Five Things I See Coming in AI (And What They Mean for the Church and Creators)
by Rev. Dr. Justin R. Lester — “That Tech Pastor”
Artificial Intelligence has dominated headlines for nearly three years now. From generative text to autonomous agents, we’ve watched a revolution in creation, communication, and decision-making unfold in real time. But as I’ve traveled, spoken, and consulted with churches, businesses, and educators, I’ve noticed a quiet plateau forming under the noise of progress.
AI isn’t slowing down technologically. It’s slowing down creatively. And that slowdown is about to test the imaginative depth of everyone using it.
So here are five shifts I believe we’re about to see in the world of AI and what they mean.
1. The Coming AI Slump: The Limits of Machine-Made Creativity
Every system eventually hits a wall when it runs out of data. Most AI models have been trained on the same internet, the same recycled content, language patterns, and aesthetics. What that means is: we’re about to experience what I call an AI Slump, a period where content begins to sound repetitive, predictable, and hollow.
The church version of this is sermon plagiarism through automation. The business version is marketing that sounds like everyone else. And the spiritual version is people who stop thinking deeply because the machine does the first draft.
What to do:
Take what I call a creation Sabbath. Turn AI off weekly and create from the well of your soul. Write a sermon without an outline. Sketch something by hand. Pray through an idea before prompting it. The same God who filled Bezalel “with wisdom, understanding, and all kinds of skills” (Exodus 31:3) hasn’t stopped filling people with creativity.
AI can refine your craft, but it should never define your creativity.
2. The Return of Soft Skills
We’ve entered a season where technical ability is easy to scale, but human warmth is hard to find. AI can automate efficiency, but not empathy. It can generate reports, but not relationship. And as more organizations automate communication, the return of soft skills will become the new measure of leadership.
What separates great leaders and communicators won’t be their tech stack but their tone. Knowing how to talk to people, mediate conflict, and read a room will matter more than ever. In church life, that means pastoral presence will never be replaceable. In business, it means emotional intelligence will be more valuable than engineering skill.
What to do: As Paul said, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.” (Colossians 4:6) Machines can give you words, but only the Spirit can season them. Invest in team development around listening, negotiation, and spiritual care. Don’t just teach your staff how to use AI teach them how to talk like Jesus after the AI drafts the email.
3. After Automation Comes Actualization
Everyone right now is obsessed with automation. Whether it’s automating emails, follow-up, scheduling, sermon notes, workflows. And I love it. But once all that’s automated, we’ll face a new question: what now?
When the tasks are automated, the people must be actualized.
Automation creates margin. Actualization defines meaning.
In the Church, once AI manages the follow-up forms, we’ll need people who know how to follow up in love. When AI drafts a sermon outline, we’ll need preachers who still hear God’s voice. When AI handles scheduling, we’ll need disciples who still show up on time with joy and purpose.
What to do: Audit your systems. For every automated task, name one “human touchpoint” that stays sacred. Mark 2:27 reminds us that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The same applies to technology. Tech was made for people, not people for tech. Don’t worship the workflow; steward it.
4. Believe Your Call, Not your Hype
AI is evolving so fast that every week brings a new “game changer.” Some creators panic and jump tool to tool, convinced they’re falling behind. But this next era will belong to people who learn to believe their own call, not every headline.
Hype is expensive; obedience is sustainable. When you know what God has assigned you to build, you can stop chasing what everyone else is posting. The question isn’t “What’s trending?” but “What’s true for me in this season?”
What to do: Create a Call Audit every quarter. Ask: What has God clearly told me to build? What tools serve that mission? What distractions do I need to delete? Habakkuk 2:2 says, “Write the vision and make it plain.” Don’t outsource your vision to Silicon Valley. Steward it from the Spirit.
5. The Rise of Local and Community-Owned AI
The future won’t belong to the biggest models; it’ll belong to the most trusted ones.
I believe we’re entering the age of local, values-based AI, smaller, private models built around specific communities, churches, and missions. Think of it like the difference between a public freeway and your own gated driveway. Big tech’s highway is open to everyone (and everything). Your private model, trained on your data and values, is safer, more ethical, and better aligned with your mission.
For churches, that means developing custom GPTs that speak in your voice, understand your theology, and follow your ethics. For creators, it means owning your digital DNA before someone else does.
What to do: Start building your local data lake, sermons, devotionals, policies, voice notes. Train your own assistant, with guardrails that reflect your convictions. Proverbs 27:23 says, “Be sure you know the condition of your flocks.” In this age, your “flocks” include your data.
Final Word: The Importance of Staying Human
Here’s the truth: AI is not our enemy. It’s a mirror. It reflects what we feed it. If we feed it fear and greed, it’ll multiply that. If we feed it creativity and compassion, it’ll amplify that, too. Our challenge as believers is not to resist technology, but to redeem its use. We must show that innovation can still carry integrity. As we build, code, and create, we must also pray, discern, and stay grounded in what makes us human: the image of God, not the imitation of code.
God didn’t call us to be the fastest. He called us to be faithful.