AI Sermon Case Study: Should You be Using an LLM to Write your Sermons?
What is the long term impact on a preacher's integrity and spiritual growth?
Artificial intelligence is here to stay, both outside of the church and inside it. There is no use in complaining about it. The question for preachers is not if they will use AI but how to use it without compromising one’s integrity.
We are now living at a time where an entire sermon can be generated in minutes by simply typing in a prompt in any of the major Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude to name a few.
Enter a prompt like the following:
Generate a 2,500 word sermon manuscript on the Sermon on the Mount, complete with a main idea, a hook to graph people’s attention, an introduction, three main points, three practical, easy-to-understand sermon illustrations for each main point, a climax that helps the message hit home, followed by a conclusion that gives three to five practical tips for applying the message. Each of the main points in the sermon should be supported by at least three relevant bible passages. Write it at a grade eight reading level and make the writing engaging and interesting and written to be delivered orally.
I entered this prompt into ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Here is what I observed from the output each of these LLMs generated.
ChatGPT Results
The sermon ChatGPT wrote was more like detailed notes than a proper manuscript. When I copied and pasted it directly into Microsoft Word to see the word count, it came out to 1,718 word. The writing wasn’t particularly inspiring, nor did it flow smoothly. It provided the parts I asked for, including sermon illustrations.
Here are three illustrations it generated:
Illustration 1: The Child Jumping into the Pool
A father stands in the pool and tells his child to jump. The child doesn’t calculate the physics or ask for guarantees. If the child trusts the father, they jump.
Jesus calls us to that same trust—not blind faith, but confidence in the goodness of God.Illustration 2: The Two Bank Accounts
Imagine you have two accounts: one filled with money that fades quickly, and one that pays eternal dividends. Which one should you invest in?
Jesus says many people put everything into the fading account—earthly treasure.
He tells us to invest in heaven, where the return is certain.Illustration 3: The Overloaded Backpack
Hikers often start with heavy backpacks filled with things they “might” need. After a few miles, they start dropping weight. Worry is like that extra weight. We carry things Jesus never asked us to carry.
He says: “Lay it down. Seek Me first. I will take care of the rest.”
Here is the final appeal of this generated sermon:
FINAL APPEAL:
The Sermon on the Mount is not a burden. It is a blueprint for the life Jesus died to give you.
You cannot live it in your own strength.
But Christ in you—the hope of glory—can shape your character, empower your obedience, and anchor your trust.You don’t need a better willpower.
You need a better King.Today, choose the kingdom that can never be shaken.
Choose Jesus.
As an idea generator, this sermon could have usefulness, but if you tried to preach this sermon as generated, it would leave much to be desired. The writing was adequate but certainly not inspired. Not inspired by the Holy Spirit (since it is a machine and not a living soul that the Spirit can inhabit) and not inspired as a human writer.
Now, at first I wondered if maybe it results from asking it to write at a grade eight reading level. I had ChatGPT regenerate the sermon at a grade 12 reading level, and it went from 1718 words to 1844 words, but the result was still choppy and not at all a well-flowing sermon. It was more point-form than free-flowing. This may be its interpretation of writing for oral delivery, but it left some to be desired.
Main Idea:
Jesus calls His followers to live by the values of His kingdom—values that often go against our instincts, our culture, and our comfort. The Sermon on the Mount shows us what life looks like when Jesus rules the heart.
The Hook: ChatGPT asked a powerful question in its hook section.
If someone followed you around for a week with a video camera, would they conclude you belong to the kingdom of Jesus—or the kingdom of the world?
Most people in church assume the answer is yes because they attend worship, avoid certain behaviours, and believe the right doctrines. But Jesus goes deeper. In the Sermon on the Mount, He doesn’t ask, “Do you know the truth?” He asks, “Does the truth control you?”
GEMINI RESULTS
Right off the bat, Gemini told me it wouldn’t be able to generate a 2,500 word sermon and that the result would be from 1,500-1,800 words. Ironically, the final result was 2,473 words long.
The sermon it wrote flowed better but wasn’t fully finished. It followed my instructions and had all the parts I asked it to have, including three illustrations for each of my three main points. It included three bible verses for each main point. In the original prompt, I had asked for three bible passages, intending for it to include multiple verses in one passage when relevant to the context. Instead, it interpreted my asking for three bible passages the same as if I had asked for three verses.
For the sermon illustrations, it provided decent examples that didn’t require me to lie. It didn’t hallucinate a memory that it then expected me to relate to my congregation. The illustrations it generated were all generic and yet on point. An LLM could not be expected to include actual events from your personal life unless it had access to your past writings or some kind of database of past experiences you have had. Therefore, replying with generic illustrations is the best case scenario.
The angle that Gemini took for the topic was the best of the three. While all three versions had good points, Gemini’s main point was:
Main Point:
The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ blueprint for a radically transformed life that proves we are citizens of His Kingdom—a life focused not on outward appearances, but on inward character, selfless relationships, and unwavering trust in God.
Hook:
How many of you love a good life hack? You know, that clever trick that makes something super-hard suddenly simple? Maybe it’s how to tie your shoes with one hand, or the secret ingredient that makes your cookies taste amazing.
We all want the rulebook for a great life, don’t we? We want the instruction manual that guarantees happiness, success, and peace.
Well, 2,000 years ago, a crowd of people followed a young carpenter-turned-teacher named Jesus up the side of a mountain in Galilee. They were waiting for a rulebook. They thought He would give them a battle plan to defeat the Roman Empire, or maybe a list of new rules to follow perfectly.
But Jesus gave them something completely different. He sat down and He started talking about the Kingdom of God. And what He taught is what we call the Sermon on the Mount. It’s not a battle plan; it’s a blueprint for a whole new way to live. It’s the ultimate life-hack, but it feels like it flips everything we think we know upside down.
If you’re looking for a life that makes sense, a life that truly matters, listen close. Jesus is about to tell us how to live like a citizen of Heaven while we’re still here on Earth.
It is certainly possible to preach the Gemini version of the sermon. There is enough bones there for a sermon. If I preached it without modification though, it certainly wouldn’t feel like it was authentic to me. It makes some good points, but they do not reflect my life experience or my unique perspective. How can it really? Since the LLM didn’t train on my specific writings or how I think.
Even if Gemini had been trained on my writings, it wouldn’t reflect where I am right now in my walk with God. Therein lies a major problem with using an LLM to write your sermon. It may allow you to wing it before your congregation, but it comes at a cost.
CLAUDE RESULTS
Claude produced the smoothest output of all three LLMs I tried. The sermon came out to 2,709 words, a little longer than I asked for. Of the three LLMs, it was the only one that outputted like an actual manuscript with well-formed sentences and paragraphs. The text read smoothly. The thinking behind it was clear.
Here is the main point and hook so you can compare it to the other two LLMs.
Main Point:
happiness comes from humility, love conquers hatred, and God’s approval matters more than human applause.
Hook:
Imagine you’re scrolling through social media right now. What do you see? People showing off their best angles, their achievements, their perfect lives. Everyone’s trying to look strong, successful, and in control. Now imagine Jesus shows up and says, “You’ve got it all backwards. Real blessing comes from being poor in spirit. Real strength comes from being meek. Real victory comes from loving your enemies.”
Sounds crazy, right? That’s exactly what Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount. And two thousand years later, His message is just as radical, just as countercultural, and just as powerful as it was on that hillside in Galilee.
Notice that Claude took the vast topic of the Sermon on the Mount and focused on three aspects of it: humility, love for your enemies, and God’s approval. I like the focus from a communication standpoint since it is unlikely that your congregation will remember a main point that is too complicated or too broad.
I preferred the main point that Gemini provided to the one generated here by Claude. I recognize this comes down to preference, but the Gemini main point covers the broader topic better. I believe it is accurate to say that Jesus was outlining a blueprint of what God’s kingdom is like. The keyword blueprint appeals to me. It is focused and powerful. That takes nothing away from the main point generated here by Claude. It is just more representative of what I originally prompted asking for a main point for the Sermon on the Mount rather than having asked for the sub-points presented by Claude.
Illustrations had some issues
I didn’t like some of the illustrations Claude generated. Some of them were written in the first person about encounters that were obviously fictional. Here is one example:
I know a woman whose husband left her for another woman. She had every right to be bitter, to trash-talk him to their kids, to make his life miserable. Instead, she prayed for him every single day. She spoke kindly about him to their children. She even sent his new wife a note saying she hoped they’d be happy. People thought she was crazy. But years later, her ex-husband came back and apologized, broken by guilt. He didn’t ask to get back together, but he told her, “Your kindness convicted me more than any anger could have. It showed me what real love looks like.” Her enemy-love planted seeds that eventually bore fruit.
Imagine preaching this illustration word for word? If the illustration had been worded like a parable, that would be one thing, but it is worded as a lived experience. I would have a problem with the illustration even if it were written in the third person unless the illustration came with a specific source that I could independently verify.
I’ve heard of preachers who preached a manuscript that they had not written word for word including illustrations like the one above that were not experienced by the preacher currently preaching the sermon. Pastor, preacher, make sure not to compromise your integrity. If you are using someone else’s sermon, be sure to admit it publicly to your congregation.
Each of the LLMs gave me food for thought. Each of them provided different perspectives on the same topic. Claude was no exception. Here is the conclusion to the sermon generated by Claude.
Sermon Conclusion:
Conclusion: Practical Steps for Living This Message
So how do we actually do this? How do we take the Sermon on the Mount off the page and into our everyday lives? Let me give you five practical steps:
First, start each day admitting your need for God. Before you check your phone, before you make your coffee, pause and pray: “God, I’m spiritually poor without You. I need Your grace today.” This simple practice keeps us humble and dependent on Him.
Second, make a list of your enemies. I know that sounds weird, but do it. Write down the names of people who’ve hurt you, people you’re angry at, people you tend to avoid. Then commit to praying for them by name every day for the next month. Ask God to bless them. Watch what happens in your heart.
Third, practice secret generosity. Find one way each week to help someone without anyone knowing it was you. Pay for someone’s groceries anonymously. Leave an encouraging note without signing it. Shovel your neighbor’s driveway before they wake up. Train yourself to do good when no one’s watching.
Fourth, fast from social media one day a week. Use that time to read Scripture and pray instead. This breaks the addiction to human approval and reorients your heart toward God. You’ll be amazed how much mental space it creates.
Fifth, memorize one verse from the Sermon on the Mount each week. Start with Matthew 5:3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Write it on a card. Put it on your bathroom mirror. Say it throughout the day. Let God’s Word reshape your thinking.
There is nothing wrong with these five action steps. Every one of them can be helpful if put into practice. If you presented these options to your congregation, I’m sure they would be blessed.
Should You be Using an LLM to Write your Sermons?
The Word of God being preached is only as powerful as it has been incarnational in the preacher’s life. Your people want to know that you believe and have been transformed by what you are preaching. Preaching is not about imparting raw information. It is much more than that.
Today on the internet, you can find tens of thousands of sermon manuscripts you can dust off and use right away. Preaching a sermon manuscript word for word is fine as it stands but it is no substitute for personal transformation. Your people want to know that the message you are presented comes to your from God. It should be a message that has shaped you and helped you be more conformed to the image of Christ.
As you saw in this post, you could get an LLM to generate a sermon for you that may very well be better than you can write yourself. The major problem with doing this is that it will have little to no impact on your personal life and on your personal character. Humans grow through trials, suffering, and pain. Taking the time to learn, research, and then apply what you’ve learned has a personal cost. It takes time; it takes effort; it takes repeated failures, and it takes commitment. The process of doing this work changes you for the better. God uses life, and the lessons we extract from life, to mold us and shape us in his image.
Contrast the struggle for increased knowledge and understanding with generating a sermon using an LLM and preaching it straight away. Where is the struggle? What has this knowledge cost you personally? How is it reflective of your personal journey with God? What can you honestly proclaim to your congregation about what you have learned? Sure, the information can be good and correct, but it is just that, lifeless information. Preaching has power through incarnation. The Holy Spirit inhabits your soul temple, and in the process of living your life during the week, hopefully there is an interaction between you and God. The Holy Spirit is speaking to you through your circumstances, your interactions with others, your personal struggles, and your time alone with God.
If you generate a sermon and then don’t work on it, change it, and apply its principles to your own life BEFORE you preach it to others, you are living a lie. The sermon will be lifeless. It will not transform others who hear it because it has had no impact on you first!
Is there no value to generated sermons?
LLM-generated sermons should be treated like commentaries with one important exception. Commentaries are usually created by authors with validated credentials, usually earned PhD’s. The information it contains is still the opinion of the person who wrote it but usually, the commentary is being published by a recognized publisher and the person who wrote the commentary is usually a recognized expert in the book or topic on which they are writing.
LLMs rely on their training data for the sermons they generate. Their reliability is only as good as their training. Usually, the results will be good, but there is a stronger need to verify the output of an LLM than of a commentary.
Despite this caveat, the reason I say that an LLM is like a commentary is that you should never just take what a commentary tells you on a topic and include it word for word in your manuscript as if it were your own thoughts. Yet, the commentary will often influence your opinion on a topic. It is useful when seeking to understand a topic or bible verse and trying to understand what it meant to the author who wrote it while also looking to apply the principles found in the text to today’s context.
LLM-generated sermons can also be useful as a brainstorming tool. It can help you consider angles and perspectives you may not have considered before. It can generate sermon illustrations that are better than the ones you would have otherwise conceived of. The generated sermon can inspire you to be a better writer and speaker.
For all these reasons and more, I do believe that there is value in a generated sermon.
Stay Ethical in Your Use of Generated Sermons
As I wrap up, let me urge you to maintain your integrity. Never preach a generated sermon word for word. Make significant edits. Take time in the Word of God. Spend time in prayer and bible study. Ideally, let the bible passage or topic in question impact you before you go generate a sermon.
When you generate a sermon, don’t rely on one AI tool alone. I hope you can see from my examples above that by using the same prompt in three different LLMs; I ended up with a richer variety of responses and content than if I had just done it in one. Each LLM is trained differently and will respond differently to your prompt.
Don’t settle for generic, simple prompts. I could have asked each of the LLMs to simply ‘generate a 2,500 word sermon on the Sermon on the Mount,’ and each of them would have done so. The result would have been more generic and less useful. They might have included sermon illustrations and maybe not. There might have been an introduction, and maybe not. The main point of the sermon may have been clear, or it might miss altogether.
Beware of Hallucinations
LLMs will make up content. It just comes with the territory. Expect it and have contingencies for it. Verify everything it produces. Don’t take facts or stories it gives you at face value. Independently verify everything. There is nothing more embarrassing than presenting something as fact only to have someone come up to you later and correct it. If you are preaching, you are expected to be preaching the truth.
LLMs are a tool you can use along with commentaries, bible dictionaries, atlases, topical studies and the like. Do not use them exclusively and believe you are getting a finished result.
In Conclusion
Go ahead and experiment with LLMs. Repeat my experiment for yourself by taking my prompt and pasting it in each LLM for yourself. Change the prompt to suit your needs. If you want different results, experiment with adding more information in the prompt or changing the instructions. Don’t be afraid of failing. It is usually better to use more information in a prompt than less. It can also be helpful to include a sample of the content you want it to produce if you need it to be more specific.
Ultimately, I urge you to be responsible in your use of AI in the pulpit. If you are relying on AI because you didn’t have time to write a sermon this week, you need to consider developing better time management skills. If this a one off occurrence, that can happen. If it is a recurring pattern, time to own up to it and change accordingly.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments if this content has been helpful to you or if you have a different perspective. The only thing I ask is that you be respectful of others. Also, if you have other questions or other content, you’d like me to cover, let me know that in the comments as well. God bless you in ministry!
Joseph Duchesne writes to help Christian Leaders navigate the ethical challenges that artificial intelligence poses to the Church today. He is the author of a couple of books, The Last Crisis and Discover the One, both available on Amazon.