The MxU Podcast

We start replacing it with AI, we start replacing it, it's artificial. Let's lean on the sacrificial part, because I think that's what God honors. If all that could be done without a human, this potentially could rob people of the opportunity for sacrificial serving.

What role do you think that AI is going to play in the future of worship in tech ministry? Do you have hard opinions about that? Not really. I think it could be a great resource and a great tool for administrative work, and making sure things like tasks and responsibilities are organized. I don't know if I would say, oh, I could see AI taking over musicianship on stage or filling in for vocals.

But even as I say that out loud, ever heard of Ableton? It already kind of is, without it being AI. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. I've not put much thought to it. I know that there are ministries and organizations that use AI for organization, administrative work.

I'm a big believer that AI doesn't really exist quite yet. We're still just kind of flirting with the idea of AI. For those that use ChatGPT or a like product, AI is just getting started.

For those that think AI could replace, they're probably thinking a little bit down the road of like, hey, we can kind of see where AI is headed. I asked you that because you're, I think, you're pretty, I see you Dylan, as like reflective of kind of the average leader in the church, who's like aware of AI. Why are you average? You're like a typical rep.

Not typical. I'm atypical. You, when you and I talk, you remind me of the people I talk to every day that work in the church.

Like you're just a church guy through and through. I like to think of myself as a church guy, but I will say like I'm a little bit, I probably use AI a lot more than you these days to like execute my job. Yeah.

I'm pretty like, it's very helpful getting administrative tasks done and so on and so forth. And we use it for a lot of engineering. Around here.

Anyway, so I, yeah, there seems to be this mindset, Jay Gosselin, a really good friend of ours who I respect greatly, has a great company, Churchfront, if you haven't heard of it. They do integration work and they help train churches as well. He posted something this last week that got some people thinking of, you know, hey, like AI, the day is coming soon where AI is going to replace your leader.

It's going to replace your lyric operators. It's going to replace basically, what did he say, 98% of execution on Sundays and production, I guess is kind of the premise of it. I don't want to misquote you, Jake.

So please get the comments if we're misrepresenting you. Here we go. He's going to be sitting at the table here in a few months.

That's not the intention of this podcast. I don't even fully, I just don't know how I feel. I do see like a lot of how we're executing the task of leading worship and tech ministry changing.

And actually what I really liked about what Jake was saying, it's like, it's going to give us bandwidth to actually do ministry. Yeah. AI is never going to be able to show up at the hospital and pray for the congregant who is battling cancer.

Well, from a spiritual, godly standpoint, true. Yeah. But AI is already playing a massive role in counseling, mentorship.

Sure. But in the ways that God has designed us as human beings to live out, preach the gospel. But then you know there's going to be people that say, well, why can't God use AI? Why can't I trust? When I get in the church, I start a project that says mental health, and I start a project where I start writing in things to try to tell you, hey, I need help with this today.

I'm struggling with this. You might have someone say, well, why can't I trust that God's using that platform? Yeah, certainly. I don't know.

That's why my thoughts aren't all there. Yeah, I think you could. I think the premise of, I want to dig in a little bit, the premise of this is going to replace roles quickly.

Maybe it takes 10 years. Maybe not. Let's just say that happens.

Like, I don't know how I feel about that. I'm like, I actually, in some ways I get it and I don't think it's a problem. In some ways, I think it could be an issue, like taking away people's opportunity to use the gifts that God has given them that they love to use to serve the church.

I think an argument to that, that Jake has kind of taken a liking to, is like, these things, is this really ministry? Like turning knobs, pushing faders, is that really the ministry that we should be, or should we be spending our time with people and doing more people-oriented stuff? Which I think would probably excite you in the conversations we've had of like, oh yeah, these things can be automated. We don't need to worry about that. And like, we can get to the people and do the people-oriented ministry and not the technical-oriented ministry.

It's an interesting take. I don't know if I could really, my personal opinion is we're a long ways off from that, mainly just because AI is only going to make, it's not going to replace us in the areas that we are like inefficient. Like if we don't know how to identify a good mix, we don't even know how to bring a, yeah, it's just- Generate AI.

Because you've got to generate it. I mean, it's got to learn how to- Like you have to have a prompt. But then there could be tools that come into place where, and we're talking about this at MXU, like somebody logs in, just says like, I had bad feedback on Sunday.

Okay, here's an automated training pathway for the operator. We're going to do this, and we're going to queue up this communication, we're going to do this and this. And like, that is a reality that we are moving towards.

Hey, I don't have a bass player. It's Friday night. I need a bass player for Sunday.

Okay. I'm on it. I'll go take care of it for you.

I'll reach out to your folks. So like that is coming very soon. Just from here at MXU, I can tell you confidently, like it's a software tool that thousands of churches use.

Like, yeah, that's our goal. Like we want to give you a ministry assistant, essentially, that will ultimately be able to help you carry out the initiatives of developing team members, planning services, and executing Sunday. So that is coming.

But like, will people be cut out of the process? I don't see a world where like people entirely are going to be cut out of the process. I think there's still going to be humans steering the ship. It may require fewer team members to execute Sunday.

It may require fewer team members to be able to plan Sunday. You may not need to have a staff or volunteer worship and tech admin. You know, like for three years ago, I had a person, I had an assistant, you know, I had an executive assistant that helped me carry out day-to-day what needed to be done at MXU.

I don't need an assistant anymore. Most of what I needed an assistant for has now been replaced with AI technology and software that's just helped me become more effective at my job. I see that happening in the church.

Oh, yeah. It's like, we got to be ready for that. And I don't think that we should be resistant or scared of that.

I think that should excite us to go, man, we have the opportunity to be more effective. Even the stuff that we can get done today with technology, we're so much more effective than people were 20, 30 years ago. In some ways.

Yeah. Some ways we've taken a step back. Those are some of my thoughts, I don't know.

Does that excite you? Does that intimidate you? It's already being done. I mean, it's already being done in many ways. I mean, you know, artificial intelligence, it's not a, the couple of examples I'm going to give are not necessarily considered AI, but time code.

When you time code a weekend experience or a session or whatever you do, conference, venue, church, whatever, like you're tying in lyrics, you're tying in lighting. Now you might have needed somebody to put those lyrics, build those slides in a Pro B. You might've needed somebody to design your lights for you. But as soon as Ableton hit space bar and everything's time coded, we've been seeing this for a decade already.

Positions are already, could already be dwindling down in positions, what I mean by side positions, I mean like opportunity to serve. For a decade now, we've seen that decrease on a weekend experience or a live production scenario because of the technology that exists out there. We don't need as many guitar players without them in the tracks.

We don't need. I can't tell you how many times I've heard, hey, I understand if your bass player can't show up, we'll just turn them on in Ableton and call them Abe. Abe don't miss.

So let's look at the heart behind it. The heart behind it would be, in my opinion, two different ways here. One is for me to use AI or time code or whatever to make it easier.

The end goal for that would be produce a product that is excellent. I know if I use time code, there's a little room for error when we're actually going. I know if I use real people, there's room for error.

So again, we're breaking down this conversation that's going to be around way longer than you and I are going to exist of when do we decide ministry versus, when do we decide people versus tasks and responsibilities. And to push back a little bit, because it's hard for people to hear terminology like we're trying to put together a product that's excellent with humans, there's air. Those of you listening or watching, you might be like, man, that sounds crazy.

Is church really a product? Is it really just about like, oh, humans means air. Let's try to not use humans. We're talking about the church.

We're executing a gathering of the saints to worship God. And so there is some pushback and some hesitancy that I can understand of like, well, isn't the point that humans do this? Yeah, but I'm just going to be very honest with you. That's a dumb approach.

It just is. I don't care how big, small, good, bad your church is when it comes to production and worship. For the most part, most churches have a worship experience.

Most are service. Most churches have a production need, whether it be small or big. You put a lyric operator in there that's three or four sentences behind on leading a congregation, most people are going to notice that.

I don't care if you look at it and go, well, it's just people. Your worship pastor's seeing that. Your pastor's seeing that.

People in that, you know what I'm saying? So when you're referring to a product, that's what you mean. Yes. I meant like, we all have something to do on a weekend, a church service.

There is a need of some sort. So whatever that need looks like for you at your size, at your church, please don't get caught up on the terminology I'm using as experience or product. Like you're getting caught up on the things that don't matter because you know what I'm talking about on a weekend specifically.

I'm not talking about an A audio player versus a B audio player. It's just execution excellence. The most obvious things out there.

So by saying all that, because I'm sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. By saying all that, what I'm saying is serving inside of the church doesn't just change what you do, but it changes who you become. You take that away by using AI.

You're taking away opportunities for generations to, to fall out of church. I have seen firsthand for the last 20 years, people who start serving inside the local church be changed forever. Not only them, when I say generations, I mean all the generations to follow.

When I said yes to serving in the church, the first thing I did was start serving inside of a church in a worship role. I learned how to play guitar. I just started playing for this worship team.

My son will benefit from that. Yes, I said yes in that church. His kids will benefit from that.

Yes, I said. What you are seeing is generational shift and change from serving in the local church. That's what I mean by changes who you become.

We start replacing it with AI. We start replacing it. It's artificial.

Let's lean on the sacrificial part, because I think that's what God honors. So you think that people actually will miss out, or you think it's just they will move into other areas of the ministry that need more of that human component? Because what I hear you saying is, maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but like, hey, this potentially could rob people of the opportunity for sacrificial serving. Yeah, because you're still dealing with two different types of people.

You have extroverts, you have introverts. Your extroverted ones are out in the lobby putting their arms around people, shoulder tapping, going to lunches and going to coffee and hanging out and getting in the weeds. Your introverted people, which we find more often or not inside of our tech ministries and production ministries, they still want to sacrificially give.

They still want to sacrificially donate their time, sacrificially serve. But it may look different for them. Now, the challenge is that we are Christians first, and God has commanded us to make people His priority and our priority.

But that still looks different for many of us in many ways. Yeah, because we've gone like one layer deeper, which I don't disagree with this premise of people like, hey, go make disciples of all nations, baptize people in Jesus name. It's like in production, we're like, we're a part of that.

We're just like a layer removed. Like, I'm not the person dunking, but I'm like the person who's like capturing it so that people can see people getting dunked. Yeah, they're like, I'm part of advancing.

And I don't disagree with that. I'm like, yeah, we need in the church and gathering, like people want to be able to hear people preach the gospel. Like we're a part of that.

So we've seen it as like this necessity, like, well, we've got to do this. But like, is it if all that could be done without a human, like, is that glory to God amazing? Like now we can just do this without. I mean, the product's excellent.

Yeah, but it takes away the sacrificial opportunity for somebody who's interested in in IT work, interested in they like mixing audio. It's a good. Yeah.

And I see that. That's where I'm like. So again, the question is still asked.

That's why I said this would be a conversation to be had. You know, 100 years from now will be, I mean, even when AI is, I mean, like I said earlier, we're not even started dipping into AI yet. I mean, 100 years from now, 10 years from now, five years now, who knows what AI actually looks like? I mean, if cars that drive themselves, when you and I turned 16 and started driving, would we have ever thought cars would be driving? We always heard of the idea that there's going to be a day cars are hovering off the ground and driving themselves.

Well, that's happening. That's a done deal. There's cars hovering off the ground, airplanes.

No, but cars are driving themselves, you know, and it's not just Tesla. Now other brands are starting to do it. And it's like people are catching on to technology.

It's going to happen. We just have to remember, first of all, God's not caught off guard by any of this. Yeah.

And then second, and this is new to me because we just recently been saying it, but it's still just artificial. And I don't want everyone to take away. I'm just a huge candidate for serving inside the church, so I'm struggling with it because I know it's coming, but how do we partner with it? And how do we make sure that God's people who have said yes to ministry and yes to serving are still being honored and taken care of and still in a care structure and still experiencing a lot of change through the gift of serving and also use AI for those that would call it a product or experience or service, you know, elevate in all areas.

So I personally get really excited for the church that lacks resources in this next season. I think that they're going to thrive if they can adopt AI. I think the church that's going to hurt is the one that has built systems and infrastructure.

So some churches like have full time staff members who manage planning center. That church is going to struggle in the coming season because they're going to realize we don't need this many people to execute the ministry. Yeah, and that'll become a tension point for that church when they start hitting low in budgets.

Because they're going to go, I can spend a couple thousand dollars a year and have all of this done with minimal error, little to no error. Not a lot of coaching, not a lot of weekly meetings, no one-on-ones, no 9-1-1s. Yeah, it's just like, oh wow, well that sounds pretty great.

And that's going to be painful because then we're going to have to be like, well, sorry James or sorry Sarah or whoever is managing planning center full time. Yeah, times have changed. We don't need that anymore.

Just like we used to have massive, and some churches still have this because there's cash giving still in some churches, but like they used to have massive teams counting tithes and offerings on Sunday. And that has really changed. And now with online giving and digital giving, that's just not really needed.

It's just done. Service ends, you know how many people gave. And so these things are going to change.

And so those churches that have those more elaborate infrastructure, they're using 10 different tools to do one job. Yeah, those tools are going to get compiled down into like just a couple tools. And you're going to be doing a lot less busy work at a computer preparing because AI is going to help you do a lot of that and do it more excellently.

So I think that church is going to have a hard time. That's just my personal opinion. I think the under-resourced church is like, oh my gosh.

Bring it on. This is incredible. We've never had budget to have somebody manage planning center.

It's just been a mess for us ever since the day we started implementing it. And now there's this thing that's just going to like solve this massive pain for us for minimal cost. And to add to that, I think outside of churches, again, organizations and companies, real-time example for me, I used to pay an attorney to draw up all my contracts and agreements with clients.

Guess what I do not do anymore? All my agreements and contracts are drawn up through AI. And then the attorney is now spending an hour approving it. Now I've saved five hours on attorney cost.

Took them six hours to draw it up. Now I'm paying them one hour to approve it and stamp it. And then it goes off to our clients.

It's already happening. But then again, even added a step further, we've seen entire cities in America fall because of people being replaced. Look at the car industry, look at Detroit.

I mean, one of the most booming cities there were, because they were ahead of the game for car manufacturing, car technology. Well, they replaced it all with machinery, robots. We're ahead of that.

We're down to AI world, but it was replaced. The point of this is that humans were replaced at one point. And what did it do to the city? It sent home a bunch of dads.

And now, I don't think there's any surprise out there, Detroit's one of the most struggling economically cities in the world still, not in the world, but in America still, because of the fall in the 80s. Automotive industry, yeah. Because of the automotive industry.

It's already happening. So again, churches have to get ahead of this and say, it is coming with our people. We see it.

But how do we honor God? And how do we honor where society has taken us? Combine them together. Do it with excellence, because we're called to do that. But also do it with people, because we're also called to do that.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a great point.

This is not new. No. It's just, it's another... I remember COVID happened.

Everyone's like, the church is never going to be the same. And we tend to get a little bit dramatic about these things. It's always somewhere in the middle.

It's like COVID absolutely impacted the church, and we still see the impacts of that whole era today. But it's not what people said. People were like, people are never going to come back to church.

They're never... churches are going to really struggle. It's going to just turn into online churches. No one's going to... It's like, that didn't happen.

Has some of that happened? Yeah. They're somewhere in the middle. Now, most churches are having to adopt online streaming as just part of their weekly practice.

I think it's going to be a very similar thing. But we also have to understand we're kind of... some listening, remember the dot-com boom, right? It ended up really being a bubble. That popped eventually.

And we saw that with venture-backed software companies. I mean, how hot was it to be a software engineer five years ago? How much money and demand was there in that space? And now it's been fully commoditized, and there's a higher unemployment rate among software engineers than there's ever been, right? So, okay. We're in a bit of a bubble with AI.

There's new AI tools coming into place everywhere. A lot of these... It will pop, and we'll realize... It's going to stabilize and be like, oh, okay. Okay.

So, we have a more reasonable trajectory for how this thing's going to be used. Because right now there's... And I get what Jake was saying. It's a little bit futuristic.

People maybe have a hard time seeing it. And I get that, because it's like, it may be a bit far-fetched. Maybe Jake's right, but it's going to be 20 years and not 10 or five or whatever he's suggesting.

People have a hard time connecting those dots, because usually it's fear. They're like, ah, what does that mean? Well, it's movies too. They see movies like iRobot, and they're like, no, there's no way we're going to have a bunch of iRobots running Planning Center.

That's not what anybody is saying, right? There's a system, a code that's being created to where everything's just going to manage itself. I walked into a grocery store in Atlanta a month ago. Guess what? I did not see a human being.

I walked through a door that came open after I put my account in there. I picked my items off the shelf, and I walked up to the door. It automatically charged my card.

The door opened, and I walked right out. It's already here. It's already here.

So we just got to figure it out as a church. Yet again, how do we manage both? Yeah, I see it impacting the tech space a lot more than the worship space. Yeah, for sure.

We're going to have a worship leader on the platform. Yeah, I agree. Till the day we die.

I mean, I hope so. Yeah. If that's not the case, then we do have a problem.

I mean, same for a speaker, a pastor, a communicator. Yeah. So I do think that is reality.

I think it could be in the next, like, we will see this in our lifetime that, like, it might only be one person in front of the house. And, like, maybe no one's operating cameras, potentially. You know? Well, we're already seeing that.

We're already seeing unmanned cameras. We've been seeing that for five, six years. Yeah.

And then I say we're going to have a speaker, pastor on stage. I was wrong about that, too. Ever heard of multi-sites? Yeah.

We've been doing video on stage for a decade. Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah.

So it's a great point. It's not new. We do need to prepare, and we also need to be really careful that we don't just resist things out of fear.

Yeah. And you might be a church that's like, yeah, we really value the practice of, we want people that, we're going to be a church, we really want people to have the opportunity to run camera. I don't think there's anything wrong with that either.

We shouldn't villainize and be like, y'all are being stupid. You could do this with AI. It's like, if that's a value of your organization.

Some churches have choirs. They're like, we want to have a place where people can sing in the choir. Some churches don't.

Like, yeah, it's just something we don't do here. Some churches do IMAG. Some don't.

Some churches have a live stream. Some don't. That's okay.

We can celebrate the diversity in how we, as the Capital C Church, gather in the lowercase c churches around the world. Yeah. And so don't also feel like, don't feel like you're stuck, but also be a good steward.

That's part of this, like being a good steward of your resources. Like, if you don't have anybody to run camera in your church, or you don't have anybody to run slides, and that's been a thing that's plagued your church for a very long time, and it's actually not a priority to you to train people and equip them to be able to serve in those capacities. Like, hey, there's tools coming to the marketplace that might be able to help you do that.

So yeah. Very interesting. I'll be curious to see how it all unfolds.

And I'll be right here watching, studying. We're super passionate about this at MXU. If you haven't heard about MXU, we're a software platform tied very much to this discussion.

I mean, we want to help you become more efficient in developing your volunteers, planning your services, executing Sunday. Right now, you're probably using like six different tools to do that when it comes to messaging your team, training your team, scheduling your team, planning your service, reviewing your service, understanding what's happening in the room, measuring decibels, and all that kind of stuff. It's packed into one platform.

That's MXU. We're very passionate about it, and we ultimately want to help you have a more excellent Sunday. And so if you want to learn more, hit the link in the description below.

We'll put it there. Thanks for joining us on the podcast, and we'll see you next time.

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