Day One Insights from Ai4 2025 in Las Vegas

I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with young people on a fairly regular basis. That’s one of the benefits of being a college professor. It’s much easier to keep up with the cultural discourse when you are surrounded by people in their late teens and early twenties. My students are aware of my…

Every church needs realism. Leaders should understand their context. They should know their numbers. They should face challenges honestly. Denial helps no one, and ignoring reality only delays necessary decisions. But there is a danger that often goes unnoticed. Realism, when separated from faith, becomes limitation. It begins subtly. A church looks at its attendance…

The most important predictor of a congregation’s future vitality is its ability to retain its children as they move into adulthood. A sanctuary full of young families with toddlers and teenagers is a great start, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. If the congregation doesn’t do a good job of religious education and spiritual…

The debate over women in ministry is often shaped by top leaders in denominations. But what does the typical person in the pew actually believe? Church Answers Research wanted to look beyond official doctrinal positions and leadership-level debates to understand the views of everyday congregants, especially those who identify as Bible-believing Christians. Our goal was…

I have five Christian “heroes” in my life—two who are now with the Lord, and the others who are 95, 82, and 77, respectively. Over the past several years, I’ve asked my three living heroes to speak to one of my graduate-level classes at Southeastern Seminary, where I teach. They join us via Zoom or…

Claude AI from Anthropic: What it is, how it compares, and why it might actually be a better fit for ministry work? I get asked about ChatGPT constantly at ministry conferences. Every pastor has either tried it, heard about it from a staff member, or gotten a little nervous watching someone demo it on stage….