Faithful with the Tools We’re Given
Artificial intelligence has arrived quickly, and for many of the nonprofit ministry leaders we serve, it has arrived with questions and uncertainty. How safe is AI? Is it appropriate for a Christian ministry to use a technology that cannot pray, believe, or worship? Should the work of the Kingdom lean on a machine? These are good questions, and they deserve honest answers.
It is important to wrestle with these questions carefully, through prayer and in Scripture. Our conclusion is clear and confident: artificial intelligence is a tool to be stewarded, not a source of wisdom to be trusted. Used wisely, within the right boundaries, it can help us serve more ministry leaders, more deeply, than we ever could on our own. Used carelessly, it can crowd out the very things that make ministry to other human beings so precious and sacred. The difference lies entirely in how we hold it.
In short: AI is a tool we steward for the Kingdom, never a substitute for prayer, Scripture, the Holy Spirit, or authentic relationship.
Foundation of Belief
We begin where we should always begins: with Scripture, and with the conviction that God owns everything and calls us to steward it well.
God alone is Creator. People are made in His image with eternal souls, embodying mindfulness, conscience, creativity, and the capacity for relationship with Him (Genesis 1:27). AI carries none of these. However sophisticated it becomes, it remains something humans make, not someone God created. It can process information about prayer, but it cannot pray. It can describe worship, but it cannot worship. These are not flaws to engineer away; they are the boundary that keeps sacred things sacred.
The Holy Spirit alone gives wisdom, conviction, and discernment (John 14:26). No tool can replace that work. AI can inform our thinking, but it cannot tell us what God is saying. We will not let an algorithm stand where prayer and the Spirit belong.
Tools themselves are morally neutral; their rightness depends on how we use them. As Paul wrote, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful” (1 Corinthians 6:12). A hammer can build a shelter or cause harm. AI is no different. The faithful response is neither to reject it out of fear nor to embrace it uncritically, but to use it with wisdom.
In fact, refusing a useful tool out of fear can itself be poor stewardship. Jesus’ parable of the talents warns against the servant who buried what he was given rather than putting it to work (Matthew 25:14-30). We do not want to bury a gift that could extend our reach and Kingdom impact.
Above all, relationship comes before efficiency. Champion Development is, at its heart, relational. Technology must serve that relationship, never replace it. If a tool helps us move faster but leaves us with less time for prayer, Scripture, and genuine connection with the people we serve, we have made a poor trade.
A Caution Worth Naming
There is an old pattern worth noting. In the garden, the tempter’s question was, “Did God actually say…?” (Genesis 3:1). The temptation was to grasp knowledge apart from a relationship with God, to seek wisdom without seeking Him. Every powerful tool revives that temptation in a new form. The danger of AI is rarely dramatic. It is the quiet drift from “What is God saying?” to “What does the data suggest?” We name this plainly so we can guard against it: not because we fear the tool, but because we know our own hearts.
The Benefit of AI
God’s people have always taken the tools of their day and consecrated them for Kingdom purposes. Moses used writing to preserve God’s law. Paul traveled Roman roads to plant churches. The printing press, once feared, put Scripture into the hands of ordinary believers at scale and helped fuel revival. Each generation faces the same choice: steward new tools for the Kingdom, or cede them entirely to other uses.
Mi exists to transform fundraising from a transactional burden into joyful, relational ministry. We carry a distinctive, biblical approach: Transformational Giving, Champion Development, and the movement of people from participation to engagement to ownership. Most ministry leaders worldwide will never have affordable access to a personal coach. AI lets us extend Mi’s training and encouragement to leaders we could never otherwise reach: in their context, in their language, at the moment they need it.
In practice, that looks like coaching grounded in Mi’s principles available around the clock, helping draft a champion letter that the leader then makes their own, and planning frameworks adapted to a ministry’s real situation. This does not replace human coaching. It augments and extends coaching to the many who would otherwise go without. This is not technology for its own sake. It is faithful stewardship in service of our calling.
Convictions and Commitments
Our convictions shape concrete commitments. As we use AI, Mission Increase does the following:
- Keep discernment human. We pray, seek God’s wisdom, and test every output against Scripture and our theological framework. AI informs decisions; it never makes the spiritual ones.
- Refuse to give AI spiritual authority. We will not present AI as a source of spiritual guidance, and a real person will be responsible for what is said.
- Protect the relationship. We use AI to free up time for deeper human connection, not to replace it. The relational heart of Champion Development stays human.
- Honor human voice. AI may help us draft, organize, and clarify, but the substance of what we say flows from human experience, spiritual insight, and the wisdom God grows in us over time.
A Posture of Confidence and Humility
We hold this tool with both confidence and humility. Confidence, because we serve a God who is sovereign over every advancement and who invites us to be faithful with what He provides. Humility, because this is new ground, and we will keep learning, listening, and adjusting as we go.
“It is required of stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). That is the standard we hold ourselves to with artificial intelligence, as with every resource entrusted to us. Our aim is unchanged: to love God, to serve the ministry leaders He has called us to walk alongside, and to help them build His Kingdom.
