The Future of AI and Youth Ministry
How will it change how we do youth ministry?
The more I’ve learned about the rapid advancements that are currently and will soon happen as a result of AI, the more my mind is blown. A report shared at SXSW by Amy Webb opened my eyes to the rapid changes we will see in coming years. Other Substack writers have alerted me to things like AI-powered chatbot “friends” and a new AI-powered social network where you receive AI-generated comments on each post you make. More recently, I saw another Substack post an AI-generated 8 minute podcast that seemed eerily human.
During my first full-time youth ministry position, I remember asking the youth director what youth ministry was like before cell phones. A regular part of my job was getting in touch with students through their cell phones, texting them reminders about programs and events, coordinating times for me to get together with them for relational ministry, and so on. I couldn’t imagine how I would’ve done all those parts of my job without cell phones. How would I coordinate getting 5 girls to meet me for ice cream after school, or keep tabs on who was coming to youth group that Wednesday?
Back then, the students and staff mostly had Blackberries or the cell phones with the slide-out keyboards. The iPhone was just starting to be more popular. As smartphones have become ubiquitous, I’ve seen how they too have changed the landscape of ministry.
So now, at the beginning of what will be a great shift in AI, I wonder the same thing about AI. 10 years from now, I imagine it wouldn’t be far-fetched for someone to ask me what youth ministry was like before the AI revolution. How will it change the way we do ministry?
In many ways, AI will be a double-edged sword. It will lead to great advances, and also be used against us by people who want to maximize their profits. It offers great promises to help us not feel lonely (check out this real product, for instance) and to help us with our mental health (many ‘therapist’ AI chatbot options already exist, and AI is growing in abilities to mimic human emotion and empathy). And it can help us find answers and insights to almost any question we throw at it.
Already, school systems are using AI to replace human teachers for part of the academic day, claiming that it has increased student academic success. It seems this technology can be used to tailor the lessons to each specific student, which one could argue has advantages over lecturing a larger classroom and trying to make the content fit the learning abilities of every student there. I imagine that, if these technologies catch on, it would only be a matter of time before churches start considering using them. It’d certainly feel helpful to let AI tailor lessons for individuals rather than trying to make your lesson understandable to the whole youth group, especially the wider the age range.
With AI tools becoming increasingly accessible, many are excited about these options. Yet I also worry about the repercussions. Is technology really the thing that’s going to help our loneliness and mental health, or equip us with the wisdom we need to navigate life in a broken world and remain faithful to God? I’m not saying technology can’t help, but ultimately we need people and God’s Spirit.
As God’s image-bearers, we were made for relationships. By our very design, we will struggle when we lack rich, healthy community. Technology can’t replace that. It may offer a bridge, but it can’t replace authentic discipleship, the experience of being deeply known and loved, and the implicit and transformative learning processes that take place only in the context of human relationships.
Even AI can tell us this. In fact, before I wrote this blog post, I asked ChatGPT to write a draft for me, to see what it would come up with. After giving it a prompt with several points I wanted to include, and asking it to make several edits, it pushed out a result that wasn’t bad. While I won’t share most of what it wrote, I did like this paragraph:
Consider a teen who confides in an AI chatbot instead of a trusted mentor or parent. While the chatbot might offer helpful advice, it lacks the spiritual insight and accountability that come from a godly community. Hebrews 10:24–25 urges us to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works… not neglecting to meet together.” These relationships are irreplaceable in forming Christlike character.
I can imagine, for example, a student asking a theologically-trained AI Sunday-school-teacher replacement questions about life after death, the problem of suffering, or some other big existential question. I’d imagine the AI tool would be great in providing answers. But when students are asking those questions, it’s often because something is going on in their lives that is bringing those questions up. And for that, they don’t need just theological answers or even an AI bot that can mimick empathy. They need real people in their lives that they can ask these questions to and who will care for them in response.
AI will likely streamline some of the behind-the-scenes parts of ministry. But I wonder if it won’t also increase the need for us to be ready to receive people who have been both utterly deprived of healthy human connection and have become reliant on and even addicted to AI “relationships” as a replacement. In other words, one of the places we may need to become more conversant and skilled is in the space of embodied existence and relationships.
The church is thankfully already becoming increasingly aware of the need to have a more robust theology of the body. But our knowledge needs to go beyond an intellectual and informational level. People can learn information about embodied existence and relationships on their own, through content available in digital resources. They will need to see the church provide not just content but community, as we live out and mentor others in the lived realities of embodied relationships. And I think that means we will need to prioritize the emotional health of our leadership, because emotional health and awareness of your embodied experience go hand in hand.
We also need God’s Spirit to teach us wisdom and discernment, not just the intellectual knowledge we can get through digital resources. When I had ChatGPT write a draft for me, it got me thinking about how AI could be used to shortcut a lot of the work of learning, listening to God’s Spirit, and growing in discernment. One of the reasons I enjoy writing and teaching is because it forces me to organize and clarify my thoughts. As I do this, I have space to back up and listen to God’s Spirit in the process, discerning what is good and Biblical. I end up learning, engaging further in critical and Biblical thought, and developing further convictions.
And then, when I end up in conversations where what I’ve written or taught on becomes relevant, I am much more likely to remember what I’ve learned and be able to pass it on to others. For me, writing and teaching are a way to learn, retain, and own things. It’s an exercise in the stewardship of my mind, which allows me to serve others better.
Let’s not let the capabilities of AI rob us of that. I would love for churches and youth ministries to produce disciples who can engage with deep, critical, and Biblical thinking about AI, much like Andy Crouch does. Let’s equip students in discernment about technology and AI, teaching them to ask questions like, “How does this affect my relationship with God?” and “Is this drawing me toward relationship with others, or isolating me?”. Let’s teach them about ethics, because we will need Christians who think wisely through the ethics of how AI is used. And let’s continue to prioritize face-to-face connection and the passing on of lived, embodied, and experiential wisdom, not just an aggregate of written insights that AI can reproduce.
To close out this post, here are some of the closing thoughts from that AI-generated draft:
By offering authentic community, godly mentorship, and the hope of the gospel, youth ministries can minister to young people left weary by the false promises of technology. Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:28—“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”—offer the ultimate fulfillment of what AI can never provide: rest for the soul.
AI will undoubtedly shape the future of youth ministry, but it cannot replace the Spirit-filled work of the church.
In the time since I began drafting this post, several articles have touched on similar thoughts. If you’re interested in more about this topic, check out:
Chatbots Aren’t a Solution to Our Loneliness Epidemic
“Are Humans Using AI to Build a Modern Tower of Babel?”
“AI friendships claim to cure loneliness. Some are ending in suicide.”