Why Every Church Needs an AI Policy
Your staff and volunteers are already using AI. A clear policy grounded in Scripture protects your people and frees your team to use these tools well.
01The gap
AI is already in your building.
According to Barna, 87% of U.S. Protestant pastors now use AI in some way, most often for brainstorming, research, graphics, and administrative work. Church staff and volunteers are using it too, often on free personal accounts, to draft announcements, plan events, and answer emails.
Meanwhile, the people in the pews are uneasy. In a 2025 Lifeway Research survey, 61% of Protestant churchgoers said they were concerned about AI's effect on faith.
Few churches have written down what they expect. Without guidance, every staff member and volunteer decides alone what is wise, what is safe to type into a chatbot, and what the congregation should be told. Most of them are doing their best. A policy makes sure they do not have to guess.
“Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much.”
02What can go wrong
Four risks a policy prevents.
Private information leaves the building.
A staff member pastes a prayer request, a counseling note, or a list of members into a free chatbot to save time. Many free AI tools may use what users type to improve their models unless someone turns that setting off. The people behind that information never agreed to share it with an outside company.
A policy saysSome information never goes into any AI tool, and everyone knows what it is.
Errors reach the congregation.
AI writes with complete confidence whether or not it is right. It invents quotations, misattributes them to famous preachers, and sometimes misquotes Scripture. A newsletter or a slide with an invented verse can travel a long way before anyone notices.
A policy saysA person checks every fact, quotation, and verse before anything is shared.
Trust wears thin.
Congregations are divided on how AI should be used in ministry, especially in preaching. When people discover a use they were not told about, such as a chatbot on the website that seemed like a person, trust suffers even when no harm was meant.
A policy saysWe are honest about how we use AI, and anyone can always reach a person.
Good uses go underground.
When leaders say nothing, or only express worry, staff who find AI helpful start using it without telling anyone. That is where mistakes go unnoticed. A policy that names good uses brings them into the open, where they can be guided and shared.
A policy saysHere is what we welcome, and here is how to do it well.
03What a good policy does
It starts with what you believe.
A church AI policy should read differently from one written for a bank or a software company. It begins with theological commitments: people bear God's image, work and tools are good gifts, disciples are called to think, we tell the truth, and we are faithful with what is entrusted to us. Every rule that follows is an application of those beliefs.
That foundation does two things. It helps your team understand why each rule exists, which makes the rules easier to keep. And it gives your leaders a way to judge new tools as they arrive, since no policy can anticipate every change in the technology.
- Theological commitments.
- The beliefs behind every rule, grounded in Scripture.
- Who it covers.
- Staff, pastors, leaders, and volunteers, including anyone using a personal account for church work.
- People stay responsible.
- Whoever shares a piece of work owns it, however much AI helped.
- Caring for information.
- Clear levels for what may go into AI tools, and a list of what never does.
- Work that stays personal.
- Counseling, prayer, crisis care, and your leaders' decision about preaching.
- Decisions that stay with people.
- Membership, discipline, hiring, benevolence, and child safety.
- Checking and honesty.
- Verify before sharing, and be open about how AI is used.
- Review.
- A yearly look at the policy and the tools, with prayer and fresh eyes.
04Getting started
You can have a policy in place this season.
- Gather your leaders. Bring together your pastors, key staff, and someone who uses AI regularly.
- Start with the commitments. Read them together, pray over them, and make sure you agree before you edit any rules.
- Adapt a template. You do not need to write from scratch. Fill in your names and roles, and keep the sections that fit your church.
- Choose one tool. Pick a single AI tool for church work, set its privacy settings, and name one person to oversee it.
- Adopt it and teach it. Have your governing body approve the policy, walk your staff and volunteers through it, and put the yearly review on the calendar.
My free template gives you all of this in a ready-to-adapt form: six theological commitments, a complete policy with a note on why each part matters, options for preaching, and an adoption page. It works for churches, Christian schools, and ministries.
- Where is AI already being used in our church, and by whom?
- What information do people entrust to us that should never leave our care?
- What would we want our congregation to know about how we use these tools?
- Where could AI give our staff time back for people, prayer, and study?
Scripture quotations are from the Christian Standard Bible (CSB).