AI, the Image of God, and the Real Opportunity in Front of Us
The other day on a long drive, a buddy and I were goofing off in the car, killing time while we drove to Ohio for a church conference I was speaking at.
We were bored, so we prompted Chat-GPT to write a ridiculous country song based on a conversation we were having, and within three minutes, we had a full, recorded, twangy tune about this bizarre scenario. It was hilarious and way too good for the amount of effort we put in.
Then came the next idea.
We asked AI to write a worship song based on a theological conviction we hold at Move Church.
And I’m not going to lie—it wrote a banger.
Lyrics were solid, theology sound, structure tight. We looked at each other like, “Did it just do that?”
Then my buddy said,
“I felt that, but it’s missing the voice of someone who has lived it.”
And that right there is the whole point of this post.
We sent the song to our worship leader. His first reaction was utter disbelief: “Seriously? What the heck?” But then he saw what we were doing. We weren’t trying to cut corners—we were using a tool. He edited it, changed it, infused it with his own voice and experience, then sang it back to us in a voice note. Suddenly, that decent AI song became a powerful human moment of worship. A song forged not by a prompt, but by a life lived under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
And guess what?! We’re gonna sing it and probably record it.
AI Is Here. But So Are We.
Let’s be real.
AI isn’t going away. The toothpaste is out of the tube, and no politician or pastor is shoving it back in.
The Church needs to start talking about it—not with fear or ignorance—but with discernment.
Here’s what AI can do:
Help summarize research
Organize your thoughts
Write parts to songs and books
Prompt ideas or distill patterns you might not see on your own
But here’s what AI can’t do:
Experience suffering
Receive divine revelation
Be filled with the Spirit
Shepherd a congregation
Lay hands on the sick
Disciple with tears in your eyes from living through the valley
In other words:
AI can write a song. But it can’t sing your story.
We are image bearers of the living God (Gen. 1:26).
He made us intelligent, embodied, relational beings—not prompts or processors.
Proverbs tells us to “get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight” (Prov. 4:7, ESV).
Colossians 1:9–10 reminds us to pursue spiritual understanding, not just head knowledge. And James 1:5 tells us to ask God—not Google—for wisdom.
AI might help us “know everything,” but it can still leave us understanding nothing.
Because understanding comes from doing, being, struggling, and seeking.
Don’t Push the Easy Button
Let me be clear: AI is not evil.
It’s a tool. Like a study Bible, a thesaurus, or a MacBook.
But tools are only as good as the hands they’re in.
The danger is when Christians treat AI like a shortcut for creativity, revelation, or spiritual growth.
You don’t get anointing by asking a bot to write your sermon.
You don’t get wisdom by outsourcing your spiritual formation.
Even our best AI-generated work still needs to be filtered through lived experience, real anointing, and communal discernment.
Face to Face > Fancy Tech
Over the next ten years, here’s what I believe:
The most valuable skill Christians will have isn’t prompt engineering.
It’s people skills.
The world is starved for presence.
In a world of DMs and fake community, real eye contact means everything.
COVID proved that the church isn’t digital. It’s flesh and blood face to face.
You can’t hug AI. You can’t weep with an algorithm (Rom. 12:15).
The Church is a body. And the Spirit of God moves through people, not plugins.
If the next generation is going to know the difference between someone regurgitating AI and someone living with conviction and wisdom—it’s going to happen in the room, not on the screen.
So use the tool.
Let it help you write, organize, and refine.
But don’t let it replace the hard work of growing in wisdom, walking with people, and listening to the Spirit.
AI may write the lyrics.
But only a person—alive in Christ, shaped by suffering, filled with the Spirit—can sing the song.