“But with AI,” he continued, “I might be repeating the answer, but what a great amplifier, or potential amplifier. [AI allows you to] focus and reallocate your resources, [so you’re] not spending the 10 hours on menial things that you can get help with and focusing on the things [that matter].”
Ghazarian said one of the challenges with AI is the “fear factor.”
“We’re going to look back at AI, years later, and realize it was such a seminal moment that changed the way we think about how we work, and how we church,” he said.
“I think it’s important to take the fear factor into account,” Ghazarian said, encouraging leaders to engage in conversations that help take the fear or mystery out of AI. “Look at it as an opportunity. Look at it as a tool,” he said. “It’s not an end all, be all. It’s not tech for the sake of tech, but tech that amplifies back to the mission again, and use it for that.”
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Rock Church’s CTO, Boykin, described AI as a “supplement, not a replacement.” He shared that many people fear that AI will “replace jobs” and “actual thinking.” But Boykin explained that “AI has to take information in. It’s finite. What we get from our heavenly Father is infinite, right?”
“You can’t forget that,” he said. “If you forget that, then AI is scary.”
As he concluded, Boykin reminded everyone that “AI is a tool—a tool that we as a church control. It’s not the opposite way, where the AI is telling you what to do or what you should do…use discernment and discipline.”
Sweetman then reminded attendees that the world once thought that Microsoft Word would replace jobs that required professional typists. “But they all still have jobs,” he said. “The job just evolved.” However, Boykin warned, “People who don’t embrace it” are going to have trouble selling their “skills in the marketplace.”
Ghazarian encouraged church leaders to “embrace the change” that the future of technology will bring to the church. “Be willing to experiment and learn and grow, especially in the tech world,” he said. “Because it’s never going to change. It’s going to keep coming at us. So be open to new technologies. Be curious, go out and get it and play with it.”
“Have a clear mission objective for your church, and make sure your technology aligns with that,” Ghazarian concluded, adding that this will “be different for different churches.”
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