PP64 : Four Ways I’m Using AI for Ministry
In the last 6 months or so, it seems that AI has taken the internet (and world) by storm.
There are some folks that immediately attached apprehension to it. And in a ministry context, folks often worry that AI will replace their pastor’s sermon research and writing.
In this episode I want to offer four ways you can use AI in ministry to carve out more time for ministry.
So how are you doing this Chad? Here are those four broad ideas.
As a conversation partner
I had several friends in seminary I loved to talk with about what we were learning. Sometimes they had a better idea about something than I did. Or at times they could connect ideas I struggled with. I like using ChatGPT as a conversation partner. I will ask it questions instead of google or wikipedia. I will also ask it to explain how two things are related.
Here is a recent thread as I wanted to learn more about how people viewed trials and tribulations through history. You can see how the different responses gave me different questions.
Podcast transcripts and social media posts (and sermon focused concepts)
I’m a big believer in letting work last longer than a few quick moments. I have been uploading episodes of the podcast into transcribeme.com and using the cheap machine-learning transcription service. After that, I upload the transcript into ChatGPT and begin asking it questions about summaries and for it to generate other content based on the transcript.
PulpitAI is a new service (still in beta testing) that I am really excited about. The service follows the same logic but instead generates content around the sermon audio. In my own excitement for this service, I uploaded an older sermon into transcribeme > ChatGPT to see how it might help generate additional content. You can read those results here.
Document Creation
I went to seminary for many reasons. One of them, however, was not basic-level administration. I use AI to help me create S.O.P’s, and get help creating basic administration systems. I then make sure to go in and customize them for their necessary purpose. This turns jobs that used to take a couple of hours into 30 minutes or so.
Better stock images
Communication is visual. I used to spend TONS of time taking creative pictures or scouring stock photo sites to make sure I had a great image to go with nearly everything. I’ve started using Midjourney to create more specific illustrated content for social media.