My wife and I are opening a Robot Coffee bar and Build your own candle shop. As we were getting permits and filing paperwork, our architect told us “know everything about your candle experience when the fire marshal comes.” We were so consumed with the fun of a robot and creating experiences that we forgot that candles bring a dangerous friend. Fire. Fire: it can illuminate a room or burn it down.
As we engage with the present and future, we have in our hands, computers, glasses and so many other areas another fire: Artificial Intelligence (AI). I acknowledge, use and celebrate AI’s capacity to lighten administrative burdens and expand gospel illumination. I also acknowledge that no algorithm can shepherd souls. Todd Korpi’s AI Goes to Church invites us into this space with both theological rigor and pastoral wisdom, asking how we will tend the digital garden for growth or allow automation to determine our culture.
AI as Companion
One of Korpi’s most important contributions is his consistent reminder that AI will never replace the vocation of pastor. The COVID/Streaming/Social Media/Digital Church era has imposed unrealistic expectations on clergy. We are asked to function as visionary leaders, strategists, social media influencers, content creators, and counselors simultaneously, often for compensation that does not reflect one of those positions. Burnout has become an epidemic in ministry spaces precisely because the pressure to perform outpaces the resources available for sustainability.
AI can relieve some of that burden by streamlining administrative tasks, generating first drafts of newsletters, or identifying patterns in congregational data. But Korpi remains unequivocal: human wisdom and presence cannot be outsourced. Will AI replace the pastor? Hardly. Will it disrupt and change pastoral ministry? Absolutely. This disruption invites us to reimagine our role. Instead of functioning primarily as information dispensers from a stage, we become gardeners; curating environments where relationships deepen, justice is pursued, and the vulnerable find protection. AI may function as a tool in that garden, but the call to nurture souls rests in human hands.
Beyond Production
Korpi challenges church leaders to interrogate what success means in an AI-shaped culture. A flourishing community, he argues, has less to do with high-production worship experiences on Sundays and more to do with cultivating ecosystems where people encounter the living God together. Such communities attend not only to sound doctrine but to the capacity of people to deepen relationships, engage in justice and mercy work, and remain protected from the corruption and abuse that has become too common in ecclesial spaces.
This vision resonates deeply with the concerns I have carried throughout my own ministry. I have watched how easily the metrics of likes, follows, and livestream viewers reshape our sense of worth. The church’s call is not to compete for attention in an attention economy. Our mission is to cultivate environments where every person’s dignity is affirmed, where truth is spoken to power, and where creative imagination is nurtured for kingdom purposes. When AI is employed to schedule volunteers or transcribe sermons, it should free us to spend more time in hospital rooms, community forums, and prayer circles. The tool serves the mission; the mission is never subordinated to the tool.
The Idol of Productivity
Korpi proves most prophetic when examining the relationship between AI, economics, and the future of work. He observes that frameworks like the eight-hour workday owe more to industrial capitalism than to biblical witness. AI, which can perform in seconds tasks that once consumed days, forces us to wrestle with questions of meaning, vocation, and what constitutes a life well-lived. The evolution of work since the Industrial Revolution has denied individuals freedom to prioritize relationship and flourishing over toil. Work (and consequently money) has become our ultimate object of pursuit rather than Spirit-directed passion and meaning.
We may enjoy comforts unimaginable to previous generations, yet we remain enslaved to calendars and productivity metrics. These insights demand pastoral reorientation. We cannot measure ministry solely by numbers or efficiency gains. We must ask whether our adoption of AI fosters deeper relationships, more just employment practices, and a renewed sense of vocation among our people. Korpi invites us to slow down, to celebrate Sabbath with intentionality, and to remind our congregations that their worth is never tethered to output.
Digital Missiology
Among the most compelling sections of this work is Korpi’s exploration of social justice and digital missiology. Drawing on Genevieve Bell, he notes that we must build new approaches to AI rather than simply adjusting existing paradigms. We cannot afford reactivity. We must consider what kind of AI world we want to inhabit and then pursue that vision with prophetic intentionality. This reframing requires collaboration across disciplines. We have privileged STEM at the expense of the humanities for too long. Philosophers, ethicists, sociologists, and artists must occupy seats at the table when algorithms are designed and deployed.
Korpi’s digital missiology calls pastors to take online spaces seriously. Rather than replicating what other congregations are doing, he encourages us to seek the Spirit’s creativity for small ways to deepen engagement in digital environments for the purpose of genuine ministry. The point is never entertainment, the point is connection that leads to deeper conversations about faith and formation. The church must stand up to the techno-utopianism of those who would sacrifice present lives for hypothetical better futures a millennium hence. The life of a single human being matters now because it matters to God.
The Ethics of Algorithms
Korpi does not avoid the hard conversations about power. The church, he argues, is uniquely positioned to lead conversations around ethics and morality in the deployment of AI across society. We must raise up movements that demand accountability from social media platforms and technology companies. Governments increasingly use AI to make decisions affecting communities: where to build infrastructure, who gains admission to educational programs, how resources are allocated. He argues that local congregations must become more locally engaged, not less, which I agree with.
Congregations need to be equipped with an understanding of data bias alongside a robust theology of God’s concern for image-bearers. When we speak prophetically about racial bias in facial recognition software or about algorithms that prioritize profit over people, we contend for human flourishing in the tradition of the prophets. Digital ethics is not an ivory-tower discipline, it is pastoral care. Korpi reminds us that discipleship requires more than efficiency. We must move beyond simple answers about how AI can make us more effective at existing practices and instead imagine how it might aid in solving poverty, combating food insecurity, and eliminating opportunity deserts.
Spirit-Led Holism
In wrestling with the tension between social justice and evangelism, Korpi draws on Lesslie Newbigin to articulate what he calls Spirit-led holism. Newbigin critiques extremes on both ends; whether a gospel concerned only with individual salvation or activism that abandons personal transformation. The solution Korpi proposes is an ongoing partnership with the Holy Spirit. The early church in Acts demonstrates how communities discern together the mind of the Spirit and respond in both proclamation and deed. Spirit-led holism recognizes that social action and gospel proclamation work in tandem, rooted in deep love for Jesus and the humility to discern and speak as the Spirit leads.
Applying this framework to AI leads Korpi to call for a church that prayerfully looks for opportunities to advocate, contend, speak prophetically, and work for God’s vision for humanity. This requires forging partnerships across sectors while also listening carefully to the Spirit’s conviction to disengage from partnerships whose priorities conflict with God’s design for human life. That balance is difficult. It demands both courage and discernment. But for those of us weary of false choices between preaching and protesting, between prayer meetings and policy reform, this holistic vision proves liberating. A church can proclaim good news to the oppressed, advocate for responsible AI governance, contend for justice, and disciple people in the way of Jesus without losing its soul.
Eschatological Hope
Korpi’s theological sections invite readers into the terrain of inaugurated eschatology: the conviction that the kingdom of God has already been inaugurated through Christ’s incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension but awaits its fulfillment at his return. We are between two advents. The apostle Paul focused far more on the church’s formation and action in the present than on speculation about what comes after. Paul formed communities toward the shape of the coming King, directing them toward lives that embody the ethics of the future kingdom now.
Korpi then raises a provocative question: will AI exist in the new creation? His instinct says no, but he quickly interrogates that impulse. If all of creation, including what God’s creation makes, remains under the reign of the kingdom, we might not dismiss the idea so readily. Rejecting unbiblical notions of a disembodied eternity, he reminds us that much of what we create now may be renewed in perfected form. It is possible that AI, like art, music, and literature, could be renewed and redeemed by Christ’s power. If we believe the Spirit can redeem machine learning algorithms, then our stewardship of AI becomes an eschatological practice, a way of participating in the renewal of all things. This vision alters our posture toward technology. Instead of treating AI as a neutral tool or an inevitable threat, we see it as part of creation’s groaning and redemption. We can engage technology boldly, guided by the Spirit, because we trust that nothing is beyond Christ.
A Movement, Not a Monument
Throughout AI Goes to Church, Todd Korpi weaves theology, ethics, social critique, and pastoral wisdom into a coherent narrative. He refuses to demonize technology, yet he refuses to baptize it uncritically. He insists that the church’s mission is not to chase novelty but to participate in God’s renewal of all things. He challenges pastors and lay leaders alike to cultivate flourishing communities where AI serves as tool rather than master. He calls us to imagine a future where algorithms help feed the hungry and connect the lonely, where digital spaces are harnessed for justice and joy, and where Sabbath rhythms resist the tyranny of constant connectivity.
As someone who has sought to integrate technology and pastoral ministry throughout my vocation, I found Korpi’s integration of Scripture, social science, and pastoral experience both challenging and liberating. This work gave me permission to slow down, to ask better questions about the technologies we employ, and to remember that the life of a single human being matters now because it matters to God. It reminded me that human flourishing involves more than digital literacy. It requires wisdom, community, creativity, and justice.
This book reaches the mark of engaging faith and AI at the level our moment demands. It is well-written, accessible, and treatable for pastors who are pastors who need to understand whether and how to engage AI in their congregations. Korpi has given the church a gift. He has engaged the hard questions with intellectual seriousness and pastoral warmth. He has pointed us toward the kind of ethical and informed engagement that the future will require.
In the end, AI Goes to Church is less about the gadgets in our pockets and more about the posture of our hearts. It invites us to move beyond slogans and into the difficult, holy work of shaping a church that reflects the beauty of the kingdom in both physical and digital spaces. For anyone serving in ministry today, especially those shepherding communities of color or leading young adults through the complexities of social media, Korpi offers a prophetic and pastoral word. He reminds us that we are a movement, not a monument; that our mission is to join the Spirit in cultivating a garden where technology becomes a tool for liberation and love.
I thank Todd Korpi for this work. I thank him for engaging the legacy of the gospel with seriousness and imagination. I recommend this book to every pastor who is asking what faithfulness looks like as we engage the future the Lord has prepared for us. There is always more to learn, always more to discern, always more to cultivate. And in Christ, there is always more.
Views and opinions expressed by authors and editors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.
