uh, to personal experience and illustrative stories that a pastor can tell by their own life experience and those types of things. But, but it can definitely, if you're having a certain sermon theme, you know, finding some illustrative stories, uh, that are out there, that, uh, obviously you have no, uh, way of finding on your, you do have a way of finding on your own again, but that it will take a lot of time. Uh, yeah. But you won't find all of them. And I think utilizing AI to find some really cool stories that keep people, uh, like the guy that commented at the beginning that, that said, he, uh, you know, can't pay attention during long-winded stories. Well, here's where AI can find good illustrative stories, rather for your message, uh, to keep people engaged. So I think this is a really cool one that every, I don't say every pastor should use, but many should consider and use.
Speaker 0 00:18:03 I think that it's one of the ones that, um, I would be a little bit more cautious about, because I think that is, um, that gets closer than all the rest of these ideas towards the, to the role of the Holy Spirit and what he is doing. 'cause go, I think personal stories are, are great, you know, and I think that if you're having it right, like fictional stories for you, I think that can be, to me, that's close to the line. Like of like, if it's, uh, I think that's something that God should, if you're gonna make up fictional stories about, uh, people and, uh, things that happen, and that's just like how it is with sin or something like that, that you would say. Sure. I think that's kind of close. I think it's great for historical ideas. Like if you were to ask it, um, uh, Chad, g p t, Hey, I'm preaching on this topic, can you give me some historical references? Or maybe an interesting historical quote, uh, that might be pertinent to something like this. Yeah. Um, I think it, it is good for illustrations in that realm helping you kind of aggregate ideas or references that are already out there. I don't really, I, I'm cautious with using it for creative tasks that we should be relying on the holy group report. Now,
Speaker 2 00:19:12 I guess, I guess where I thought of it, it did, not to interrupt, but to interject. Yeah. So maybe I was off there and No, thank you for that, Thomas. But I guess where I thought of it was, let's say you were preaching, uh, you know, about how out of the book of James, how the tongue starts fires, right? Yeah. And then you, you found, uh, I guess what I was thinking of is you found a story of, uh, the boy who cried wolf, right? Or, or not just that Sure. You found someone, someone who said something, the power of their words and negative words that that really impacted other people's lives. And, you know, so that's what I guess was mean. I totally
Speaker 0 00:19:46 Good with that. I, I think think that, like, I, I think what, um, what I would want, like if I was doing a message on the power of the tongue and how it has the Yeah. Power to set fire to, I, I would maybe use it as a, as, again, it's just kind of like, it's kind of a historical context. It kind of bleeds over to that. But hey, tell me about the Great Chicago fire and how it started and you know, of the kind of damage it did from one little spark and you used it to kind of get that illustration built. I think that's a good way to use it for sure. Again, I just, and I'm not saying necessarily that it's, um, I, I just don't know. I think this is one of those things we have to do some ethical, uh, soul searching on.
Speaker 0 00:20:23 Yeah. If you're using it for creative, um, to actually write creative stories. That's one thing. I actually think it's okay for you to it, to have it brainstorm ideas for you. Like, Hey, give me, give me five ideas for the types of stories I could tell that might help me illustrate, uh, the power of the tongue or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think that is, I mean, I love it it for brainstorming, but when it gets into like you reading the creative work that it does Yeah. And passing it off as something that you creatively came up with. Oh, right. That's kind of where it gets into, um, into murky waters formulas. And I'm not saying you're even saying that, but I just think that No, no,
Speaker 2 00:21:03 That's the caution
Speaker 0 00:21:03 I want our audience to hear. I
Speaker 2 00:21:05 Probably was thinking more of the historical, uh, reference there and just, uh, you know, something that can be identified as, Hey, this is not me, but this, this happened <laugh> and it's a good illustration. So yeah, that's good.
Speaker 0 00:21:17 Absolutely. Alright, that's good. Last one. Um, this one is a little bit, I haven't used this one personally. Um, I live in a place where there's not really a need for this so much. Um, but uh, the last one is language translation. Uh, and I think it's an interesting idea, uh, and it's something that, again, this is a very heavy on the verify that it's accurate type thing, right, right, right. But if you are in a, uh, a multilingual community, um, let's say you live in south Texas, right? Yeah. Where, um, if you don't know South Texas is, you know, people generally speak English, but the road signs are in Spanish in a lot of places. Right. And it truly is a bilingual area where you'll find lots of people that don't speak Spanish and lots of people that don't speak English at all, and they live life together there.
Speaker 0 00:22:03 Yep. If I was there, I would be open to the idea of if I was transcribing my messages, which we think is a good idea for your YouTube videos, or even if you're just doing it for your sermon notes, um, you put those on your website, you put it into your YouTube description, what if you actually used chat g p t to translate it into Spanish for you? Or if you're speaking in Spanish, translating it into English for you. Um, I think you'd absolutely need a set of Spanish speaking eyes to go over it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And make sure that, you know, that really does make sense. 'cause I don't think it's quite there yet, and Right. A lot of, especially with spiritual topics, uh, there's a lot that can be missed in the nuance of how we say things there, but I think it probably gets you 95% of the way there, uh, as opposed to translating entire, uh, you know, things by hand or having someone come in and do translation
Speaker 2 00:22:55 Again, A good time saver. Yeah. Again, good time saver for sure.
Speaker 0 00:22:58 And I think it helps you to, if you're in a community that's 50% Spanish speaking and 50% English, it could actually double your reach, um, if you're doing these kinds of things. So, um, that's good. I think that language translation is an untapped resource that Chachi PT can be really helpful for. So, thoughts on that,
Speaker 2 00:23:15 It kind of made me think of, you know, we come across a lot of multilingual churches here with what we do at Reach. Right. And, uh, yeah. I've, I've worked with many over the years and it made me think of how Google translates a website that's maybe in Spanish, and, and it, it really, it, it, it does do that, but it doesn't, you know, take into consideration the way like idioms and different cultural expressions of that word. So, um, so, you know, it's often that, you know, instead of relying upon Google, there's tools out there that actually really do authentically translate a website and everything. So yeah, it, it goes to the point of just like you said, I think it, I think it could be positive to save time. And again, if you're, and if a church is not doing this in a multilingual area, extend their reach. Um, but I definitely get a, like in the case or in the example of Spanish, uh, you know, speaking, um, congregations get another set of eyes on it, so Yeah. Yeah. But I think it could definitely be helpful.
Speaker 0 00:24:13 Cool. No, that's good. I, I think so too. I think it's something that I want to explore a little bit more. Um, I haven't used it in this way before. 'cause I, we live in a place where while there's lots of people from other countries, everybody kind of, right. Mo it's, there's, you know, probably 40 different languages you could translate things to in here in Hawaii. Yeah. So, but I think if you're in a place, I think it's something that, um, it might make sense for your church there. So yeah. I hope this has been helpful. Um, yeah, this is just some of the ways that we are thinking about how churches can be using ai. Um, again, like every one of these episodes we come back to the same thing as like, this is not an endorsement to have it fully write your sermons for you.
Speaker 0 00:24:50 Right. But much like we use Google as a tool when we're prepping sermons, at least I do, or we use, um, commentaries when we're prepping sermons as a tool. Uh, yeah. Chat, g p t can be used as a tool to help you write better sermons and to make you much more time efficient when it comes to writing your sermons. Yeah. So I hope this has been helpful to you in that I hope it gave you an idea Yeah. Of something you could use it for. Uh, if it has, let us know down on the comments. Yeah. If you disagree with us, we definitely want to hear from you. <laugh>, if you think we're wrong, let us know down in the comments and Wemy will turn you into a podcast like these people. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:25:25 Give us some more, uh, give us some
Speaker 0 00:25:26 More interest, give us some more ammo for that. Yeah. Uh, if you have another way that you use chat g p t that you have found useful, we'd love to hear about that as well. Um, or if you feel like, um, that, you know, we maybe we've overstepped in everything that we're saying is actually Sure. Like you can use chat bt to use whatever to do whatever you want with sermon prep. We wanna hear from you too. Yeah. The main thing is just comment. It helps with the algorithm to help this get in front of more eyes. It helps us out a lot. It also means a lot to us if you rate, review, subscribe, do all those kinds of things, guys. So thanks so much for being a part of the Rewrite family and we'll catch you next time.
Speaker 2 00:26:01 See ya.
