Bott, (not bot), on AI in church settings

With thanks to former Moderator of the United Church of Canada, Richard Bott I find his draft policy on Faith Formation and Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence well informed and compelling. AI is here to stay; the genie is out of the bottle. For myself, I try to limit use of AI for many of the reasons named below. I find avoidance harder each and every day. Full disclosure, the benefits for photographic editing and the editing of texts helpful. Using AI for purely creative endeavours is unoriginal and an affront to creativity. I am concerned mostly with the environmental and social impact of AI data centres worldwide, especially in my neighbouring Province of Alberta.

Now retired from national church work, Richard Bott is lead minister at Grace United Church (Burlington, Ontario)

Draft policy on Faith Formation and Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence

1. Purpose & Theological Grounding

At Grace United Church, our communal life is organized around the core tenets of Belonging, Learning, and Connecting in Grace. These ideals are sustained through our foundational values: Kindness, Fellowship, Spiritual Growth, Acts of Service, Leadership, and Inclusivity. As an Affirming and justice-oriented congregation of Jesus’ disciples, we are explicitly committed to honoring the full spectrum of human diversity, and the diversity of all God’s creation.

We affirm the intrinsic dignity of every individual as a reflection of the Divine (imago Dei). Human value is rooted in God’s love rather than technological productivity, computational ability, or output.

Within communal worship and faith education, spiritual formation occurs primarily through embodied relationships. While computers and artificial intelligence (AI) can streamline routine administration, essential ministerial functions—such as liturgical leadership, discipleship, theological exploration, and pastoral care—cannot be outsourced to automated systems.

Emerging technologies are inherently non-neutral, reflecting the values and economic desires of their creators. Furthermore, the substantial electrical energy and clean-water demands of large-scale computational models require careful ecological discernment in alignment with our commitment to environmental stewardship.

This policy provides an ethical framework for ministry personnel, administrative staff, lay leaders, and volunteers in evaluating the appropriate application of artificial intelligence in the ministries of Grace United Church, Burlington.

These guidelines reflect the recommendations submitted to the General Council Executive regarding AI ethics in October 2026 (https://generalcouncil.ca/document/gce45-artificial-intelligence-working-group-september-2026)
and information from Magnifica Humanitas an encyclical letter from Pope Leo XIV of the Roman Catholic Church. (https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html ).

2. Core Theological Principles

Embodied Presence & the Holy Spirit Worship and faith formation are relational, covenantal acts. Currently, generative AI systems have no bodies, no lived experience, hold no relationship with God or human community (other than that relationship that God has with all parts of creation). AI cannot replace the living presence, voice, and pastoral connection of human relationship. (Note: Conversations regarding the possible human and divine relationships of AGI/ASI – Artificial General or Super Intelligence – and the personhood of such beings continues to be speculative, and is not covered by this policy.)
Spiritual Growth Over Optimization The slower, prayerful, and deliberate work of studying scripture, preparing prayers, and developing curriculum is essential to the spiritual growth of both the leader and the community of faith. We resist social pressures to reduce ministry to being simply “content production” or superficial efficiency.
Authenticity in Worship Our community of faith values genuine encounter with God and one another. Liturgical forms, prayer, and preaching require personal and community integrity. Simulated spirituality, artificial emotional representations, and synthetic imagery undermine covenantal trust and authentic witness.
Anti-Oppression & Inclusivity Because generative models are trained on dominant-culture data, they routinely reproduce societal biases (including racism, heteronormativity, ableism, and ageism). We do not rely on AI to interpret identity, equity, or intercultural experiences. However, we actively welcome assistive technologies that remove barriers for disabled and neurodiverse individuals (e.g., automated closed captions, screen-reading tools, sensory adjustments).
Care for Creation Acknowledging the considerable ecological footprint of generative data centres, Grace United Church uses AI sparingly, intentionally, and never as a thoughtless default. We recommend the use of quantized models, located on a personal computer, over cloud-based AI instances (e.g. Grock, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) for this reason.
Transparency & Truth-Telling Honesty and accountability are essential to leadership in communities of faith. Whenever AI tools contribute substantively to materials shared with the congregation, their use must be transparently disclosed.

3. Guidelines by Ministry Area

A. Worship Preparation & Leadership

Permitted & Encouraged Uses:

Brainstorming themes, lectionary cross-references, or historical background for biblical texts. (Using prompts designed to explore from current mainline biblical scholarship.)
Formatting liturgical scripts, structuring orders of service, generating accessible large-print layouts, or creating closed captions for online streaming.
Coordinating worship logistics (e.g., reader rosters, communion server schedules) without uploading personal contact data.
Restricted & Prohibited Uses:

No AI-Generated Liturgy or Preaching: Generative AI must never be used to write complete sermons, prayers of the people, pastoral prayers, or communion liturgies. Liturgy (“work of the people” or “work of service”) is an offering of accountable, lived human experience before God; presenting machine-generated prayer as the leader’s own breaches pastoral and spiritual integrity.
If an AI tool is consulted for phrasing ideas during preparation, the material must be prayerfully reshaped, discerned, and claimed by the worship leader, with any direct outside quotes properly cited on our credits slide, or as a footnote to printed works.

B. Christian Education, Faith Formation, & Small Groups

Permitted & Encouraged Uses:

Brainstorming discussion prompts, icebreakers, or activity concepts for children, youth, or adult faith programs.
Adapting text into plain language, simplified summaries, or bullet points to support neurodiverse participants and varying age groups.
Drafting scheduling and organizational outlines for multi-week studies.
Restricted & Prohibited Uses:

Generating entire curriculum units, Bible study study guides, or theological lessons wholesale from an AI tool.
Relying on AI chatbots to answer pastoral, personal, or theological questions submitted by children, youth, or adult learners. Mentorship and faith inquiry must remain direct, caring human-to-human relationships.

C. Visual Media, Imagery, and Video

The Principle of Visual Authenticity: People come to worship and educational spaces seeking truth and genuine human connection. Generative AI images and video are synthetic simulations that portray faces, emotions, and sacred events that never occurred. Presenting synthetic representations in worship risks trivializing holy moments and distorting the Incarnational reality of our faith.
Prioritize the Human, Local, and Real:

Worship slides, bulletins, and educational resources should utilize real photographs of congregational life, work crafted by human artists, and licensed or open-source documentary images.
In Christian Education, tactile art, real objects, and children’s or youth’s own creative drawings are strongly preferred over algorithmically generated visuals.
Strictly Prohibited Visual Uses:

No Deepfakes or Fabricated Human Likenesses: AI tools must never be used to simulate a person’s face, voice, or presence—whether a congregant, ministry personnel, child, living public figure, or deceased member.
No Fabricated Human Suffering: Do not generate synthetic imagery of poverty, war, disaster, or grief for use in prayers or justice advocacy. Prayers must bear witness to real neighbours in the real world.
Limited Exception (Abstract Graphics):
Neutral abstract textures, ambient slide backgrounds, or decorative geometric shapes may be AI-generated if needed, provided we include a credit line on our credits page (e.g., “Slide 14 background generated with AI”).

D. Privacy, Pastoral Care, and Data Confidentiality

Confidentiality: Personal names, pastoral concerns, prayer requests, health statuses, family circumstances, donor records, and volunteer information must never be entered, pasted, or processed through any third-party or generative AI tool.
Pastoral Encounters: Pastoral care, bereavement support, and spiritual counselling are sacred, confidential, human-to-human ministries and must never involve automated or AI-assisted conversational tools.

E. Meeting Notes, Transcription, & Summarization

The principle of Discernment: Meetings in the life of the church, whether the Church Board, committees, or working groups, are spaces of shared discernment, fellowship, and holy listening. While automated transcription and AI summarization tools (e.g., Zoom AI Companion, Google Meet summaries, Otter.ai, Microsoft Copilot) can reduce volunteers’ administrative work and support accessibility, they can also alter the nature of open discussion, risk pastoral confidentiality, and introduce distortion into our consensus-building.

Permitted & Encouraged Uses:
- Meeting Structure: Using AI tools to help draft meeting agendas, organize action items, or format approved minutes for clarity and distribution.
- Accessibility Support: Providing real-time closed captions during virtual or hybrid meetings to support hearing accessibility and neurodiverse participation.
- Drafting Assistance for Non-Confidential Meetings: Generating initial draft summaries or action checklists for open, routine business committees (e.g., Property, Communications), provided the human secretary thoroughly reviews and discerns the final record before sharing.

Restricted & Prohibited Uses:
- Training datasets: Grace United Church will not use services that train their datasets on meeting recordings. (At time of approval, Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet have all explicitly stated that they do not use meeting transcripts for dataset purposes. However, it is the responsibility of the meeting planner to ensure that the tool they are using is compliant with this policy.)
- Explicit Prior Consent Required: Automated AI “notetakers,” audio recording bots, or transcription features must never join or record a meeting without the explicit, advance notice and consent of all participants present. A verbal request for agreement to be recorded and use the AI notetaker must be made at the beginning of the meeting, when recording or AI transcription is active.
- Prohibited in Pastoral, Discernment, and In-Camera Sessions: AI transcription and summarization bots are strictly prohibited during:
  - Pastoral care discussions, prayer concerns, Ministry & Personnel (M&P), Search Committee, in-camera portions of Church Board meetings, or formal personnel/complaint investigations.

No Uncritical Adoption (Human Accountability): AI meeting summaries frequently miss nuanced subtext, theological discernment, nonverbal consensus, or tone, and may misattribute statements or invent (“hallucinate”) details. An AI-generated summary must never serve as the official congregational or committee minutes. Official minutes remain the human responsibility of the elected secretary or chair.

Data Privacy & Retention: Any audio recording, full transcript, or cloud-stored meeting capture used to assist note generation must be promptly deleted once the official human-reviewed minutes have been approved. Unfiltered raw transcripts containing personal names, opinions, or contact details must not be permanently stored in cloud AI services or used to train third-party machine learning models.

4. Integrated AI

Grace United Church, Burlington, recognizes that generative AI is being integrated into many of the tools we use for ministry (e.g. Canva, Microsoft 365, Google Docs). This policy is not designed to penalize people for their use of such tools, or the inadvertent use of generative AI in using those tools. We do ask that leadership of the congregation use the principles in this policy to guide their use of these tools.

5. The Grace Discernment Matrix

Before utilizing any AI tool for church-related work, ministry personnel and volunteers should evaluate their intent using the following continuum:

Practice	Status	Congregational Expectation
Brainstorming sermon themes, scripture contexts, or lesson ideas	Permitted	Leader uses ideas as initial raw sparks; personal study, prayer, and writing drive the actual work.
Accessibility adaptations (closed captions, high-contrast layouts, plain language)	Encouraged	Supports full inclusion, equity, and universal access.
Abstract slide backgrounds or decorative design elements	Permitted with Disclosure	Acceptable for neutral graphic aesthetics; must display a visible citation.
Generating an entire sermon, prayer, curriculum, or liturgy	Not Permitted	Breaches covenantal accountability; short-circuits personal and community spiritual formation.
Generating synthetic images of human suffering	Not Permitted	Distorts historical/pastoral reality, breaches authenticity, and relies on biased datasets.
Creating deepfakes, synthetic voices, or simulated likenesses	Strictly Prohibited	Violates truth-telling, personal consent, and pastoral trust.
Inputting pastoral requests, health details, or member data	Strictly Prohibited	Violates congregational privacy standards and pastoral confidentiality.
Real-time closed captioning during open meetings	Encouraged	Enhances universal access and participation without storing personal recordings.
AI draft summarization of open committee meetings	Permitted with Consent	Requires unanimous participant consent beforehand; human secretary edits and owns the final minutes.
Using AI notetakers during M&P, in-camera, or pastoral discussions	Strictly Prohibited	Violates confidentiality, covenantal safety, and pastoral trust.

6. Implementation, Oversight, & Review

Responsibility: Oversight of this policy rests with the Grace United Church Board, working in regular consultation with the Worship Committee and Faith Formation Committee.
Ongoing Education: The church will periodically share plain-language guidance and educational resources to help lay leaders, study facilitators, and youth leaders discern healthy digital practices.
Annual Review: Given the fast-evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, digital ethics, and denominational directives, this policy shall be reviewed annually by the Board. The responsibility for review will rest with the Lead Minister, in conversation with the Board Chair and the Communications Chair.

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