Should Pastors Use AI for Sermons? A Confessional Line Between Help and Outsourcing

Using AI is not sinful in itself. A pastor may use a tool to organize his study, surface background, check a structure or catch errors, much as he already uses a concordance or a commentary. The problem is outsourcing what only the minister can do: interpret the text, come to conviction about it, pray over it, apply it to a people he knows and answer for every word he says. Below you will find what the confessions say preaching is, where help ends and outsourcing begins, and a checklist for your own study.

How many pastors use AI for sermons?

More than many assume. In research published on June 15, 2026, as part of its State of the Church initiative, Barna Group found that only 13 percent of U.S. pastors say they do not use AI at all. The leading uses are behind the scenes: half use it for brainstorming or idea generation, 36 percent to research biblical or theological topics.

On sermons specifically:

• 24 percent report writing or editing sermons with AI's help. Barna adds that they use it more as a research and preparation partner than as an author.
• 12 percent said in 2024 that they were comfortable writing sermons with AI. That figure measured comfort, not practice, so the comparison with today's 24 percent is only approximate.
• 71 percent describe feeling cautious about AI, and 40 percent say they feel conflicted.

So the real question is not whether pastors will meet AI but where they will allow it, and Reformed churches already have language for that.

What is preaching, and who may do it?

The Westminster Larger Catechism answers in two steps. First, who: "The Word of God is to be preached only by such as are sufficiently gifted, and also duly approved and called to that office" (WLC Q. 158). Paul asks the same question: "And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:15, ESV). The 1689 London Baptist Confession lays preaching on pastors by office and also opens it to others "gifted and fitted by the Holy Spirit for it, and approved and called by the church" (LBCF 26.11). In both traditions, preaching is tied to a person: his gifts, the church's approval, the call.

Second, how. Those who are called are to preach sound doctrine "diligently," "plainly," "faithfully, making known the whole counsel of God," "wisely, applying themselves to the necessities and capacities of the hearers," "zealously, with fervent love to God and the souls of his people," and "sincerely, aiming at his glory, and their conversion, edification, and salvation" (WLC Q. 159).

Notice that almost every word in that answer describes the preacher, not the manuscript. A program can produce plain sentences. It cannot love a congregation, aim at its conversion or be sent. That is the line in principle: a tool may serve the called man's work, but it cannot do the part of the work that belongs to the call.

The next question turns to the hearers, who are to "examine what they hear by the Scriptures" (WLC Q. 160). Your people will test the sermon. You should test it first.

What can a tool legitimately help with?

Think of AI as an assistant whose work you check, not a colleague whose judgment you trust. Within that limit, it can help with:

• Organizing your study. Sorting your notes and gathering what you have already found into an outline.
• Surfacing context. Historical background, cross-references, where else a word appears. Treat every answer as a lead to check in reliable sources, never as a source.
• Checking structure. Does each point come out of the text? Is the main idea stated clearly? Does the sermon move forward, or does it circle?
• Catching errors. A point that contradicts another, an unclear sentence, a reference that does not match the verse you meant.

Paul's instruction covers every item on that list: "test everything; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Help you never test is not help. It is delegation.

What must the pastor never delegate?

Some parts of preparation are not tasks. They are the ministry itself.

• Interpretation. What the passage means is your judgment before God, reached by your own study. Paul calls Timothy to be "a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). A tool can propose a reading. It can also misread a text with complete confidence.
• Conviction. You preach what you have come to believe the text says. A main idea adopted from a screen rather than reached in the text is borrowed conviction, and borrowed conviction is hard to preach with the zeal the catechism asks for.
• Prayer. It is the Spirit of God, the catechism says, who makes "especially the preaching of the word" effectual for the salvation of sinners (WLC Q. 155). You pray for light on the text and for the people who will hear it. No tool prays.
• Knowledge of your congregation. Applying the text "to the necessities and capacities of the hearers" requires knowing them: who buried a parent this month, who is drifting, which family is visiting for the third week. A tool has never met them.
• Responsibility for every claim and citation. The 1689 describes pastors as watching for souls "as they that must give an account to Him" (LBCF 26.10; compare Hebrews 13:17). You answer for every sentence you preach, including one a program wrote.

What about pastors who say AI has no place in sermons at all?

Some Reformed pastors and teachers hold that AI should play no role in sermon writing, and their case deserves a fair hearing. It runs like this. Preparation is not only production: the hours in the text are part of how God shapes the preacher, so a shortcut in the study shortchanges the man as well as the sermon. These tools are built from vast amounts of text no one can inspect, so the theology behind their output is unknown. Leaning on them dulls the skills a preacher needs most. And a congregation should hear a sermon that has passed entirely through its pastor's own mind and heart.

These are serious arguments. A pastor who decides not to use AI in sermon preparation is following a conscience the Reformed tradition respects. The line in this article starts from the same premise, that preaching belongs to the called man, and asks a narrower question: at what point does a tool stop serving the preacher and start substituting for him? Pastors who answer differently can still disagree as brothers.

Should the congregation know you used AI?

No confession addresses software, so this is a question of integrity, not of rules. When you stand up to preach, your congregation assumes the sermon reflects your study, your convictions and your words. Paul says he has "renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways" (2 Corinthians 4:2). That is a good standard for any method of preparation.

A few honest tests:

• Would you be comfortable telling your elders exactly how this sermon was prepared?
• If a member asked whether you used AI, would your answer be simple and true?
• If the honest answer would embarrass you, is the problem the disclosure or the method?

Some pastors mention their tools the way they would mention a commentary. Others talk the question through with their elders and settle on a practice together. Either is better than a habit you would rather nobody knew about.

What are the risks of plagiarism and false citations?

Plagiarism. Most pastors already know that preaching someone else's sermon as your own is dishonest. AI makes it easier to do without noticing, because generated text can echo published sermons and commentaries without telling you where a phrase came from. If you cannot say where a striking sentence came from, do not preach it as your own.

False citations. AI tools can produce convincing quotations from authors who never wrote them, page numbers for books that say something else, and Bible references that do not say what the sentence claims. Confessional citations can carry the wrong chapter, section or question number. The rule is simple: check every quotation and reference against the source itself, whether the Bible text, a reliable edition of the confession or the book on your shelf. If you cannot find it, cut it.

Your hearers are told to examine what they hear by the Scriptures, and a member who looks up a wrong reference will wonder what else was wrong.

Where is the line? A checklist for your study

Before Sunday, ask yourself:

1. Did you study the passage yourself before asking a tool anything?
2. Can you state the main idea of the text in one sentence, in your own words, and show it from the passage?
3. Have you tested every interpretive claim against the text and reliable sources?
4. Have you verified every quotation, reference and original-language claim yourself?
5. Have you prayed over the text and for the people who will hear it?
6. Are the applications written for your congregation, not a generic audience?
7. Could you preach the sermon from your own notes if the file disappeared?
8. Would you be comfortable telling your elders how it was prepared?
9. Are you ready to answer for every sentence as your own?

If any answer is no, the tool has moved from help to outsourcing. Go back to the step it took over and do it yourself.

What to do this week

• Write down which tasks you will let a tool help with and which you will not, and show the list to an elder.
• Do your exegesis and find the main idea before you open any tool.
• Verify every quotation and reference in Sunday's sermon against its source.
• If time pressure pushes you toward a shortcut, look first at where the hours of sermon preparation go.

If you do use a tool, choose one that keeps you in the work and is honest about its limits. The sermon preparation workspace in Hokmah Expositor does generate drafts, including complete sermon drafts, for you to examine and correct. Its own page says it can misread a text or get a reference wrong and does not know your congregation, and when it generates a sermon it lists the confessional quotations so you can check each one before preaching. The line above applies to it as much as to any other tool.

Sources

• New Research: Pastors Are Using AI More Than You Think, Barna Group, State of the Church, June 15, 2026, https://access.barna.com/articles/pastors-using-ai-ministry
• Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 155, 158, 159, 160), Orthodox Presbyterian Church, online edition, https://www.opc.org/lc.html
• The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, chapter 26 (paragraphs 10 and 11), The Reformed Reader, https://reformedreader.org/ccc/1689lbc/english/Chapter26.htm