Valuetainment - July 21, 2026


“The AI Sermon Revolution” - Pastors Struggle With Where to Draw the Line


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

187.82

Word count

1,546

Sentence count

71

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 pastors are using AI to help write sermons, grapple with where to draw the line.
00:00:08.080 And you know who wrote this story?
00:00:09.660 Wall Street Journal.
00:00:10.900 I would have never guessed Wall Street Journal would write the story,
00:00:14.740 but let me read it to you.
00:00:16.060 Half of all pastors say they use AI for brainstorming or idea generation
00:00:20.620 and roughly a quarter use to help write sermons, up from 12% in 2024,
00:00:25.600 According to Barna Group, the trend has drawn theological pushback to the Vatican earlier this year.
00:00:32.840 Pope Leo warned clergy that artificial intelligence can't give a true amelie.
00:00:39.380 Daryl Stetler, lead pastor of Bible Methodist Church in Oklahoma City,
00:00:44.300 is among Chad GPT's top 1% users and runs a Facebook group of 500 pastors experimenting with technology.
00:00:50.960 He makes $600 a week plus a housing stipend and takes construction jobs on the side.
00:00:57.060 A sermon used to take him 10 to 15 hours to prepare.
00:01:00.480 A chatbot does it now.
00:01:01.940 First batch research, shaves off several hours.
00:01:04.740 This AI does not enjoy what it finds, he said.
00:01:07.380 It cannot love it.
00:01:08.420 The time he saves goes towards people, the hospital visits.
00:01:12.060 Tom, what do you think about pastors using chat GPT for their sermons?
00:01:15.160 Does it bother you?
00:01:16.380 It doesn't bother me if they're using it just to pull research together.
00:01:19.240 But, you know, what's the interesting thing about the pastorate is being able to bring it to the lives of people where they're living today.
00:01:27.560 In other words, Scripture doesn't change.
00:01:29.440 Christ's teaching doesn't change.
00:01:31.280 How we get saved doesn't change.
00:01:33.080 But the things that we're fighting as parents, like our kids, you know, making decisions and feeling insecure because social media, that's a new thing.
00:01:40.700 and bringing messages to people where they live today in the new context of life as we see it,
00:01:46.600 as it gets complicated, it doesn't bother me if they're using ChatGPT to assemble it together.
00:01:51.760 It's not like he's going to say, hey, I'd like to mix it up a little bit on the story of the
00:01:56.640 exodus from Egypt. Should the Jews make it or not? That's like, no. No, no. We made it, Tom. 0.87
00:02:03.260 Exactly. You see what I mean, Adam. It's not like you're going to take AI and say,
00:02:07.620 nope, the waters of the Red Sea close in, and all those poor Jewish people die. No, 0.84
00:02:12.560 they cross on dry land. So it's not going to change the teachings, but I hope, and what the
00:02:17.820 Pope said, it's not a true homily, meaning you're not bringing it together into the life of people,
00:02:23.440 because part of being a pastor and preaching and teaching is you preach warnings, and you teach
00:02:30.960 love and then you preach applications so what goes through here it doesn't really bother me
00:02:38.160 but i i hope it's not a shortcut to people maybe being an uninformed deliverer if someone did a
00:02:44.180 chat gbt on your sales um system that you built pat and then they had no experience in sale and
00:02:50.440 trying to make videos about it it's going to look clumsy because they're not authentic they have
00:02:54.360 nothing to draw on am i right okay it's the same thing for a pastor if that's happening then that
00:02:59.580 that that would really bother me but if it's somebody like dudley saying hey i'm going to
00:03:03.120 organize bring me all the verses together on love from corinthians through galatians ephesians
00:03:08.240 philippians colossians i'd like to talk about but paul preaching on love from a new testament
00:03:14.200 perspective and he can pull that together in 10 minutes and put a sermon together then i think
00:03:18.880 that's a really wonderful thing yeah vinnie what are you at with this well i i love i'm gonna go
00:03:23.940 with tom what he said ai should be used as a tool uh like if he uses a pastor to like organize notes
00:03:29.500 Or where does it say this
00:03:31.380 And it brings that up
00:03:32.580 It's like using it as a Google
00:03:34.460 Or a Bible app
00:03:37.280 But the second it starts writing the sermon
00:03:39.120 And they're just memorizing it
00:03:40.700 I'm not a fan of it 0.92
00:03:41.440 It should come from the sermon from prayer 0.98
00:03:45.040 And you're studying the word
00:03:47.120 And the Holy Spirit
00:03:48.040 What are you going to say Tom?
00:03:49.300 The Holy Spirit and Spirit inspiring you?
00:03:51.340 The way it says in the New Testament?
00:03:53.860 Yeah, not in algorithms
00:03:54.860 And who knows?
00:03:56.220 Whoever's in charge of it starts twisting this
00:03:58.760 or watering down the scripture and making it not go the way that it's really supposed to go.
00:04:03.220 So, you know, people go to church not to hear AI.
00:04:05.700 I want to hear the pastor.
00:04:06.720 I want to hear his experience, his story, and what God has placed in his heart.
00:04:10.860 That's what I want to hear.
00:04:11.560 Quick shout out to Dudley.
00:04:13.100 Dudley one day shows me every, what do you call it?
00:04:17.660 Sermon.
00:04:18.020 Sermon he's ever given.
00:04:19.140 All the notes.
00:04:19.700 And all the notes.
00:04:20.520 And Vinny, every word of every sermon he's ever given is written on a yellow pad.
00:04:26.500 boxes and boxes of the last
00:04:29.140 40 years.
00:04:31.000 It's insane. It's like the
00:04:33.020 Library of Congress. Everything he reads
00:04:34.880 from stage to pulpit, he hand-wrote it.
00:04:37.100 I love that. Everything.
00:04:39.000 He's hand-written it. So, no wonder
00:04:40.940 he's one of the greatest pastors we have in America.
00:04:44.020 You will look forward
00:04:45.000 to go hearing him speak on Sunday. If you've never
00:04:46.840 checked him out, go check him out. Some of his sermons.
00:04:49.020 Dudley Rutherford. He's phenomenal.
00:04:51.800 Adam, I'll give you the final
00:04:52.800 words on this because I know you're heavily involved.
00:04:54.700 you spend a lot of time with pastors and let's see what the what the crazy thing that you're
00:04:58.640 going to say right now to us go ahead i also speak sarcasm so i understand exactly what you're saying
00:05:04.220 pbd but what i what i think about chat gpt and ai is use it but just don't become it so the one
00:05:13.900 thing that chat gpt cannot replace whether you're a podcaster or a pastor is the ability to tell a
00:05:20.940 story and connect with people on a human level. We're getting so robotic, so technical, so much
00:05:27.720 AI out there that we don't know what's real. What I'm so happy about and encouraging about, and
00:05:33.600 thank you, PBD, for kind of helping me, is more people going to church, more people going to
00:05:39.320 synagogue, more people getting God in their life. I'm in Israel right now. I didn't think I'd be
00:05:44.080 doing a podcast from Israel minus the audio issues. And here's a funny story for you, PBD.
00:05:49.320 I'm going to tie this whole thing together.
00:05:50.800 You know, I land in Israel, and I go to this little bookstore,
00:05:54.080 and you know what book I see right there?
00:05:56.620 Dudley Rutherford's book about his trips to Israel
00:06:00.020 and what he learned walking in the footsteps of Christ.
00:06:03.920 I love that.
00:06:04.380 So I bought the book.
00:06:05.560 So I'll be reading that book from Pastor Dudley Rutherford.
00:06:09.800 How great of a story is that?
00:06:10.760 So it's full circle, coming together.
00:06:12.960 Come home to Jesus, BBD, because he loves you.
00:06:15.600 People ask us and say, hey, we'd love to come to the campus,
00:06:17.820 get a tour an entire new headquarters 11 acres on the airport allegedly this was a former cia
00:06:23.200 dod property that oliver north did the iran contract this airport that you guys now own
00:06:27.420 yes wait a minute is that is that real yes we're doing the annual networking event
00:06:33.300 at our office june 29 6 to 8 p.m those who have co tickets i'm going to give you tour the entire
00:06:40.220 place founder tickets time i'll give you a tour the entire place a lot of new upgrades have
00:06:44.620 happened since the last time you guys were here executives will get a tour from our staff and
00:06:48.920 then platinums and generals you'll get a chance to do networking and then i think a few people
00:06:52.940 who buy the ceos and founders will go to the cigar lounge afterwards for networking he went
00:06:57.320 at our lounge whether you're a member or not it's going to be a great experience and some of you
00:07:01.500 guys can choose to become members afterwards but you got to go buy your tickets this is what it
00:07:04.960 looked like last year there's going to be a lot of surprises this year go ahead and play the clip
00:07:14.620 There you have it, Vault 2026.
00:07:40.620 If you haven't yet bought your tickets, go to Vault 2026.
00:07:43.460 get your tickets and those you guys that have
00:07:46.100 you can register with the link
00:07:47.960 that we have out there I don't know if we have the link
00:07:50.000 there or not if we're not showing it
00:07:51.440 we'll put in the description in the comment section go
00:07:53.900 to it but if you haven't yet purchased your
00:07:55.920 tickets go to vault
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00:07:59.900 registered Logan Paul will be there Stephen
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00:08:04.000 Jerry Rice Joe Montana
00:08:05.800 and we're gonna have a good time together at the
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