I build AI for a living. I am also a pastor.

I spent the first half of my working life as a software engineer. I learned to think in systems, to trace a problem to its root, and to care whether a thing is actually true and not just whether it sounds convincing. That training never left me.

Then I became a pastor, and I am one still. I sat with people in hospital rooms and at gravesides. I learned that the things that matter most cannot be automated: presence, prayer, the patience to grieve with someone, the courage to speak the truth in love. A machine can do many things. It cannot do those.

Now I build AI products, including tools that serve churches. That puts me in a rare and useful place. I know how these machines really work, because I make them. And I know what people really need, because I have spent years walking with them. Most voices in the AI conversation have one of those and not the other. I have refused to give up either one.

I am Reformed in my theology and old-fashioned in my method: faith seeking understanding. I would rather ask a hard question honestly than reach for an easy answer that does not hold.

There is a lot of fear about AI in the church right now. Some of it is wise. Some of it is just noise. There is also a lot of hype, and some of that is genuinely exciting while some of it is dangerous.

I am trying to stand in the honest middle. Clear about what these tools really are. Clear about what they must never be allowed to become. And practical about how an ordinary Christian can use them well. No fearmongering. No salesmanship. Just an engineer and a pastor thinking it through with you.