AI for Small Church Pastors: A Practical Mini-Course

A research-grounded, 8-module mini-course that takes small church pastors from zero to a sustainable AI practice. Built on 2026 Barna/Gloo research, ERLC guidance, and peer-reviewed studies on AI in pastoral care. Every module includes specific prompt templates, action steps, and practical workflows.

What’s Covered

• Module 1: The Theological Foundation — Imago Dei, stewardship, truth-telling, and incarnational ministry. Grounded in the ERLC’s 2026 guide and the Evangelical Statement of Principles on AI.
• Module 2: Understanding How AI Works — What large language models actually are, why they hallucinate, and how to write prompts that produce useful results.
• Module 3: Your Church AI Policy — Why 95% of churches don’t have one, what all 10 sections must cover, and how to create yours in 2 minutes.
• Module 4: The Right Tools — ChatGPT, AlignedAI, Claude, and Canva AI evaluated against a research-backed framework for ministry use.
• Module 5: Sermon Prep and Teaching — A 7-step workflow adapted from ShepherdAI and AlignedAI research, with specific prompt templates at each step.
• Module 6: Administration and Communications — 8 specific prompt templates for bulletins, newsletters, social media, meeting agendas, visitor follow-up, volunteer recruitment, and policy drafting.
• Module 7: Pastoral Care and AI Situations — What AI must never do in pastoral care, plus 5 specific pastoral situations (grief chatbots, AI companions for teens, job loss, deepfakes, congregational questions) with response guidance grounded in 2026 research.
• Module 8: Building a Sustainable Practice — A complete weekly workflow, a personal prompt library system, and a 30-day implementation plan.

Research Sources

• Barna Group / Gloo 2026 State of the Church research (n=442 Protestant pastors)
• ERLC 2026: The Work of Our Hands: Christian Ministry in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Tayo-Ladega et al. (2026): AI in Church Settings, Trends in Social Sciences
• Sande (2026): Algorithmic Empathy, Pastoral Psychology
• ShepherdAI, HolyJot, and AlignedAI 2026 ministry guides

30 pages. 8 modules. 8 action steps. Specific prompt templates throughout. Designed for small and rural church pastors, especially bi-vocational pastors. Download, work through it, and start saving time this week.