I Built Something New. Here’s Why.
The church is already inside the machine. Here is what I built to help it think.
Sixty-four percent of pastors use artificial intelligence to help write their sermons. Seventy-three percent of churches have no policy governing any of it. Most congregations have no idea.
The questions underneath these numbers are serious. What happens to the man’s relationship to the Word when a machine can produce a sermon in thirty seconds? What does it mean to shepherd people whose spiritual formation is being shaped by tools the pastor didn’t choose and may not understand? What does Scripture say about what it means to be human, and what does that mean for how the church engages what is happening right now?
These questions are not going away. They are going to get harder. And the working pastor with a sermon to preach on Sunday and twenty-three people in his counseling queue does not have time to wait for the academy to catch up.
That is why I built The Church in the Machine. It is a publication for pastors, elders, church leaders, and seminary students. Theologically serious. Practically grounded. Written for the shepherd who needs to make real decisions, not the scholar who has the luxury of deferring them.
I use AI. I think carefully about how and when. The whole point of this publication is to model and resource that kind of careful thinking for the pastors who are already in the middle of this, whether they realize it or not. That is the only credential I am claiming: that I am trying to think faithfully in public, for the good of the church.
The first essay is up. I would be glad to have you along.
Ken Duffy
(also accessible at churchinthemachine.substack.com until the domain goes live)