Can a Pastor Use AI to Write a Sermon? The Integrity Test

It’s the question pastors ask me most, usually a little quietly: Is it okay to use AI on my sermon?

My answer is yes, and no, and it depends on which part.

What’s fine

AI can be a genuinely good research assistant. It can lay out the historical background of Philippi, list cross-references on a theme, explain what a Greek word can mean, or summarize the major views on a hard passage. It can suggest three ways to organize your outline. It can proofread a manuscript you’ve already written, or turn your spoken draft into clean text.

That’s not much different from a conversation with a well-read colleague, as long as you check what the colleague says. Paul told Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Good tools can help a worker. They don’t replace the work.

What’s not

Our church’s policy draws the line here. It is not okay to:

• Hand AI a passage or topic and preach what comes back without substantial personal study, rewriting, and prayer.
• Let AI generate the core theological argument or application before you’ve done your own exegesis.
• Copy an AI-generated story and present it as something that happened to you.

That last one deserves its own article, and it’ll get one. For now, just notice that a made-up story told as a personal experience isn’t a style issue. It’s a lie told from a pulpit.

The four-question integrity test

Our church policy asks four questions of anyone preaching a message where AI played a role. I’d commend them to any preacher:

1. Have I personally studied this text? Could I defend my interpretation without pointing to what the AI said?
2. Are these convictions mine? Or am I repeating what a model generated because it sounded good?
3. Is every personal story true? Did it happen to me, or is it clearly attributed to someone else?
4. Could I have written this without AI? The tool may have sped up my process. Did it replace my process?

If I can’t say yes to all four, the sermon isn’t ready.

Why the process matters

Some will say, “If the content is biblical and helpful, who cares how it was made?”

Here’s why I care. Sermon preparation isn’t only about producing a sermon. It’s where the preacher gets preached to first. The hours with the text are where God works on me, so that when I stand up I’m not handing over information. I’m bearing witness.

Paul writes, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching” (1 Timothy 4:16). Notice the order. The preacher’s soul comes first. A sermon that skipped the preacher’s soul might be accurate, but it will be thin, and people can tell.

A practical way to use it

Here’s a workflow that keeps AI in its place:

1. Study the text first. Original language tools, commentaries, prayer. Write your main point in one sentence before you open a chatbot.
2. Then use AI to test yourself. “What are the strongest objections to this reading?” “What cross-references am I missing?”
3. Write the sermon yourself.
4. Use AI to edit for clarity, length, and repetition.
5. Run the integrity test.

The tool comes after the study, not instead of it.

I help pastors and church teams build AI practices that save time without hollowing out the work only they can do. I’m a pastor with more than twenty years in business and technology. If that would help, here’s how I work.