#Science – A recent Barna Group study on “Technology for Missional Impact” surveyed 1,306 church leaders in the United States in late 2025 and examined how church leaders view, experience, use, and align technology with their mission. It emphasized a shift from basic adoption to intentional, missional integration—especially amid the rise of AI—while stressing authenticity, human connection, and spiritual priorities. The survey sample included a mix of church sizes, budgets, and denominations, although mostly non-mainline Protestant, with some Catholic and mainline representation.
The study found church leaders of all sorts of faith to be mostly optimistic about new technologies and their impact as they relate to church ministry, although there were some reservations, particularly among senior pastors versus church staff. Some examples of technologies that have been adopted in ministry have included social media, mobile giving, livestreaming, and church management software, as well as artificial intelligence (AI).
The study stated that 33% of churches have adopted artificial intelligence in ministry and operations, while leaders have personally begun to use AI at least a few times a month. The main uses of AI among those who adopted its use were in the generation of images/graphics (36%), written content (31%), and editing (29%). This written content included e-mails, newsletters, as well as sermons. A smaller proportion of AI users also used the technology to develop and edit their sermons rather than merely write them (17%).
The study matches a previous report from late December 2025, which found that 61% of pastors and church leaders now use AI weekly or daily (up sharply from 43% in 2024), with 25% using it daily. The 2025 study also surveyed members across various denominations, church sizes, and U.S. regions. The study’s sample size was 594 pastors and church staff members across the United States. However, this study found 64% of pastors who preach incorporate AI into their sermon-writing process (a significant increase from the prior year). Common uses include research, creating outlines, analyzing texts, checking consistency, and generating ideas or illustrations. This is the area showing the fastest growth.
The Catholic Church has spoken somewhat on artificial intelligence since the AI boom at the start of the decade. Pope Francis was one of the most prominent global voices on artificial intelligence ethics during his papacy, frequently addressing its opportunities, risks, and moral implications from a Christian perspective centered on human dignity, the common good, and fraternity. He spoke on the topic in audiences, messages, and high-level forums starting around 2020, viewing AI as a powerful but ambivalent human tool that must serve people rather than dominate or replace them.
Pope Leo XIV has addressed artificial intelligence frequently and prominently since his election in 2025, framing it as one of the defining moral and social challenges of his pontificate — a “new industrial revolution” that demands a response rooted in Catholic social teaching, much like Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum responded to the 19th-century industrial upheaval. He views AI as a powerful human invention with immense potential but also significant risks, requiring courage, discernment, ethical governance, and a commitment to human dignity, the common good, and authentic relationships. Recently, in February 2026, the Pope told priests to “use our brains more and not artificial intelligence to prepare homilies” as he instructed on limitations of its use to not dilute Gospel messages or take away from the voice of the Church.
In February 2024, the Church of England General Synod passed a motion affirming that purposeful work is essential to human dignity in the face of the AI revolution. Archbishop Justin Welby (then Archbishop of Canterbury) introduced an amendment explicitly endorsing the Rome Call for AI Ethics. In April-May 2024, Archbishop Welby formally signed the Rome Call in Rome on behalf of the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion. He described AI as “a lion that can and must be tamed for the common good” and emphasized the Church’s role in providing moral and theological resources at this “crucial moment for global society.”
Leaders in the Eastern Orthodox Church have also spoken about artificial intelligence use. Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader on world orthodoxy, has been the most prominent and consistent voice, delivering multiple public addresses in 2025 that frame AI within Orthodox tradition. He offers a balanced but cautious perspective that AI has its immense benefits to the betterment of mankind, but also its inherent risks. The Russian Orthodox Church has held a more critical stance, although it recognizes that its use must serve humanity rather than subjugate it. Patriarch Kirill has compared AI’s dangers to nuclear energy and warns it could lead to apocalyptic scenarios, the erosion of human morality/conscience, and even pave the way for the Antichrist if uncontrolled. He has stated that AI must remain under strict human, state, and public control and should not surpass human creativity, intellect, or soul.
The recent studies have demonstrated a consistency with what major Church leaders have called for in the use of artificial intelligence in pastoral settings, although Pope Leo condemned its use for the production of sermons among Catholic deacons and priests. Artificial intelligence, although still new, has become incorporated in some parish and pastoral settings, and this trend, as per recent studies, will likely continue. Church leaders, however, remain cautious about its usage, especially its misuse, and live in hope that artificial intelligence will be used responsibly as a tool that benefits mankind and in a way that will not deter or dilute the Gospel message. With this hope, Church leaders encourage caution and observation as this new technology continues to develop and become incorporated in daily life as a new norm that must continually be studied and assessed for its benefits.
Reference: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bNDzf8YoM1jb6WVT3vFmP6eEwAHANXME/view?_hsmi=407776512; https://exponential.org/product/ai-in-the-church-2025/
Image: An example of an AI-generated image. The 2026 study found the most common use of AI in pastoral settings to be to generate images and graphics.
