AI Can Write Sermons, But It Can't Make Preachers
Ten Thousand Hours
Pretty early on in my ministry I read Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers and in that book I was introduced to the idea of the 10,000-hour rule. The idea is simple: it takes ten thousand hours of practice to be an expert at something. Gladwell points to the Beatles, who had about 10,000 hours of practice together before they hit it big and to Bill Gates, who had about 10,000 hours of practice coding before Microsoft took off.
I remember reading that and thinking, "I'm pretty young. I'm going to put 10,000 hours of practice into becoming a better preacher." So I decided to put in the work: I read every book that I could on preaching, I decided to manuscript all of my sermons even if I wasn't ever going to read them, I decided not to take shortcuts.
I'm past 10,000 hours now: Just at Bible Baptist I've preached around 2,175 sermons. If each sermon took four hours to prepare that puts me at 8,700 hours. Add in college, my limited time in grad-school, teaching, camps and everything else that goes into becoming a preacher and I'm there.
I'm not saying I'm a great preacher. There are many things I wish I did better: invitations, being bound to the pulpit, writing a good conclusion, etc. I'm sure the poor saints who listen to me week in and week out could probably add to that list. My point isn't to brag.
The Problem with AI
My point is that it feels incredibly unfair that, just at the time when my thousands of hours of practice are feeling like they are starting to show results, AI comes along and makes it possible for anyone to sound like me with ten minutes of prompting. I'm genuinely scared that people will mistake hard-earned polish and expertise with chat-bot slop. That is terrifying, frustrating and deflating.
While AI can do a very good job at making a sermon, AI can do nothing to make a preacher. Even the best sermon, if detached from God's shaping work on the preacher, is nothing but "sounding brass and tinkling symbol."
Preaching is the Art of Making a Preacher
In Haddon Robinson's masterpiece Biblical Preaching there is a passage that has come to mean more and more to me. Robinson states:
Phillips Brooks was on to something when he described preaching as "truth poured through personality." We affect our message. We may be mouthing a spiritual idea, yet we can remain as impersonal as a telephone recording, as superficial as a radio commercial, or as manipulative as a con man. The audience does not hear a sermon; it hears a person - it hears you.
Bishop William A. Quayle had this in mind when he rejected standard definitions of homiletics. "Preaching is the art of making a sermon and delivering it?" he asked. "Why, no, that is not preaching. Preaching is the art of making a preacher and delivering that!" A commitment to expository preaching should develop the preacher into a mature Christian. As we study our Bible, the Holy Spirit studies us. As we prepare expository sermons, God prepares us. As P.T. Forsyth said, "The Bible is the supreme preacher to the preacher."
If Preaching is Just Words on a Page
If the product of sermon preparation is nothing more than a well written sermon that is accurate to the text and makes its point well - then by all means - get in the habit of taking shortcuts. Honestly, at this point, just about any chatbot is going to do a better job than you.
But preaching has to be more than that, or preaching is meaningless. People don't come to listen to a sermon, they come to be fed out of the overflow of how God is feeding you. One of the primary ways the Lord speaks to you is through your study and preparation. If you shortchange that, you are shortchanging the people you are preaching to and making a mockery of the whole work of preaching.
I'm not saying you shouldn't use AI to help you. (I've laid out how I use it here.) But I am saying that you have to fight hard against the temptation to let AI replace the heart of what you do, and if you don't fight against that laziness, what's going on in your church might include a sermon, but it isn't really preaching.
Do the Work
Do the work. Read and reread the text. Study the words. Study the context. Read what great preachers and scholars had to say about it. Apply it to your own heart and life. Let the Holy Spirit guide you into a message. Work through every part of it. Then stand before the congregation God has given you and deliver that to people.
There may be shortcuts for making a sermon. But there are no shortcuts for how making a sermon makes a preacher over years and years. Don't short change yourself and don't short change the people God has given you to lead.