Most pastors are using AI despite some concerns – study

While a majority of pastors are personally benefiting from using artificial intelligence, some remain troubled by a raft of concerns concerning the technology’s impact on ministry, including the displacement of pastoral spiritual guidance and the erosion of congregants’ trust, a latest study shows.

In Technology for Missional Impact: State of Church Tech 2026, produced by Barna in partnership with Pushpay, around 60% of church leaders report using AI for private use no less than just a few times a month, while only 24% say they never use the technology.

“When church leaders do adopt AI, they primarily use it as a tool to support creativity and efficiency. The most typical use cases involve generating or editing written materials, graphics, emails, social media posts, and, in some cases, sermons,” the report states. “This aligns with church leaders’ general approach to technology as a communication aid.”

The findings on this latest report come just months after researchers highlighted in “The 2025 State of AI within the Church Survey Report” last December that a majority of pastors use AI to organize their sermons, with ChatGPT and Grammarly as the highest two AI tools.

As they proceed to make use of the technology, the most recent Barna-Pushpay study highlights several practical and pastoral concerns church leaders have concerning the use of AI in ministry, including plagiarism.

About 51% of church leaders said they were “very concerned” about plagiarism and “compromised message integrity,” with one other 30% being “somewhat concerned.”  Nearly half of them, 49%, said they were “very concerned” about losing the authenticity of their preaching and teaching, while 83% were either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about data privacy.

Despite the findings, most pastors reported that they’ve not yet incorporated AI into their ministry or operations. Some 58% of church leaders said their church was not using AI so far as they knew, while 33% said their church is using AI in some capability. Another 8% said they were unsure.

Just last month, Barna’s “State of the Church” initiative, produced in partnership with Gloo, found that a couple of third of practicing American Christians said the spiritual advice they get from AI is just pretty much as good as that from a pastor, with practicing Christians more more likely to agree with this notion than non-practicing Christians and non-Christians.

Church leaders within the Barna-Pushpay study expressed concern concerning the impact of AI on American spirituality. While only just a few pastors expressed concern that AI would replace them outright, some 65% worry that AI could displace their spiritual guidance. Another 70% worry that the technology could diminish congregants’ trust in them.

“Clear guidance could help address these tensions. Most church leaders imagine it is necessary for churches to determine policies governing AI use (24% extremely, 40% somewhat),” the researchers noted.

“Yet few churches have taken this step. Only 5% of church leaders say their church currently has a longtime AI policy — revealing a major gap between leaders’ sense of responsibility and their organizational readiness.”

Despite their caution, nevertheless, some 79% of church leaders reported within the study that technology has significantly or moderately improved connections amongst congregants. A majority of church leaders, 61%, also imagine that technology has helped their congregation deepen their faith.

“When it involves fostering congregants’ connections to God and to one another, church leaders regard digital tools as supplemental, not essential,” the researchers note. “Even so, as noted earlier, the operational advantages are clear: 78% say technology has made ministry life no less than somewhat easier.”

© The Christian Post