How Churches Can Manage the Hidden Costs and Risks of AI

Many churches are using generative artificial intelligence (AI)–whether leaders realize it or not. 

Consider these common scenarios:

These uses raise a variety of questions and concerns, including legal, ethical, and financial ones.

Most churches do not handle these considerations well, though, because they do not address them in the first place. And most do not formally adopt AI through a board-approved strategy, missing an opportunity to effectively manage these important considerations. 

Instead, their AI use arrives through employee- and volunteer-created free trials and personal subscriptions, plus church-paid software platforms that quietly add AI tools and features—often at additional expense. 

Many churches do not approve of these uses, much less purchases, for AI tools or AI-related upgrades. These activities go on undetected; even ones with charges often run low enough to go unnoticed in monthly financial reviews.

Churches should begin with an AI inventory. 

Doing so can go a long way toward reducing key legal, ethical, and financial risks.

A comprehensive inventory can be done through a combination of reviewing expense reimbursements, credit card charges, and software platform uses, and also by surveying staff and volunteers on the tools they’re using for church work. 

The goal is to understand what is already happening before costs and risks spread. 

This inventory should list each AI tool, who uses it, what it costs, and what information is entered into it. 

Evaluate the financial, legal, and ethical considerations. Have AI uses received reviews and approvals through some type of formal process? If not, a formal process should be created, starting with an AI policy for the church workplace. The church’s board should initiate this work, and appropriate departments, such as finance and IT, should administer it. Qualified legal counsel should be involved initially, since legal and ethical questions must be answered. 

Establish clear rules for sensitive information. Churches should strictly prohibit the use of free AI tools or trial offers of premium tools for any church work involving sensitive or personal information. Even if a premium tool is approved, staff and volunteers should not enter donor names, giving history, payroll data, counseling notes, benevolence requests, HR and personnel matters, or confidential financial information into AI tools unless the tool’s premium version provides written assurances that submitted data is not used to train models or become publicly accessible in any way. Additionally, use of any premium tool for sensitive or personal information should require additional vetting and approval first by the church to ensure, among other things, that the AI provider meets state law requirements related to cybersecurity protocols and bias prevention.

Treat AI as its own budget category. AI should not disappear inside miscellaneous software expenses. Some tools charge per user, while others charge by usage, credits, images, documents, or processing volume. A tool that seems inexpensive during an introductory offer can become costly when usage expands across the staff.

Run short pilots. A 30- to 60-day pilot can help determine whether a tool saves time, improves quality, reduces cost, or strengthens ministry. Success should be defined before the pilot begins. Above all, avoid long-term agreements as much as possible.

Review AI tools at least quarterly. Leaders should ask what tools are being used, whether they are still needed, whether costs have changed, whether sensitive information is protected, and whether any tools should be canceled, consolidated, or expanded.

Remember, too, that AI can be a helpful tool for churches when wisely used. 

It can help busy ministry teams save time, communicate more clearly, organize information, improve first drafts, summarize meetings, and reduce administrative burden. 

For churches with limited staff and growing demands, the right tools can create capacity for deeper ministry, better planning, and more thoughtful leadership.

Churches still must pay attention to the relational risks. AI can quietly reduce human conversations when staff rely too heavily on generated messages, automated follow-ups, or chatbot-style interactions. 

Recent research and media reports have raised concerns about people forming unhealthy emotional attachments to chatbots, receiving affirmation of harmful thinking, or being discouraged from seeking help from real people in moments of crisis. 

Broad acceptance of AI for personal and spiritual-related matters exists among those attending churches, too. A survey of practicing Christians by Barna Group and Gloo (Church Law & Tax’s parent company) show 61 percent would completely or somewhat trust AI on financial matters, and nearly half say the same when it comes to growing spiritually.

For churches, this matters because it shows AI has become commonplace even among their ranks. 

Using it as a staff can create efficiencies. It also shouldn’t replace the way staff meet real ministry needs in ways that technology cannot. 

Ministry is built on presence, prayer, wisdom, counsel, and trusted relationships. AI can help draft a message or organize notes, but churches should preserve pastoral care, parental involvement, small group community, counseling referrals, phone calls, visits, meals, and face-to-face conversations.

AI emerged into the mainstream in 2022 and remains relatively new. 

But the stewardship principle is ancient. 

Churches are called to manage resources faithfully, protect the people they serve, and ensure every tool–including AI–supports the mission.

With proper planning, decision-making, and supervision, AI can strengthen ministry.