Why is it important to create an AI Policy for your Church?

Church staff and pastors are utilising AI to boost productivity, get more done, and perhaps FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Each person is experimenting with different cloud services to store and share documents with AI and deciding what information to post in AI chats using their personal accounts. What are the potential dangers, implications and risks to the church?

Pastors, Church Staff, and Volunteers are given access to church data, and the risks of exposing this data on AI platforms are high if individuals decide what they post during AI chats.

In a recent survey, nearly 60% of church respondents use AI occasionally or regularly, and 94% say they either have no guidelines or are discussing AI Policy. That leaves the church staff and pastor free to decide what, when, and how data are posted to AI platforms.

Nearly 60% of church staff, pastors, preachers, etc, are using AI, but the majority of these churches do not have an AI policy. Only 6% have some informal guidelines in place.

From the survey, none of the churches has a formal AI policy, only 6% have some informal guidelines, and 18% are in discussion.

Is AI Policy important? What are the dangers and implications? Churches usually do not have a written policy on administrative operations. Why do we need one for AI? Why now?

Why is an AI Policy so important? Since Churches do not usually write policies for productivity tools and software

AI is a lot more than a productivity tool

There are many reasons why an AI Policy stands out and is unique from the general adoption of technology in the church. Churches do not usually have a written policy on how to use productivity tools, such as email, office suites, or other digital tools, so why is one needed for AI adoption? The simple answer is:

AI is part of the content generation process with some level of autonomy, and it poses a high risk of data breaches if not adopted properly.

AI tools are being adopted in churches because they can reason and generate content with a substantial level of autonomy. For church staff, the church has employment guidelines that outline work hours, primary duties, incentives, a code of conduct, and PDPA and/or privacy statements that staff must uphold. Now that we include AI in contributing to the church's communication and information, its use needs to be clearly guided to ensure that a similar level of regulation is in place to protect the process, the content and the outcome.

For example, a committee could use AI to generate theme songs and programs for an event; the cell group leader could generate personalised Bible study materials; and the church admin could generate letters to members using church information. An AI policy would help to provide clear guidelines to ensure consistency, prevent potential liability, and enhance security to protect the church's data. Many church workers are experimenting with different AI tools, but many might be unaware that signing in with a corporate account rather than their personal account would subject the data to a very different set of backend data-handling and security standards. Needless to say, the corporate paid accounts are subjected to a much higher level of security and data protection.

The AI platform's similar interface for corporate and personal use can also cause confusion and a false sense of similarity when uploading church information. Without a clear policy, staff could sign in and out between the different accounts. And when staff are not given corporate AI accounts, they would simply use their personal accounts for all AI experiments, subjecting church data to a higher risk of data leaks and long-term accessibility issues.

The Policy should outline the appropriate use of AI and what can and cannot be done with it. It should clearly include the governing body, the decision-makers, and accountability. And about where AI should not be used, the policy should have clear non-negotiables, such as: "No sermon should be produced by AI".

The policy will also help Pastors and Church Workers to respond to members who may have varying levels of AI comprehension and acceptability. The readiness of the members to accept the adoption of AI in the church needs to be addressed proactively by creating opportunities for discussion on the use of AI.

In summary, an AI policy helps the church positively engage its members, better protect its data, prevent potential liability, ensure sustainability, spell out the "No, No" to AI adoption, and encourage responsible use of technology. So, let's start thinking about our AI policy.