Twenty years ago, the Church treated social media like a tool.
Looking back, Carey Nieuwhof thinks that was a mistake.
Christians spent years debating how to use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram while paying far less attention to a more important question: What would those platforms do to the people using them? By the time churches began seriously wrestling with loneliness, polarization and the mental health concerns tied to social media, those platforms had already become embedded in everyday life. The conversation had focused on utility. The consequences arrived later.
Today, Nieuwhof, author of the upcoming book AI and the Future Church, sees the same pattern emerging around artificial intelligence.
Church leaders are discussing prompts. Conferences are teaching pastors how to use ChatGPT. Ministry teams are experimenting with AI-generated content and trying to figure out which tasks can be automated. None of that is inherently bad, he says. He uses AI himself and believes the technology offers real benefits.
What concerns him is the possibility that Christians are once again focusing on the tool while missing the larger story unfolding around it.
“I think we’re having the wrong conversation about artificial intelligence,” Nieuwhof told RELEVANT. “Most of us are talking about what agent do you use? What prompts do you use? The bigger question is about the impact of artificial intelligence.”
That realization didn’t happen overnight.
Like many leaders, Nieuwhof initially approached AI with curiosity. He wanted to understand the platforms, learn how they worked and explore the ways they might improve productivity. The more time he spent researching the technology, however, the more his attention shifted away from the tools themselves and toward the cultural changes those tools might accelerate.
One quote in particular changed the way he viewed the entire conversation.
Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google DeepMind, has argued that the AI revolution could be “10 times faster and 10 times bigger” than the Industrial Revolution. For Nieuwhof, whose academic background includes history and political science, that comparison carried implications far beyond software or workplace efficiency.
The Industrial Revolution transformed nearly every aspect of society. People left farms for cities. Entire industries emerged while others disappeared. New forms of wealth were created alongside new forms of instability. Labor laws, workplace protections and social norms evolved in response to changes that nobody fully understood when they began. The process took decades, and in some cases more than a century.
Artificial intelligence is arriving on a much shorter timeline.
Questions about employment naturally follow. Executives openly discuss automation. White-collar professionals who once assumed their careers were insulated from technological disruption now find themselves watching AI’s rapid development with growing uncertainty. Whether the predictions prove correct remains to be seen, but Nieuwhof believes churches should already be thinking about what widespread disruption might mean for the people they serve.
“What happens when a lot of your congregation or community is unemployed suddenly?” he asked.
The question isn’t really about economics. It’s about identity.
For decades, many people have built their sense of purpose around what they do for a living. Work provides income, of course, but it also provides structure. It offers a sense of contribution. It becomes part of how people understand themselves. Remove that foundation and deeper questions often emerge. People start asking where their value comes from, what gives their life meaning and who they are apart from their career.
Those are conversations the church is uniquely positioned to have.
Even so, employment isn’t the issue Nieuwhof returns to most often. As the discussion unfolds, he repeatedly circles back to something else: relationships.
The social media comparison matters because it provides a glimpse of what can happen when a technology is widely adopted before society fully understands its effects. Early conversations about social media focused on connection. The platforms helped people stay in touch with friends, reconnect with former classmates and communicate across great distances. Much of that was true. At the same time, researchers would eventually discover links between heavy social media use and rising loneliness, increased anxiety and declining mental health.
“Ten years ago, we started to go, ‘Huh. Are there some unintended consequences here?'” Nieuwhof said. “In the 2020s, we’re like, undoubtedly, the research is showing us that social media as a whole has not been good for people.”
Artificial intelligence, he argues, presents a different challenge because it doesn’t merely mediate human relationships. Increasingly, it can replace them.
Recent studies suggest many teenagers already use AI for relational purposes. Some turn to chatbots for advice. Others seek emotional support. A growing number report interactions with AI that feel easier than interactions with actual people. According to Nieuwhof, research suggests nearly a third of teens who use AI prefer those interactions to conversations with human beings.
The appeal isn’t difficult to understand.
A chatbot doesn’t reject you. It doesn’t make an awkward situation more awkward. It doesn’t misunderstand what you’re trying to say and then force you to spend an hour untangling the misunderstanding. Its entire design is built around keeping you engaged, responding quickly and making the interaction feel rewarding.
Human relationships are far more complicated than that.
“I’ve been married for three and a half decades,” Nieuwhof said. “I push back on my wife, she pushes back on me. I have bad days. She has bad days. That is the story of real human relationship.”
It’s also the story of growth.
Friendships deepen because people work through conflict. Trust develops over time, often after disappointment. Communities become stronger when imperfect people choose to remain connected despite misunderstanding, frustration or hurt. Healthy relationships require patience, forgiveness and effort; none of those things can be automated.
Nieuwhof often describes the biblical story as one of “rupture and repair.” The phrase surfaced repeatedly during our conversation because it captures something he believes artificial intelligence can imitate but never truly reproduce.
A chatbot can affirm you. It can remember details about your life. It can respond with remarkable sophistication and make you feel understood. What it cannot do is participate in a genuine relationship. There is no vulnerability on the other side of the screen. Nothing is being risked. Nothing is being sacrificed.
“The church should know this better than anybody,” he said. “What is the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation? It’s rupture and repair.”
For Nieuwhof, that reality represents both a warning and an opportunity.
Many church leaders feel overwhelmed by the pace of technological change. The temptation is either to embrace every new development without asking enough questions or to disengage entirely. He believes both responses miss the point.
The technology isn’t going away. AI will become part of daily life in much the same way smartphones and social media did. The more important challenge involves helping people navigate the questions that emerge alongside it.
What does it mean to be human in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence? What makes a relationship real? Where does purpose come from if productivity is no longer the primary measure of value?
Those questions sound philosophical today. Nieuwhof suspects they’ll become increasingly practical in the years ahead.
That’s also why, despite his concerns, he remains optimistic.
Throughout history, periods of disruption have often created spiritual openness. When familiar systems stop delivering the answers people expected, deeper questions tend to surface. Nieuwhof points to signs of that search already appearing among younger generations. Bible sales are rising. More young adults are exploring faith. Churches in some communities are seeing renewed interest from people who spent years looking elsewhere for meaning and connection.
“They’ve seen what the world has to offer,” he said. “And they’re like, ‘This is it?'”
Artificial intelligence may accelerate that search rather than diminish it.
The church isn’t built around efficiency. It isn’t built around optimization. At its best, it’s a place where people encounter God and learn how to live in relationship with one another. In a culture increasingly drawn toward synthetic substitutes, Nieuwhof believes those distinctly human experiences may become more valuable than ever.
The conversation most churches are having right now revolves around prompts, platforms and productivity. Useful topics, certainly. Necessary ones, even.
Nieuwhof just thinks the more important conversation is still waiting to happen.
