This article has been written by AI

But not by artificial intelligence [1]

This has been my world for the last 2 years…

Ordering my coffee: ‍

Me: “Long black please”

‍Her: “Sure, what’s your name?” ‍

Me: “Al” ‍

Her: “Hal?”

‍Me: “Oh sorry no, AL. But I really answer to anything. Just don’t call me A.I….” ‍

While waiting for my coffee:

‍Barista, with confused look on her face, calls out my name: “A.I. Ayiii?” ‍

Welcome to my life in 2026. Commiserations to my fellow AL’s (yes, I always write it with a capital L now) Alastairs, Alans, Alexanders, etc.

‍At least 4 or 5 times a week somebody makes a joke about how my name looks the same as A.I.

‍Am I the most qualified person in the world right now to write an article on Artificial Intelligence?[2] My world is saturated! ‍

But so is yours, right?

Even without my unfortunate naming situation, it seems like every second conversation is either: ‍

1)    Someone telling me how they are using A.I.

2)    Someone suggesting I use A.I. for some aspect of my life or work

3)    Me telling someone how I’m using A.I.

4)    The merit or lack of merit in using A.I.

‍And in the midst of all of these conversations, I’m making decisions (often internally, or intuitively) about whether I will use A.I. or not and what tasks or processes I will use it for and what tasks I won’t use it for.

And, especially in youth ministry, where our words matter so much, one important question is:

What will I (and won’t I) use A.I. for?

Now there are many ways to approach this question. How much am I willing to pay? How will it impact the quality of what I do? What additional ministry can I do with time saved by A.I. use? How will my use of A.I. shape me over the long term?

All these considerations and more are essential and valuable approaches to the question.

‍But let me add one more consideration, which cuts close to the heart of word-based relational discipleship (the first of our 7 Principles of Effective Youth and Children’s Ministry): the question of ownership.

‍Now I’m not talking about copyright here (though that’s another valid consideration). Rather I’m talking about buy in - personal attachment. That I:

1)    Own these words or ideas,

2)    Wholeheartedly agree with them,

3)    Understand them deeply,

4)    Would and could defend them.

And so, a key question might be:

How essential is it that I own these words or ideas?

‍Let me illustrate. If I write a love letter to my wife, a text message with feedback for a talk or a shopping list for dinner, the answer to that question is likely to be quite different.

Now, my answers might be quite different to yours but, for me, it’s very clear that for one, I must own my words, for another, it really doesn’t matter and for a third, it’s a trickier question – it might depend a bit on the context and the relationship.

But either way, the degree to which I own these words or ideas is important to the situation. My ownership of the words will impact on relationship.

The ingredients of ownership ‍

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan [3] extensively studied what led to ’self-motivation’ in people. They describe 3 ingredients for people to be ’proactive and engaged’ rather than ’passive or alienated’ [4]: ‍

Autonomy – Am I active in driving this? ‍

Competence – Am I contributing meaningfully to this? ‍

Relatedness – Am I connected to and caring for others in this?

‍When someone has all 3 ingredients, they are more likely to buy into the task, community, relationship or context they are in.

‍This makes sense: ‍

-          If I’m told I have to put away chairs, I’m far more likely to resent it than if I offer to put away chairs (autonomy). ‍

-          If putting away chairs just seems like busy work, I’m more likely to resent it compared to when I see the value of it and how it contributes meaningfully (competence). ‍

-          If I can see how putting chairs away is a way of caring for others and is making a real difference to them or if I can experience connectedness with others, I’m more likely to be motivated for the task (relatedness). ‍

If I have these 3 things in relation to the task of putting chairs away, I’m more likely to have ownership of the task. ‍

Ownership and A.I. ‍

What has this got to do with whether I use A.I.?

‍When we generate words and ideas with A.I. we can give these 3 ingredients over to it. [5]

When I ask an LLM (Large Language Model) to generate an idea, write an outline or write a paragraph I am giving up at least some of my say in the formation of the task to ChatGPT. The degree to which I give over autonomy may be a lot or may be a little. You will never give up 100% of your autonomy (you at least wrote the prompt!) BUT you will always give up more than 0% (you’re asking it create something instead of you!).

‍Similarly, when I use an LLM for writing or generating ideas I give up at least some competence. You are giving over some of your meaningful contribution to Claude. Maybe a lot, maybe a little. But never none.

‍And likewise, relatedness. In giving up your autonomy and competence at least to some degree, you are also giving up your care for and connection to others through the task. Again, not completely, but never none. It’s the bot that is writing or generating the idea (with more or less of your help).

To the degree that we give these ingredients to A.I., we will become detached from the final product. We will lose ownership.

‍So, does it matter if I lose ownership over words or ideas?

‍Of course, the answer is, it depends!

‍If I do not own the words of the love letter to my wife, that would undermine the very intention of me writing it!

‍If I lose ownership over my shopping list, I’m still going to end up with enough groceries to feed my family. ‍

If I lose ownership over my feedback, this might be very significant or it might not matter that much. I can imagine both scenarios. Someone might be gutted that I let A.I. write my feedback. It would be sign that I didn’t appreciate their efforts. Others might be purely focused on the value of the feedback itself. Although I generally consider feedback quite a personal thing so would lean away from using A.I. in most cases.

The different uses of A.I.

‍But it’s also true to say that A.I. can be used in different ways and at different stages of the process of writing and generating ideas, whether initial ideation or the actual writing, editing and refining, reformatting, etc. Each will have different impacts on ownership. [6] ‍

A.I. and youth ministry.

‍So, what about youth ministry? Here are four things that A.I. might be used for in youth ministry. I’ll give my answer to the question ’How essential is it that I own these words or ideas?’ ‍

1)    Writing Bible talks

‍Because I hold deeply to the principle that youth ministry is best carried out in terms of Bible-based relational ministry, it seems to me that ownership of my words and ideas in preaching is absolutely essential. Although different people’s use of A.I. will have differing impact on the degree to which they lose ownership and become detached through its use, I consider it vital to have ownership of the words and ideas that I preach. When I preach to young people, I should:

-          Own the words and ideas, ‍

-          Wholeheartedly agree with them, ‍

-          Understand them deeply, ‍

-          Be willing to defend them.

In my view, because gospel proclamation is a necessarily relational task, I should be very careful of my use of A.I. to remain attached to my words and their preaching to the precious young people I’m privileged to serve.

‍I would probably steer clear of A.I. for ideation, exegesis, structuring and most of my research, though I might sometimes use it to remind me of supporting passages. I would feel comfortable using it to generate illustrations, with the caveat that a lot of the time I prefer to use personal illustrations precisely because they help me to remain connected to my sermon and therefore the young people in front of me. I would also be very careful that the illustrations offered to me by A.I. did not subtly start to shape the message I’m preaching rather than the other way around (but this is always a concern when using illustrations).

‍I’d be comfortable letting A.I. suggest edits to cut down the length but personally, I probably wouldn’t use it a lot for editing because in some ways I like the messiness of both my script as well as the personality that is retained in it when it’s unedited. But that is not a hill I would die on; it’s more an evolution of how I have developed my process for preaching over the years. I would be particularly open to it if someone gave me feedback suggesting that my preaching needed to be tightened up, more focused or was lacking in clarity. ‍

2)    Writing discussion questions

‍My conviction is that facilitating a good Bible study and discussion is dynamic and based on the responsiveness of the leader, who needs to read the room well! Because of this, I would not object to discussion questions being generated by A.I. and checked very carefully for quality. Especially if this would help questions get to leaders earlier so that they could prepare well!

‍As with talk illustrations, I would be very careful not to let A.I. shape the intention of discussion questions. It is essential to know why you have discussion groups or Bible study [7]. Once you’ve clarified that, you could use a prompt such as: ‍

’Given that the intention of discussion groups is… (XYZ)… develop some discussion questions for use in a group of 8 youth ranging in age from… (AGE RANGE) … for 45 minutes.’ ‍

Once you’ve clarified the purpose, you may then want to add more specifics. But it’s essential that you make those decisions, rather than let A.I. make them for you. ‍

3)    Generating games ideas

‍Similar to discussion groups, a lot of the success of games in creating moments of shared positive experience and community is about what happens in their facilitation. And games are primarily about the participation and engagement of young people, not delivery of ideas. As such, ownership over coming up with the game seems less important to me. I would definitely use A.I. for creating ideas and refining games! But you may make a different decision to me. ‍

4)    Generating term plans/rosters

‍While I would be unlikely to come up with teaching plans using A.I., the generating of a roster is something that simply facilitates and organises ministry. Having said that, I would want to ensure that A.I. use would not stifle the team’s creativity. It’s possible that some aspects of term programming would require a high degree of ownership from the whole team, so I would be careful of A.I. use in this regard.

I’ve reflected on the degree that A.I. use diminishes my ownership of the words and ideas that come from its use. You may come up with different answers regarding how A.I. use impacts your ownership of your ministry’s words and ideas.

‍But even as I’ve written these reflections (and this whole article!), I feel the temptation of increasing my A.I. use. I’m constantly encouraged by others to do so, and I find it much easier than I like to admit justifying my particular use of A.I. in the name of efficiency (a valid consideration!) even when an honest reflection would show that my attachment to my words is diminished more than I want for the sake of my ministry.

‍Ownership of your words and ideas matters for relational ministry! I hope the framework offered in this article can help you navigate the tension between efficiency and relationship in your youth ministry.

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When will you (and won’t you) use A.I. in your ministry?

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[1] Generative Artificial Intelligence was not used in any way in the drafting, generation, editing or formatting of this article, even though I was tempted to at many points! Well, I did use a spell checker!

[2] Possibly not, here’s a good one from my colleague, Chris Jones.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory

[4] https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2000_RyanDeci_SDT.pdf

[5] Of course, generating words and ideas is only one of many ways to use A.I.

[6] It’s also true to say that A.I can be used for many things other than what is mentioned in this article. Analysing data, generating websites, mental health advice, mining bitcoin, to name a few.

[7] For digging into the WHY of discussion groups, read these 3 articles by Matt Bartlett:

https://www.youthworks.net/articles/keys-to-effective-small-group-ways-to-reach-full-potential

https://www.youthworks.net/articles/small-group-tips-the-rule-of-thirds

https://www.youthworks.net/articles/the-3-ps-of-preparing-an-effective-small-group-time

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