As churches embrace AI, protecting congregational trust and preserving the personal nature of ministry are more important than ever. Michael Whittle, VP of AI at Subsplash, addresses data privacy, church AI policies, the boundaries of AI-assisted ministry and the risks leaders should anticipate as adoption grows.
Church Executive: Churches are uniquely trust-based environments. To this end, what types of church information should never be entered into public AI tools?
Michael Whittle: Yeah, I think pastoral counseling notes, pastoral care conversations and prayer requests that identify people or their personal situations are things you should never enter into public AI tools.
I recently heard a story about a church that still collects physical prayer requests on cards on Sundays. The prayer team wanted to better understand the themes of what people were asking for prayer about. Someone on the team suggested completely covering up the names and any personal information on the cards before uploading the requests to Claude. That way, they could identify general needs — marriage, children or other concerns — without sharing personal information. I think there are ways to use tools like AI to identify those kinds of themes while keeping prayer requests private.
But obviously, anything that includes someone’s name or other personally identifying information should be kept out. That includes abuse reports, safeguarding and child protection information, information about minors, names and photos, and details about family situations. I would also include member contact information, addresses and birthdays. As you said, churches operate in an environment of tremendous trust.
Giving records are another category we should hold very, very tightly. I would also include background checks, staff personnel issues, salary information and legal matters — anything that could expose personal information about the people who have placed their trust in us.
I think the distinction comes down to understanding the tools you’re using. Free consumer AI tools might use what you train, type or upload to improve their models, depending on their settings. But there are also tools, especially as more are developed specifically for churches, that can offer a secure environment. For example, if your giving platform has a way to search giving data, that functionality should operate under the same terms of service and security protections as the software itself.
So, I think it really comes down to doing the sometimes-boring work of reading the data policy and understanding what happens when you upload something. We always say to keep it really safe: no personal information and certainly no pastoral information. If it’s something we wouldn’t want read out loud in front of the church, we probably shouldn’t be uploading it to these tools.
CE: What must a church AI policy include to be effective today and in the long run?
Michael Whittle: That’s a really good question. I think it has to be short and simple. It can’t be a 10-page document. It needs to answer some basic questions: What is our theology around how we use this technology? What are we comfortable using it for?
At Subsplash, we build ourselves into the local church’s authority structure, so we always encourage churches to start with a conversation. Keep it simple. What are you currently using? Which tools are approved? What information should never go into AI? And who owns the output?
For example, let’s say you upload a sermon and turn it into discipleship content. What tool are you using to do that? Who reads the content afterward? AI can make mistakes, so you need to identify who is responsible for reviewing, approving and being accountable for the content AI helped create.
Another important thing is deciding ahead of time what you’re going to tell your congregation about how AI is being used — and then communicating that plainly. The key is to decide how your church thinks about AI and make sure your staff and team understand that, because people will begin asking questions.
And because AI is changing so quickly, these policies need to be reviewed every few months. Decide who on your team owns that responsibility and makes sure the policy stays current. That person should also continue checking in with staff and employees about how they’re using the tools.
Ultimately, it’s about building guardrails and creating a sandbox where people have the opportunity to experiment and innovate, while also making it clear: “These are the things we’re never going to upload, and these are the things we’re never going to use AI for.”
The more I talk with churches, the more I’m seeing them develop separate guidelines for how AI can be used in sermon preparation and preaching. There’s a lot of room for different opinions and approaches there, so it makes sense to address that separately.
I think the most important thing is for church leadership to be intentional about how this technology should be used within the church. Establish that framework first, then work backward: Here are the approved tools, here’s how we use them, and here’s how we don’t use them.
CE: Is there a line that must be drawn between AI-assisted ministry and ministry that must remain personal? Explain.
Michael Whittle: Yeah: obviously, any kind of pastoral care-related communication should remain personal. We don’t want small-group leaders using ChatGPT to write the prayers they’re sending to their small groups, for example.
I think the question to ask is: Is this a pastoral ministry act? Is it the preaching and teaching of the Word? Is it discipling people or caring for people? If so, that’s really what we’re called to do.
So, what can only a pastor do? One of the big things we’ve been encouraging pastors to think about is that AI is really showing us what makes pastors even more irreplaceable. What are the things AI cannot do that pastors are doing every week? And how can they do more of those things?
Obviously, prayer, counseling, hospital visits and funerals — all of these are so innately part of a pastor’s role. The hope is that we would treat that calling as such a holy thing that we recognize its value. Even if it’s quicker to have AI write a text message checking in on someone from your church, maybe that’s something you need to write yourself as their pastor. That’s very different from creating a newsletter reminding people about the 10 events coming up at the church in November.
CE: What are the biggest risks church leaders should anticipate as AI becomes more widely adopted in their operations and among their staff?
Michael Whittle: I think one trend I’m hearing more from pastors involves younger preachers and teachers using AI to help them with their sermons. I’ve talked with a lot of more seasoned pastors who are concerned that their 28-year-old youth pastor might be delivering more polished sermons but isn’t developing the rhythm and getting the reps needed to grow as a preacher.
There’s a part of this where we don’t want to outsource our humanity, or the gifts and grace God has given us. People are going to use these tools, so let’s make sure they’re using them safely. But the bigger concern for churches and their teams is making sure we’re not outsourcing the human person in us and what that means.
I think the big thing is that, as AI becomes more widely adopted among church staff and congregations, we can’t outsource our thinking or our humanity. People are going to AI to get questions answered, and that has implications for how they approach their lives and their faith.
I was just talking with a pastor who told me about a man in his church who had reached out for help with his finances. He was in debt, had a young family and wanted to sit down with the pastor to talk through his situation. The night before their meeting, the man had gone to ChatGPT and uploaded all kinds of personal financial information: his expenses, his debt and other details.
When he sat down with the pastor, the pastor was surprised to learn that the first thing ChatGPT had recommended was that the man stop giving generously to his church. It had suggested that if he stopped making those monthly contributions and reinvested the money, he could improve his finances.
The pastor was caught off guard. It made him realize that people are coming to these conversations with so much more information than they ever have before — and that information might be shaping their decisions in ways we don’t expect.
So, yes, AI is going to change a lot about how we operate our churches and organizations. But I don’t think we should underestimate how it’s changing the way our people are using these tools and what that means for their formation and discipleship.
I think we need to be champions of this new technology and make sure our staff are using it appropriately. At the same time, we need to remind our teams — so they can remind the people they lead — that we’re still human. We need to think for ourselves and do our own work.
And then there’s the issue of errors. These chatbots can be so confident in what they say. But if you challenge them, they’ll often come back and say, “Oh, actually, that quote wasn’t attributed to the right person,” or, “I said this, but I’m really not so sure about it.”
We need to keep reminding our church staff and teams what these tools are for. They’re there to give us time back and help us work more efficiently — not to replace our thinking or our humanity.
Be sure to check out the rest of this insightful, timely series:
Part 1: AI + THE FUTURE OF CHURCH LEADERSHIP
Part 2: PUTTING AI TO WORK
