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TL;DR Pastors can boost productivity and creativity with AI tools designed for presentations, video, communication, and leadership. 1. Gamma for stunning sermon presentations. 2. Lumalabs for viral video creation. 3. ChatGPT + Zapier to automate meeting notes. 4. Fyxer as a time-saving AI assistant. 5. Plus 6 more tools for ministry innovation. |
There are over 1,000 AI-specific tools that were launched into the world this year already.
No one has the time to try them all out!
So we asked several practitioners and pastors, what AI tools they have been using regularly that offer real value and impact to their work.
What we got is a list of great options for you to discover and try new AI tools!
We asked: “What’s one AI tools you’ve been using that most pastors probably don’t know about?” And here are the responses:
Top 10 AI Tools Pastors Should Know About (and try!)
1. Death to (not by) PowerPoint! Set your eyes on Gamma
Kenny Jahng, Editor in Chief at ChurchTechToday.com says…
Gamma.app is one of the best AI presentation design tools on the market right now.
You can copy/paste in text and it will automatically pick the best slide layout, charts, and ai-generated images to match each slide.
If you don’t like any of it, you can go in and change layouts, fonts, colors, type of charts, and even generate new AI images right there in the app, or upload new images of your own.
No more boring presentations!
Connect with Kenny: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
2. Make Viral Videos Using AI Animations
Nils Gulbranson, Content Creator / Social Media Consultant at NilsGlenn says…
Using Lumalabs.ai, find a style of video from your favorite creator, animator, or YouTuber and take a screenshot of a scene you like. Upload that screenshot into ChatGPT and ask it to create a “Lumalabs prompt that replicates” said style. Then enter Lumalabs and create your photo, choose your favorite one, and use the camera tool to animate! Make sure your hook, storytelling, and script is on point as that is 90% of the video! See example: https://www.instagram.com/p/DLLIdJYP8wa/
Connect with Nils: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
3. Automate Meeting Notes
Michael Lukaszewski, CEO at Hopeware says…
Turn Meeting Notes into Actionable Summaries with ChatGPT + Zapier or Make
Automatically send your meeting transcripts (Zoom, Google Meet, etc.) into ChatGPT via Zapier or Make.
Use a prompt like:”Summarize this meeting in 3 bullet points, then list all action items with responsible person if mentioned.”
Then have the summary emailed to attendees or dropped into a shared Notion or Slack channel. Zapier or Make both let you easily set-up connections and workflows between apps.
Connect with Michael: Website
4. Get An AI Assistant That Gives You Back An Hour Every Day
Rich Birch, Founder at unSeminary says…
My inbox used to feel like a ministry in itself … never-ending, always demanding, and constantly distracting. Enter Fyxer, an AI-powered executive assistant that transformed how I handle communication and meetings. Every morning, I open my inbox to find it pre-sorted with clearly labeled categories and draft responses already written in my voice. It’s as if I have a highly skilled assistant who knows my tone, priorities, and calendar—but without the payroll expense.
Fyxer integrates seamlessly with Gmail and Outlook, learning from how you write and respond to emails. It drafts replies to every email that matters while filtering out the clutter. One feature I especially appreciate is its smart meeting notetaker: it joins my Zoom or Google Meet calls (with permission), takes better-than-human notes, and even drafts follow-up emails immediately afterward. This has been a game-changer for team alignment and pastoral follow-through.
In a role where time is ministry’s most precious resource, Fyxer has given me back at least an hour a day. That’s time I can now reinvest in mentoring staff, planning strategically, or simply being present with people. It’s not just an inbox manager—it’s a clarity machine.
If your calendar is packed, your inbox is flooded, and your team depends on your clarity, Fyxer is worth a serious look. It’s private, secure, and continues to learn, growing into a true digital assistant. For me, it’s been one of the most practical and productivity-enhancing tools I’ve ever used.
Connect with Rich: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
5. Turn Your Problems Into Opportunities
Jon Hirst, Founder at Generous Mind says…
One of the important tools in innovation work and design thinking is the “How Might We” question.
It helps you turn a problem into an opportunity so that you can ask different questions of those you are seeking to serve.
The “How Might We” questions become critical as you gain empathy and engage your beneficiaries to understand their pain points.
Board of Innovation offers an AI-powered “How Might We” Question Generator.
It is a fun tool to use: https://ai.boardofinnovation.com/hmw
Connect with Jon: Website | LinkedIn
6. Pastors SHOULD Have AI Write Their Sermons
Jason Morris, Equipping Director at theChurch.digital says…
Let’s put in one bucket the due diligence of sermon prep like:
- reading books on the topic at hand,
- using commentaries and other hermeneutical aids informed by select theological perspectives,
- asking people for honest feedback,
- listening to respected communicators on that topic
- and make it fit in the time allotted
Let’s call that first bucket, ‘curated research’.
Now imagine all that manual due diligence, that normally takes you hours, fed into context engineering for an AI assistant that generates you a personalized, curated rough draft of a sermon from sources vetted and personalized by YOU like what is generated in SermonDone.
This is the human sandwich, AI gives you the curated rough draft, but you massage it, pray, get guidance from the Holy Spirit, sleep on it, pray some more, make the final version, then the next step for the second bucket.
Let’s call it ‘contextualization’ and make it work for people NOT like you, your audience because most pastors live in echo chambers.
Take that finished message and ask a general, non-curated AI to poke holes in it from your audience’s perspective.
Ask what the general AI thinks of the message from the perspective of someone who’s in a different religion, generation, class, race, gender, political persuasion than you to show you blind spots and contextualize the message to the hearer.
You will be amazed the moats we have in our eyes that AI can highlight, and it won’t get offended for asking.
Now use all the time you saved in prayer for the people Jesus is sending you that need to hear your message.
Then ask AI to make your sermon 10 minutes shorter. 😎
Connect with Jason: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
7. Creatre The Best Notetaker You Have Ever Had
Nils Smith, VP of Marketing at Faith Driven Entrepreneur says…
Remember when we used to have someone sit in a meeting just to take notes?
Those days are a thing of the past as AI notetakers are often better than human notetakers and free up your staff to prioritise other tasks that only humans can do.
My go to AI notetaker is Fathom.video as the free version has been all that I’ve ever needed, and its features of transcribing, summaries, and action items are tremendous!
It works with Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet seamlessly as well.
What about in-person meetings? There’s no reason you can’t just spin up a Zoom call and start up the notetaker for these in-person meetings as well.
If you don’t love Fathom for any reason, another great alternative is Granola.
Start saving your team time and start better documenting your meetings with your AI Notetaker today.
Connect with Nils: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok
8. Stop Playing Yourself: These 4 Tools Will Transform Your Ministry Like Magic
Justin Lester, Pastor, AI and Faith Expert at Friendship Baptist Church says…
Let’s be honest, half the tools folks pitch to churches feel like a group text that should’ve been left on read. But every now and then, something hits different. Like Lindy. Think of it as your AI chief of staff that doesn’t need PTO. It schedules, drafts emails in your tone, filters requests, and keeps you from drowning in admin. It’s clutch.
Then there’s Tally.so. It’s what Google Forms wishes it was. Clean, quick, and easy enough for your deacon board and your youth team to use. Plug it into guest follow-up, prayer requests, new member intake…whatever. No drama. Just done.
Now, if you want to stop guessing and start leading with data, Hex is your move. It’s like having a dashboard for your ministry anointing. Track giving without the spreadsheets. Watch group engagement over time. Set actual KPIs for your outreach instead of vibes and attendance sheets from 2007.
And when it’s time to dream big or map systems without a whiteboard and sticky notes falling off the wall, pull up Whimsical. It’s how I sketch vision, sermon flows, org structures, and new pathways.
I use every single one of these in real time. And honestly? They’re part of the reason I built PastorGPT; to give pastors a tool that understands the weight, rhythm, and reality of this call.
Because burnout ain’t holy.
And delegation is biblical.
Connect with Justin: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok
9. Use AI To LISTEN To What Your Community’s Talking About — And Automatically Generate Engaging Responses
Paul Fleming, CMO & Entrepreneur at Martech Mentor says…
There are a million AI tools available for productivity enhancements and fact finding.
But, I wonder how many church leaders are spending time imagining how AI tools can open new doors for evangelistic conversations also?
AI tools like https://www.bizreply.co is an AI powered “Social listening” platform, and is a gold mine for spiritual conversations.
You just enter topics, and let AI do the rest. Some of the richest conversations today aren’t happening on Facebook…they’re in more dialog centered platforms like Reddit…which is overlooked by most churches.
I use this in my work to gauge the “social sentiment” of topics, and brands…so why not use for your church?
Listen for felt needs (like relationship issues and finances), as well as trending topics, then train AI how your church is solving those problems. If nothing else — pastors could / should be using social listening and sentiment tools to give insight on what topics could fill their sermon calendar.
Let AI help you listen more, so that when your church speaks, its hitting people right where they are.
Connect with Paul: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
FINAL THOUGHTS
The average church leader spends most of their week reacting. Requests pile up. Calendars overflow. Ideas sit untouched because the process to act on them feels too heavy.
AI gives you leverage. The real opportunity is not speed. It’s architecture. You now have the ability to shape how decisions get made, how ideas move, how insight gets stored and reused.
This shifts the role. From doer to conductor.
You decide what gets your time. You decide what gets automated, templated, or handed off to software that never forgets. The challenge is not whether the tools work. They do.
The challenge is whether you are clear on what you want to stop doing.
Ask your team:
What are we doing that delays success because of the time required to execute?
What questions are we not asking because we lack data?
What ideas keep stalling because the lift is too high?
AI can’t answer those. But it can carry the weight once you do.
In #6, he left out the part where you make sure your congregation knows that your sermons are AI-written, human edited, and then watch them all slowly leave the church as they realize that you’ve just made yourself a biological cog in a virtual machine. Are leaders able to stomach this just because they already treat the church like a machine, so why not go one step further?
I appreciate what AI is currently doing