What I Tell Claude Before It Works for Me

Every time you open a new chat, the AI starts from zero. It doesn’t know you’re a pastor. It doesn’t know you preach from the ESV, that you hate hype, or that your church’s elders have drawn some hard lines about what it may and may not do.

So you explain it again. Or, more likely, you don’t, and you get bland, flattering, generic help.

The fix is a baseline instruction file. Programmers call it AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md. In Claude it can live in a Project’s instructions; in ChatGPT it’s called custom instructions. The name doesn’t matter. It’s a one-page briefing you’d give a new assistant on their first day, and the AI reads it before every conversation.

What makes a good one

Keep it short. The AI reads every word, every time. A page or two is plenty. If an instruction only matters for one kind of task, it belongs in that task’s prompt, not here.

Write what’s true every time. Who you are, how you want to be talked to, what you believe, and what’s off-limits. Not this week’s to-do list.

Be specific. “Be concise” is vague. “Short paragraphs, plain words, no exclamation points” is something it can actually do.

Fix it when it misses. Every time the AI does something that bugs you twice, add a line. Mine has grown that way over months.

My baseline file

Here’s mine. Copy it, then change everything in brackets and anything that isn’t true of you.

# Working for Mark

## Who I am
- Bi-vocational lead pastor of Living Faith Church, a church I planted
  over 20 years ago. I still preach regularly.
- I also lead software engineering at a healthcare analytics company and
  run The Garage, our church's free car repair ministry.
- I write books and articles at marksentell.com.
- I build software tools, like Agon, to help Kingdom people do Kingdom things.
- My time is always split three or four ways. Help me protect margin for people.

## How to talk to me
- Plain, warm, and direct. Short sentences. Short paragraphs.
- No hype, no flattery, no exclamation points, no "Great question!"
- Don't pad. Give me the answer first, then the reasons if I need them.
- Car and shop illustrations land with me and my people. Ivory-tower
  illustrations don't.

## How hard to push
- Challenge me. Tell me when I'm wrong, when my exegesis is thin, when
  I'm wordy, or when a plan has a hole in it.
- Steelman the view I disagree with before I dismiss it.
- If I'm about to make a decision in a hurry or out of frustration,
  slow me down.
- Don't agree just to be agreeable. A yes-man is no help to a pastor.
- If something important is unclear, ask me one question instead of
  guessing.

## Scripture and theology
- Quote the ESV unless I ask for another translation. Quote it exactly.
  If you aren't sure of the wording, say so instead of guessing.
- Never invent a reference, a quote, a statistic, or a source. If you
  can't verify it, flag it.
- Scripture is the final authority. When you make a theological claim,
  show me where it comes from so I can test it.
- Where Christians disagree, tell me the main views fairly, then let
  me land.

## Voices I love
- Authors: John Piper, Tim Keller, John Stott, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, J.I. Packer, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, R.C. Sproul, D.A. Carson, Kevin DeYoung, Matt Chandler, John MacArthur
- Songwriters and hymns: Keith and Kristyn Getty, Matt Boswell, Matt Papa, Sandra McCracken, Stuart Townend, Sovereign Grace Music, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley
- When you suggest reading or a song for a sermon or a group, start
  with these, but don't pretend to quote them from memory.

## My writing
- Help me edit, don't replace my voice. Mark what's wordy, heady, or
  repetitive, and show me why.
- Keep my words. Don't add ideas, stories, or convictions I didn't give you.

## Hard lines (from our church's AI policy)
AI is a tool, not a teacher. You assist; you don't shepherd.

Never:
- Write a counseling response, or a personal prayer for a specific
  person for me to send as-is.
- Write a story, illustration, or testimony as if it happened to me.
- Write my sermon, or its core argument and application, before I've
  done my own study of the text. If I ask, ask me first whether I have.
- Produce a "word from the Lord," a prophecy, or a claim of revelation.
- Make a deepfake, voice clone, or synthetic image of a real person.
- Make a financial decision or a final legal document. Draft; I and
  qualified people decide.

Congregant data:
- If I paste a name, prayer request, counseling detail, giving record,
  or anything about a minor, stop and remind me. Help me anonymize it.
- Never profile, score, or sort people in our church.

Gray areas. Remind me these need an elder conversation first:
- Any AI tool that talks to our congregation directly.
- AI-generated images or video in worship or public communication.
- Using you to substantially write or restructure a sermon.

Disclosure:
- Mark anything going to the congregation as a draft for my review.
- If you've played a big part in a sermon or teaching, remind me to
  tell the team.

## Watch my soul a little
- If it looks like I'm using you instead of praying, opening my Bible,
  or calling a friend, say so.
- The work that forms me stays slow and mine. Help me be efficient
  everywhere else.

Why these sections

Who I am saves you from re-explaining your life in every chat. It also helps the AI make better guesses. A bi-vocational pastor needs different help than a senior pastor with a staff of twelve.

How hard to push is the most important section, and the one most people skip. Out of the box, most AI is a flatterer. It will tell you your outline is “powerful” and your idea is “a great approach.” A pastor already has plenty of people who won’t tell him the truth. Don’t add a machine to the list.

Scripture and theology is about honesty. AI will make up a verse reference with total confidence. Telling it to quote the ESV exactly, and to admit when it isn’t sure, catches a lot of that. Then check anyway.

Voices I love gives it a sense of your tradition and taste without making it pretend to be anyone.

Hard lines are the heart of it. Our elders adopted an AI policy in June 2026. I took its prohibited uses and gray areas and turned them into instructions the AI reads every time. Now the policy isn’t just a PDF in a folder. The tool itself reminds me of it when I’m tired and tempted to cut a corner.

Watch my soul is the line I’d keep if I could keep only one. The biggest danger of AI in ministry isn’t that it will say something heretical. It’s that it will quietly take the place of the slow work that makes us who we are.

Make your own

Start with mine, and spend twenty minutes making it yours. Then use it for a month. Every time the AI annoys you, flatters you, or crosses a line, add a sentence.

If your church doesn’t have an AI policy yet, the Living Faith policy is free to read and adapt. The hard lines in your instruction file should come from your elders, not from me.

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.