The Work That Is Ours to Do: AI and the Pastoral Vocation

Between Babel and Pentecost — Article 3 of 5

By Matthew J. Skolnik

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 2:1–12 · Ephesians 4:11–16 · 2 Corinthians 4:1–7

The pastor opens last month’s Session agenda, changes the date, adds a financial report and two committee items, and forwards it to the clerk. The work is complete. The meeting will be orderly, and no artificial intelligence was involved.

But has the pastor exercised pastoral leadership?

Perhaps the Session has spent years reviewing finances and sustaining programs that no longer serve the congregation’s calling. Perhaps the elders rarely discuss the needs of their neighbors, their own relationships, or what faithful ministry requires in the next season. The agenda is finished, yet the questions most deserving the council’s attention remain untouched.

Now consider a pastor who begins by asking what the congregation is experiencing and what its elders need to discern. The pastor may spend an hour discussing those questions with an AI system—testing assumptions, developing possibilities, and considering what might help the elders listen and lead. That process may take longer than reproducing an old agenda. Nor does it guarantee that the meeting will be faithful. It may, however, represent more thoughtful preparation for the work the Session is called to undertake.

Completing a pastoral task is not the same as preparing meaningfully, and meaningful preparation is not yet pastoral leadership. Leadership becomes visible when people are invited to discern, participate, and take responsibility for their common life.

Artificial intelligence makes this distinction difficult to avoid. If a machine can organize material, produce language, or identify possibilities more quickly than we can, what precisely are we called to do? We should neither protect inherited tasks merely because humans have traditionally performed them nor assume that automation necessarily strengthens ministry.

The question is not simply what AI can accomplish. It is what the work is for.

A Question Medicine Is Also Asking

Medicine provides a provocative, though imperfect, analogy. In a 2024 randomized trial published in JAMA Network Open, 50 physicians worked through simulated diagnostic cases. Physicians with access to GPT-4 achieved a median diagnostic reasoning score of 76%, compared with 74% for physicians using conventional resources; the difference was not statistically significant. GPT-4 evaluated independently achieved a median score of about 92%. The trial was small, with simulated cases rather than full clinical practice, and it did not establish that AI is generally a better physician. But it showed that providing professionals with capable technology does not automatically improve their judgments (Goh and colleagues, 2024).

Other research has found that carefully structured human–AI collaboration can outperform either working alone on diagnostic vignettes. Experimental progress in AI-guided robotic surgery also suggests that some technical tasks may change profoundly, although a successful demonstration on tissue outside a living patient is not evidence that autonomous systems have displaced surgeons in clinical practice (PNAS, 2025; Johns Hopkins, 2025).

As technology becomes more capable, what remains the physician’s work? We might say that the physician is left with the human side of medicine: listening, trust, compassion, and accompaniment. But that division is inadequate. Clinical care also requires interpreting evidence in context, understanding a patient’s circumstances and values, explaining uncertainty, weighing competing treatments, securing consent, and accepting accountability. Expertise and relationship are not separate halves of a profession.

Pastoral ministry is similar in this respect. An AI system may identify an interpretive question, organize congregational information, or help prepare for a meeting. But we cannot divide the pastorate into intellectual work for the machine and relational work for the human. Prayerful study, theological judgment, proclamation, leadership, and pastoral presence belong together.

To understand what remains ours to do, we need to examine the vocation itself.

More Than the Production of Religious Material

In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul recalls a ministry shaped by affection, labor, truthfulness, and a willingness to share not only the gospel but his own life. Paul is describing his apostolic work, not supplying a contemporary pastoral job description. Nevertheless, the passage makes clear that faithful proclamation is not merely the transfer of accurate religious information. The life and relationships of the messenger bear upon the integrity of the witness.

A sermon may contain appropriate theological statements and still lack careful engagement with Scripture or the circumstances of its hearers. A devotion may sound profound without emerging from prayerful attention. A Session agenda may include excellent discussion questions and yet fail to make room for the elders to speak honestly or exercise shared judgment.

The problem is not that pastors receive help. The church has always drawn upon the work of others—translations, commentaries, prayers, hymnody, conversations, and theological traditions. The question is whether the assistance strengthens our participation in ministry or becomes a substitute for responsibilities we were entrusted to exercise.

A pastor may use AI to identify questions for further exegetical study, then return to the biblical text and reliable scholarship. Another may ask it to draft an entire sermon and make only stylistic adjustments, leaving much of the theological work unexamined. The presence of AI does not decide the matter by itself. What matters is where responsibility, attention, and judgment remain.

This distinction is particularly important in pastoral care. A fictional scenario may help us rehearse a difficult conversation; putting identifiable pastoral information into a public AI system or treating generated advice as authoritative presents entirely different concerns. Confidentiality, consent, competence, and trust are integral to the ministry, not details to address after a system produces an answer.

What Are Our Meetings Teaching Us?

Presbyterian Sessions have real administrative responsibilities. Minutes must be approved, finances stewarded, reports received, and decisions properly recorded. Good governance protects people and makes ministry possible. But a Session’s calling is not exhausted by accomplishing necessary business.

The PC(USA)’s Book of Order describes ruling elders as sharing responsibility for discerning God’s Spirit and governing God’s people (G-2.0301). The ministry of Word and Sacrament includes teaching and equipping the saints (G-2.0501). A Session should therefore be a place where elders grow in spiritual leadership, not merely learn to maintain familiar processes.

A meeting may complete its agenda without attending seriously to a changing community, strained relationships, or decisions the congregation has avoided. AI could produce that familiar agenda in moments, making an inadequate practice more efficient. Or it could help us ask why certain topics recur, what questions are absent, and how the meeting might better serve the elders’ calling.

Yet even a thoughtful agenda is only preparation. The pastor must help establish conditions for listening, responsible disagreement, participation, and action. Elders must exercise their own authority rather than merely endorse conclusions developed beforehand. What happens after the meeting matters as much as the questions that appear on paper.

One inherited pattern deserves particular scrutiny: a devotion treated as a religious preface, followed by reports and motions assumed to constitute the real meeting. Scripture can instead illuminate the very questions the Session has gathered to discern: What is Christ calling this congregation to notice? Which relationships require attention? What shared ministry are the elders being equipped to lead? Such a devotion is neither sentimental decoration nor a way to baptize the pastor’s preferred conclusion. Thoughtful biblical framing should create room for elders to test a vision against Scripture, their knowledge of the congregation and its neighbors, dissenting perspectives, and the gifts of the whole body. Strong pastoral vision and authentic shared discernment belong in a necessary, sometimes uncomfortable relationship.

The measure is not whether we created a better agenda. It is whether the Session became more capable of exercising its ministry.

Equipping the Whole Body

There is a danger in emphasizing what remains human: we can unintentionally make the pastor responsible for performing everything personally. Ephesians 4:11–16 offers a different picture. Christ gives gifts to equip the saints so that the whole body may grow toward maturity. Leadership serves the ministry of the community; it does not make one person indispensable.

This matters in smaller congregations, especially when a commissioned ruling elder serves alongside another vocation or a pastor carries responsibilities once distributed among several staff members. The immediate temptation is to use AI so that the pastor can produce even more. But perhaps the problem is not primarily insufficient productivity. Perhaps we have misunderstood what one person should be asked to carry.

Some tasks can be simplified. Others can be shared with elders, deacons, or members whose gifts have not yet been recognized. Some programs may need to end because they no longer serve the congregation’s calling. Equipping the saints means more than redistributing chores: it includes formation, support, authority, boundaries, and meaningful participation.

We should also resist treating volunteers as unlimited unpaid labor. A more faithful distribution of ministry honors people’s gifts and limits, rather than transferring exhaustion from the pastor to the Session.

AI may assist this work, but it cannot discern the congregation’s gifts or cultivate its relationships for us. The opportunity is not merely to produce more efficiently through one leader. It is to strengthen what the whole body can do together.

Treasure in Clay Jars

In 2 Corinthians 4:1–7, Paul describes a ministry that proclaims Jesus Christ rather than the importance of its messengers. He then speaks of treasure held in clay jars so that the extraordinary power may be recognized as God’s, not ours.

That is good news for pastors who feel the pressure to perform without limitation. The gospel has never depended on our flawless language, limitless time, or personal ability to carry every responsibility. Our limitations do not excuse negligence. They remind us that ministry is received as a calling and sustained through God’s grace rather than our perfection.

AI can produce polished language and abundant ideas. But polish is not the same as truthfulness, and abundance is not the same as formation. A congregation may receive more communications without strengthening a single relationship. A sermon may become more eloquent without becoming more faithful. We can also be tempted to prove our value through what we produce, even as technology makes production easier.

The treasure remains distinct from the vessel. We are free to receive assistance, acknowledge limitations, cultivate others’ gifts, and direct more of our attention toward the ministry that matters.

What Will We Do With Our Time and Attention?

Suppose AI appropriately saves a pastor several hours in a week. Those hours could make room for visiting isolated members, mentoring elders, prayer, study, or relationships in the wider community. They could also disappear into more newsletters, more programs, and higher expectations. Productivity might increase without a corresponding strengthening of ministry.

The value of AI, however, is not limited to saving time. Sometimes thoughtful use requires us to spend more time: examining an argument, confronting an overlooked objection, or preparing a discussion that might otherwise have been superficial. The question is not simply how long a task takes. It is whether our attention serves the work entrusted to us.

The PC(USA)’s 2026 social witness policy, The Algorithm and the Almighty, cautions against substituting generative AI for prayerful exegesis, sermon preparation, pastoral counseling, spiritual direction, and theological judgment. It invites us to discern purposeful assistance while preserving the responsibilities that belong to ministry (PC(USA), 2026).

We need not answer this question identically in every congregation. Some tasks invite appropriate technological support; others require direct human presence, professional expertise, or a decision not to use AI. In every case, responsibility remains with us.

The measure of pastoral work is neither the volume of tasks completed nor the independence with which they are accomplished. Some responsibilities may be simplified; others deserve sustained study, prayer, and presence. Still others belong more fully to the gifts of the whole body.

The pastoral question is what our preparation makes possible when the congregation gathers, listens, discerns, and acts. If AI contributes to that work, it must serve rather than define our calling.

Questions for Reflection and Conversation

1. What is the difference between completing a task, preparing thoughtfully for it, and exercising pastoral leadership through it?
2. Which recurring parts of our Session meetings genuinely strengthen ministry, and which receive time primarily because they are familiar?
3. Where does the medical analogy illuminate the pastorate, and where does it break down? Why are intellectual and relational responsibilities not easily separated?
4. How might AI save time appropriately? When could spending more time in careful thought be the more faithful use?
5. Which responsibilities should be simplified, shared, or discontinued rather than given back to the pastor in a more efficient form?
6. What would demonstrate that our preparation is helping the congregation participate more fully in its calling?

A Practice to Try: Prepare to Lead

Before drafting the next Session agenda, set aside last month’s template. Ask what has changed in the congregation, what needs prayerful discernment, and which relationships or questions have not received sufficient attention. Invite an elder into that preparation if appropriate.

Identify what routine business must be handled, what could be resolved outside the meeting, and what requires the council’s sustained conversation. We may use AI to suggest questions or test assumptions, provided we do not submit confidential information and do not treat generated suggestions as the council’s judgment. We may also undertake the process entirely through prayer and human conversation.

After the meeting, ask whether the elders exercised spiritual leadership, whether previously unheard concerns received attention, and what commitments will now be carried forward. If the new approach saved time, consider where that time went. If it required longer preparation, ask whether the additional attention served the Session’s calling.

A better agenda is useful. A Session more capable of discerning and living its ministry is the deeper goal.

Sources and Further Reading

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 2, Ephesians 4, and 2 Corinthians 4 through the Church Commons Bible Reader (TSW and Fluent).

Presbyterian polity: PC(USA), Book of Order, 2025–2027, especially G-2.0102, G-2.0301, and G-2.0501; The Algorithm and the Almighty (2026 social witness policy).

Medicine and AI: Ethan Goh and colleagues, “Large Language Model Influence on Diagnostic Reasoning: A Randomized Clinical Trial”, JAMA Network Open (2024); “Human–AI Collectives Most Accurately Diagnose Clinical Vignettes”, PNAS (2025); Johns Hopkins University, experimental AI-guided robotic surgery (2025).