Ethical Boundaries for Using AI in Sermon Preparation
Avoid the Risk of Plagiarism and Inauthenticity that Undermine your Spiritual Authority
As a pastor or church leader, you pour your heart into preparing sermons each week while having to balance your visitations, committee meetings, family life and more. Sometimes the load of responsibilities can feel crushing. The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT might tempt you to take shortcuts in sermon prep, but this raises ethical questions. In this article, I’ll be exploring the ethical boundaries of using AI for sermon preparation and discussing how to avoid some of the pitfalls that can arise from its use in the pulpit.
Is Plagiarism Acceptable in the Pulpit?
Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s words or ideas, including AI-generated content, as your own without giving credit. I know of a number of ministers who see nothing wrong with using someone else’s sermon without giving proper credit. They have preached someone else’s sermon as if it was their own. In one case I know of, the preacher not only preached someone else’s sermon, he used the personal illustrations exactly as written, making it appear that they were his own personal experiences. A member of his congregation later came across the same sermon and confronted the minister with his plagiarism but he could not understand the problem. He felt that the content of the sermon was good, therefore no one should have a problem with what he did.
Plagiarism undermines people’s trust in your work, whether that work is written or spoken. It is true that citing references while speaking can be cumbersome. Nevertheless, you must be careful to give credit where credit is due. When you preach an AI-generated sermon without acknowledging its source, you risk breaking the eighth commandment (‘You shall not steal’) by taking credit for another’s work and the ninth (‘You shall not bear false witness’) by misleading your congregation. Leviticus 19:11-13 expounds on these commandments by saying, “You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. And you shall not swear by My name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. You shall not cheat your neighbor, nor rob him.”
Plagiarism will be frowned upon by your congregation. How much more should you as a Christian and especially as a Christian leaders avoid doing it? You should strive to live a life above reproach. If you are not careful, you may end up guilty of blaspheming God in the spirit of Romans 2:24 by how you live your life.
Is AI Use in the Pulpit Plagiarism?
How you use AI will determine whether or not it is plagiarism or not. Most preachers use a manuscript when they preach. If you are a manuscript preacher and you have asked an LLM to write your sermon for you, this can definitely be considered plagiarism. At minimum, this kind of use of AI must be disclosed to your congregation before you preach the sermon. This way, it is clear up front where you got the sermon and who wrote it. If you disclose it up front, since AI work isn’t considered copyrightable, reading that AI generated sermon should be fine as long as the AI didn’t use another copyrighted work and largely copy it or simply change a few sentences and words.
A 2025 Barna Group survey found only 12% of Pastors were comfortable using AI to write sermons and just 43% see value in it for preparation or research. I would count myself among the 88% who are not comfortable using AI to write my sermon. The common fear among Pastors was that using AI to write one’s sermon bypassed the Spirit-led work of sermon preparation.
If you are one of that 12%, I would ask you whether or not you disclose your use of AI to your congregation? If you used AI to write your sermon and you fail to disclose it at the beginning of your sermon, you are guilty of plagiarism. You are misrepresenting the ideas presented as coming from you when they did not.
Is it Appropriate to Use AI for Sermon Preparation?
AI is one tool that preachers can use as part of your sermon preparation toolbox. It doesn’t replace other tools like commentaries, dictionaries, personal bible study, and prayer. It can complement these other tools. If you are going to use AI to help you prepare your sermon however, you need to be aware of its limitations. Here are just a few of them:
AI is known to hallucinate produce false information.
AI can reinforce your biases unless you learn to adjust its settings.
AI is subject to the same limitations as human beings when it comes to bias.
AI lacks inspiration from the Holy Spirit.
How do you overcome these limitations? The first step in using AI effectively in your sermon preparation comes as you recognize and educate yourself on what it can and can’t do. AI isn’t a replacement for your own research, your own walk with God, your own verification of sources it or any other source you use for sermon preparation offers to you. Verify, verify, verify.
I have changed the custom settings of the LLMs I use, where the LLM usually has a custom instructions text box of some kind, and spelled out what I expect from it when it generates content for me. Here is part of what I wrote in my custom instructions:
When providing responses, be like a Soviet Olympic Judge. Be brutally honest with your answers, don’t sugar coat your responses and don’t praise me, just tell it like it is. Also, show your line of reasoning so that I can follow your thought process.
I like to be challenged and want to keep my critical and analytical thinking skills sharp so please push back on answers that don’t follow good logic. Please respond in a formal fashion and not in flowery language. Get to the point but be respectful. Keep responses at a grade eight reading level wherever possible unless precision is necessary.
Write your own custom instructions based on your personal preferences and needs. I’m just providing my example here for you to use as a guide as you seek to get the LLM of your choice to tailor its responses to your personal needs.
AI use in sermon preparation doesn’t replace your personal growth and study time. It isn’t a substitute for time spent in the Word of God and in prayer. It doesn’t live in your head and cannot properly represent your way of thinking. Sure, if you fed it enough of your writings, it could mimic your style and use of words but it can never reproduce your soul. When AI writes, it can usually produce a technically excellent paper but it will usually come across as flat and lifeless. You cannot expect the Holy Spirit to bless this approach. God wants to meet with you and I personally. The NT makes it clear that God lives in us. The same cannot be said of AI.
How You Can Use AI for Sermon Preparation
Step 1: Use AI to suggest sermon outlines complete with relevant bible passages. Don’t just pick one, get it to give you options. Ask it to give you three choices instead of one. Pick the idea that resonates most with you.
Step 2: Once it has generated this for me, I don’t just copy and paste it. I go and read each of the bible passages. I go and read commentaries on the key bible passages in my sermon. I develop the thoughts of each section of my outline by writing them out. I can preach from just an outline but ideally, I like to write the sermon out even if I don’t preach it word for word.
Step 3: Ask AI for questions to strengthen your arguments, then revise them based on your study. Don’t settle for the first thing AI gives you either. Keep digging, keep pushing it.
Step 4: Verify anything the AI creates, especially Bible passages, quotes from sources, or even the reference to the source. AI is still making mistakes. If a mistake is found, you will be blamed, not the AI.
Step 5: Be brutal in your editing. Don’t be afraid of reordering your main points, deleting irrelevant points, adding a new point manually. The AI is not a god, it is your servant. Use it that way.
NOTE: Make sure you check every source, every bible verse AI mentions, every fact or ‘research’ it provides. You don’t want to be caught saying something that isn’t true.
Be Authentic in the Pulpit
Your congregation wants to connect with you, not an AI generated version of your sermon. Authentic connection requires two human beings actively engaged. Preaching AI content without disclosure creates a barrier, making your sermons feel flat and robbing you of the Holy Spirit’s transformative work in your heart.” You are also presenting a false front, a mask, a fake version of you. You rob yourself of the blessing of connection with your people. While your people may not be able to know for sure that you are using AI or someone else’s content, they will sense that something feels off for them. Over time, this can have major repercussions when you fail to regularly connect emotionally with the people you are supposed to lead.
No one likes to deal with a hypocrite, someone who says one thing but does another. The very word for hypocrite comes from the Greek word for actor. When you are generating your sermon rather than doing the actual work of writing it yourself through the experience of the Holy Spirit working through you, you rob yourself and your people from the transformation that naturally occurs as we draw near to God and his Word.
If you find yourself “mailing it in” it can be an indication of burnout or something else in your life that is out of balance. Consider it a red flag and proceed accordingly. There is no substitute for doing the actual work of sermon prep.
Final Recommendations
Commit to living above reproach, as Daniel did. If you hesitate to tell your congregation you used AI for part of your sermon, don’t use it that way. Verify every AI suggestion and let the Holy Spirit guide your preparation to ensure your sermons transform both you and your listeners.
Using AI to write your sermons is plagiarism, it is robbing your congregation of having an authentic Pastor-congregation interaction with the Holy Spirit in the midst of it. Your use of AI will rob you of transformation as well. I promise you that if you use AI to write your manuscript, you will not remember the sermon in a week. It will have little to no impact on you personally. All effective preaching must first impact the preacher if it is going to impact the congregation. If you are not changed by the experience of preparing your sermon, it is an indication that you are operating out of the flesh and not by the Holy Spirit of God.
As a pastor, your calling is to lead your congregation closer to God through Spirit-led preaching. Use AI as a tool to spark ideas, but let your sermons reflect your heart, your study, and your walk with God.”
Joseph Duchesne is the creator of The Church AI Guy, a space where faith meets innovation while discussing the long-term impact of AI. A pastor, autodidact, and author of two books—The Last Crisis and Discover the One—he’s passionate about showing how Jesus-centered discipleship can thrive in a digital world. When he’s not experimenting with the latest tech, he’s reading theology, building church community, or spending time with his wife.