Christian Discipleship In The Age of AI by Larry Frank

Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in a plenary panel on the future of theological education. One of the questions put to us was about artificial intelligence and the role it may increasingly play in ministry: sermon preparation, program development, communication, congregational engagement, and more.

My answer was fairly straightforward. AI is not a fringe issue anymore, and no ministry leader can afford to bury their head in the sand. It’s already here, already being used, and already shaping the way people search for information, make decisions, and even engage spiritual questions. Recent Barna research suggests that practicing Christians are adopting AI at significant rates, in most cases more quickly than their pastors. The research also, perhaps alarmingly, suggested that nearly half of practicing Christians say they would trust AI with their spiritual formation (though the research also shows that while the trust is there, in practice spiritual engagement is near the bottom of how it’s actually being used). So the church can’t afford either panic or denial. We need to understand these tools, use them wisely, and help people think faithfully about them.

But the question stayed with me for a different reason.

The Shift From Information to Formation

AI can retrieve information. It can summarize scholarship. It can explain theological ideas, generate Bible studies, suggest devotional questions, create graphics, organize ministry plans, and even produce a reasonably competent sermon. And as those capabilities continue to grow, I wonder if AI is exposing a problem the church was already facing long before anyone knew what ChatGPT was.

We have increasingly treated discipleship as a content-delivery problem.

Of course, AI didn’t start that trend. For years we’ve had access to more Christian content than any generation before us could have imagined. We can listen to sermons from gifted preachers around the world before breakfast. We can carry dozens of Bible translations in our pockets. We have podcasts, devotionals, reading plans, online courses, conferences, video studies, books, blogs, and endless streams of Christian commentary. Much of it is excellent. I’m not interested in dismissing any of it. Good teaching matters. Biblical literacy matters. Theology matters. Truth matters.

But access to more Christian information doesn’t necessarily mean we are becoming more like Jesus. That may be one of the most important discipleship questions facing the church right now. Not simply, what are people learning? But who are they becoming?

James warns us not to be hearers of the word only, but doers of it (James 1:22). Jesus says that a disciple, when fully trained, will become like the teacher (Luke 6:40). Paul speaks of believers being conformed to the image of Christ and transformed from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). The biblical vision of discipleship isn’t merely about acquiring knowledge. It’s about formation.

Information asks, What do I know? Formation asks, Who am I becoming?

Christian teaching is indispensable to that process. But Christian teaching by itself is not formation. At some point, the sermon has to become obedience. The Bible study has to become practice. The theology has to become worship. The truth we hear has to take root in the way we pray, forgive, serve, give, suffer, love, and live.

What John Wesley Can Teach Us Now About Discipleship

And this is where I think the Wesleyan tradition has something especially important to say. John Wesley certainly believed in the importance of content. He preached thousands of sermons. He wrote and published extensively. He distributed tracts, edited and abridged books, and worked relentlessly to put solid Christian teaching into the hands of ordinary people. Wesley was hardly suspicious of information. He wanted people to know Scripture, understand the faith, and learn doctrine.

But Wesley also seemed to understand that preaching alone would not produce mature disciples. The early Methodist movement didn’t simply gather crowds to hear preaching and then send them home until the next sermon. Those who responded to the preaching were drawn into communities designed to help them actually live what they were hearing. Methodists gathered in societies for worship and instruction, in smaller classes for spiritual care and accountability, and, for some, in even smaller bands for deeper confession and examination.

In other words, people were not merely taught. They were known. They talked about where they were experiencing the grace of God and where they were struggling to respond to it. They encouraged one another,  prayed together, practiced accountability, and learned to recognize the movement of grace in the ordinary places of their lives. 

This was intentional engagement. The genius of early Methodism wasn’t simply what was taught. It was the intentional structures that helped people live what they were being taught.

That distinction matters. It is possible to hear a sermon without ever allowing it to interrogate our lives. It’s possible to complete a Bible study without practicing what we have studied. It is even possible to become extraordinarily knowledgeable about Christianity while remaining largely unchanged by Christ.

The early Methodists expected something more. Their societies were described as communities gathered not only to receive instruction, but to “watch over one another in love,” helping one another work out their salvation. Their common life was expected to produce visible fruit.

Evangelism and formation were not competing ministries. They belonged to the same movement of grace. People encountered Christ, were drawn into Christian community, learned to follow Jesus with others, and in turn became participants in the mission that had reached them. The Methodist movement grew not simply because Wesley could attract a crowd, but because those crowds became communities, and those communities formed disciples who became witnesses.

Perhaps that’s part of what we need to recover. The goal isn’t simply to produce better content or even to get more people to consume it. The goal is to intentionally engage people in a way of life in which the good news they hear begins to take shape in the people they become.

The structures of early Methodism mattered because they created space for practices that actually formed people. Scripture wasn’t merely information to be studied; it was a means of grace to be searched. Prayer wasn’t simply something to understand; it was something to practice. Fasting trained appetites, while works of mercy put Christians alongside the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, and the suffering.

The Limits of Artificial Intelligence in Ministry

Formation requires participation. That matters in an age when nearly everything can be outsourced. Someone else can preach a sermon for me. Someone else can summarize a book for me. AI can explain a biblical text, suggest a prayer, or build a study guide. But no one can pray in my place. No one can forgive my enemy for me. No one can practice generosity for me, receive Communion for me, serve my neighbor for me, confess my sin for me, or surrender my will to Christ for me.

At some point, the truth we consume has to become the life we practice. The means of grace remind us that discipleship is not merely about gaining better information. It is about repeatedly placing ourselves before God, with others, in practices through which grace reshapes our desires, habits, relationships, and loves. Content can point us toward that life. It can’t live that life for us.

Maybe part of our problem is that we have confused discipleship with curriculum. When churches say, “We need better discipleship,” we often mean we need another class, another workbook, another video series, another app, another reading plan. Those things can be helpful. They can teach, clarify, and create structure. But they can’t become substitutes for formation.

Curriculum asks whether you finished the material. Formation asks what Christ is forming in you. That requires more than content. It requires intentional engagement. Who knows this person? Who is praying with them? Who notices when they are drifting? Who has permission to challenge them? Who serves alongside them? Where are they learning generosity, practicing mercy, using their gifts, and telling the story of what God is doing in their life?

Formation happens when the truth we hear becomes the life we practice, and when we practice that life alongside other people who are learning to follow Jesus too. That kind of formation is deeply relational. I learned something about that during Clinical Pastoral Education. More than once, I found myself sitting with someone in the middle of a crisis and eventually asking a simple question: “Is there anyone I can call for you?” A spouse. A child. A friend. A pastor. Someone who could come and sit with them.

The most heartbreaking moments were the ones when the answer was no. No one to call. No one who would come. No community waiting on the other end of the phone.

That, perhaps, gets at one of the clearest limits of artificial intelligence. AI can give someone information. It can explain a doctrine, summarize a passage, or suggest a prayer. But it cannot suffer with them. It cannot embody community. It can’t sit beside a hospital bed, grieve at a graveside, carry a burden, extend forgiveness, or rejoice over the long-awaited breakthrough. The church isn’t merely a source of Christian answers. It is a people who embody the presence of Christ to one another and to the world.

The ultimate question isn’t how many sermons we’ve heard, how many studies we’ve completed, or how much Christian content we’ve consumed. The question is whether we are growing in love of God and neighbor. Are we more patient? More generous? More forgiving? More attentive to the suffering around us? More willing to serve? More surrendered to Jesus? That is Wesleyan formation: grace shaping us toward holy love.

AI will only make Christian content more abundant. Fine. Let it. The church’s distinctive calling was never simply to provide information people could not get anywhere else. Our calling is to make disciples. We should keep preaching. We should keep teaching. We should write books, produce studies, create resources, and use every faithful tool available to us. Content matters because truth matters. 

But content is not the destination. The question is what happens after we hear the sermon, close the book, finish the study, or put down the phone. Does the truth become prayer? Does it become obedience? Does it become mercy? Does it become generosity? Does it become witness? Does it become holy love?

We have plenty of Christian content. What we need are communities intentional about helping people become like Jesus.