The Classroom and the Algorithmic Frontier
Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic today. It seems like every product, software, or gadget advertises how it is enhanced by AI. Even a brief scroll on your social media newsfeed will produce the latest AI application designed to enhance your productivity, give you time back, and automate the boring bits of your life so you’re free to sip iced tea on the back porch while writing poetry.
Since writing my latest book, AI Goes to Church: Pastoral Wisdom for Artificial Intelligence (IVP 2025), I’ve spoken with countless Christians, including church leaders, who are less optimistic about the impact of AI on both the present and the long-term future. With imaginations undoubtedly informed by dystopian movies like I, Robot (2004), Ex Machina (2014), and The Creator (2023), some are worried that eventually the robots are going to take over everything – or at least take all of our jobs.
That’s an understandable concern. AI is now reshaping industries at every level. Often, the greatest disruptions are happening at the entry level, making AI potentially extra disruptive for college students preparing to enter the workforce. The very positions that once served as on-ramps to careers are being disrupted by AI. LinkedIn chief economic officer Aneesh Raman recently said that AI is destroying the “bottom rungs of the career ladder.” In 2024, hiring of new graduates dropped fifty percent.
So is all hope lost? Are the robots really coming to take everything?
Not quite.
While it’s a certainty that AI is going to disrupt large sectors of the workforce, the issue – especially for students preparing for some form of ministry – is not that AI is going to take all of the jobs, but rather those who know how to use AI well will be at the top of hiring lists.
How Students Can Thrive in Their AI Tomorrow
In a recent piece by Forbes, Heather Doshay, of SignalFire, notes ways that college students can aid in their career success as AI use becomes more normative in the workforce. Among the best practices Doshay highlights are learning to master AI tools, engaging in work that demonstrates value in a shifting job market, and focusing on developing the “skill of discernment” over just technical skills. The last of which the piece calls the “new ultimate (and human) competitive advantage.”
In other words, it’s not enough to learn how to use generative AI models like ChatGPT and Midjourney. For graduates to thrive in the workplace, they must understand a layer beneath that of deep knowledge and application of wisdom to their use of AI. In AI Goes to Church I write at length about the need for us to recapture this role of discernment and wisdom in how we, as the People of God, thrive in the age of AI. In a world flooded with knowledge, we’re still in dire need of wisdom.
It’s therefore crucially important that as students preparing for ministry are trained, they learn to cultivate that wisdom – not just in a theoretical sense, but with a savvy and innovative application of wisdom to the current issues of the day, including AI.
Ascent College and Preparing AI Savvy Students
As the Dean of Digital Ministry programs at Ascent College, I’ve had the privilege of developing a one-of-a-kind undergraduate program for students preparing for ministry to effectively reach people with the gospel and develop thriving communities in online environments and with digital tools like AI. We even offer a course specifically on Artificial Intelligence!
In our digital ministry track, AI use is not simply permitted, but actually required because we want to walk alongside students to learn how to engage with it effectively, so that we can better prepare them to thrive in their vocations after college. Our assignments are designed to equip students to produce work that gives them real-world ministry training and can even be applied in their local church as they are in the program (more than a few of our students have helped build out their local church’s digital ministry while in the program).
What’s more, we apply a principle that is foundational to Ascent College as a whole – that our faculty are “guides on the side” instead of “sages on a stage.” Meaning, part of our teaching philosophy is to come alongside students as they’re maturing to help them not only master the knowledge in the course, but to grow as the people God has called them to be. We care about our students holistically, rather than just their academic performance.
The Real Disruption: Who Will We Become?
Most headlines about AI in education focus on jobs, cheating/plagiarism, or efficiency. But as I argue in AI Goes to Church, the more pressing question is not what AI can do, but what kind of people we are becoming because of it.
AI is not just a tool; it’s a formative power. It shapes how we learn, what we value, and even how we imagine God’s work in the world. In my book chapter on AI and education, I suggest that the real danger isn’t that AI will replace teachers or pastors, but that it will tempt us to settle for a vision of formation that is efficient, individualized, and transactional – rather than communal, embodied, and Spirit-led.
In Christian education, this matters deeply. Our calling is not to produce “users” or “content creators,” but to form disciples who can discern the Spirit’s voice in a world of algorithms. That’s our priority at Ascent College.
Theological Anchors: Why Christian Education Is Different
Drawing from both my research and lived experience, I believe Christian higher education must anchor its approach to AI in a robust theology of the image of God (“imago Dei”). We are not valuable because we are productive, efficient, or even intelligent. We are valuable because God calls us beloved.
This conviction shapes how we engage technology. Christian education is not about “keeping up” with the world, but about forming leaders who can resist the reduction of the person to a profile, the student to a data point, or the pastor to a content manager. We need leaders who see technology as a tool, not a telos; who can discern when to embrace innovation and when to say “enough.”
How Ascent College Is Leading
At Ascent, we don’t bolt AI onto old curricula. We start with formation – then ask how technology can serve, not sabotage, that calling. Here are some ways Ascent College is leading the way in preparing students for ministry in the age of AI:
1. Faculty as Spiritual Guides
Our professors are not just tech instructors. They are spiritual guides who model discernment, confession, and community. They help students wrestle with the ethical and theological implications of AI – when to use it, when to question it, and when to lay it aside for prayer and presence.
2. AI Ethics and Ministry Implications
Our AI-specific course challenges students to ask: What does it mean to be human in an age of machines? What is the role of wisdom, virtue, and spiritual disciplines when so much can be automated? Students engage in real-world case studies, policy debates, and ministry dilemmas – not just to learn what AI can do, but to discern what Christians should do.
3. Cross-Disciplinary Integration
AI is not siloed. Our digital ministry programs explore its impact on hermeneutics, preaching, and discipleship. Ministry courses tackle digital evangelism, online community, and the spiritual formation of “digital natives.”
4. Portfolio-Based Outcomes
Graduates don’t just leave with a transcript. They leave with assignments that can be used in real-world ministry. They are ready to lead with conviction, not just competence.
What’s at Stake: The Future of Christian Leadership
The greatest danger of AI is not that it will make us less relevant, but that it will tempt us to become less human. If we let the logic of efficiency, personalization, and optimization define our vision of education, we will lose the very things that make Christian leadership possible: presence, patience, community, and the slow work of the Spirit.
The Church of tomorrow needs leaders who can:
– Disciple congregations in wise, ethical use of technology.
– Navigate the spiritual and moral dilemmas of AI with theological depth.
– Advocate for justice when algorithms silence the marginalized.
– Model Sabbath, humility, and hope in a culture addicted to hustle and novelty.
Invitation: Join the Digital Ministry Movement
If you’re ready to prepare for this future, I invite you to explore the Ascent College Digital Ministry Certificate and Degree programs. We are forming leaders who will not only survive in an AI-shaped world, but lead in it – with wisdom, courage, and Spirit-filled hope.
Learn more here.
Not by Algorithm, But by Spirit
We must look beyond AI’s practical dilemmas to ask deeper, Spirit-led questions. The Church’s role is not merely to critique culture from the outside, but to help navigate it faithfully from within. We are called to protect human dignity, cultivate wisdom, and model meaningful work over relentless toil.
The real question isn’t whether we’ll adapt to AI – it’s what kind of AI future we will help shape. Will it form us in the image of the market, or will we be formed to serve the image of God in us? Let’s contend for the latter – for a future marked by human flourishing, rooted in Christ and empowered by the Spirit.
Discover how Ascent College’s digital ministry training prepares Christian leaders for the age of AI in ministry. Ready to take the next step? Explore the Digital Ministry Certificate and order AI Goes to Church to lead with wisdom and courage.
Explore a free chapter of AI Goes to Church here.