For more than 25 years I have devoted much of my ministry to helping pastors build healthy multiethnic churches because I am convinced they are far more than a ministry strategy or demographic trend.
Indeed, they are a biblical mandate: envisioned by Christ (John 17:20–23), described by Luke (Acts 11:19–26; 13:1), and prescribed by the Apostle Paul throughout his life and writings (see Romans and Ephesians). Long before diversity became a cultural conversation, Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” So, if the Kingdom of God is not segregated, why on earth is the local church?
From Babel to Pentecost to the vision of every nation, tribe, people, and tongue united as one before the throne (Revelation 5:9; 7:9), scripture consistently moves toward reconciliation without erasing distinction. The first-century multiethnic church was itself revolutionary. In a world divided by ethnicity, class, nationality, gender, and social status, the gospel created a new kind of community unlike anything the world had ever seen.
We are called to embody that same revolutionary witness today by building healthy multiethnic churches that offer the world a credible and compelling testimony to God’s reconciling love for all people.
Today, too, another revolution is quietly reshaping humanity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming how people learn, communicate, work, create, and increasingly how they understand the world around them.
At first glance, AI and the healthy multiethnic church may seem like unrelated subjects, but they are not. Just as the first-century church faithfully engaged the defining cultural realities of its day with the truth of the gospel, so too must we engage the defining realities of ours.
These are not separate conversations. They are part of the same mission: forming disciples and bearing credible witness to Jesus Christ in a rapidly changing world.
As you might imagine, AI is becoming more intelligent by the day. Yet humanity’s greatest asset has never been intelligence alone. Rather, its greatest asset has always been wisdom. Unlike AI, wisdom is formed through humility, relationships, moral courage, discernment, and submission to God. While intelligence can increasingly be automated, wisdom cannot.
That is precisely why I believe the conversation surrounding AI belongs within the healthy multiethnic church movement. Since the turn of the century, the healthy multiethnic church movement has helped the American church navigate the nuances and intersectional complexities of unity and diversity. Now it should also help the church navigate one of the defining cultural disruptions of our lifetime.
Ironically, as intelligent machines become increasingly common, our shared humanity may become more valuable than ever. In a world increasingly populated by robots and perhaps one day by technologically enhanced human beings, what will ultimately bind us together is not our technological capability but our common humanity as people created in the image of God.
Healthy multiethnic churches uniquely demonstrate that reality by bringing together demographic groups who would otherwise remain divided. In doing so, they testify that our deepest identity is found not in color, class, culture, nationality, or politics, but in Christ.
Few people are better equipped to help the church think through these issues than my good friend and colleague, the Rev. Dr. Christopher J. Benek. Considered by many as the world’s foremost clergy expert on AI, for more than two decades he has served thoughtfully at the intersection of theology and technology, helping pastors, churches, institutions, business leaders, and policymakers engage AI with theological depth, intellectual rigor, and pastoral wisdom.
That is why I wanted Christopher to contribute to this conversation.
While my own work has focused on helping churches embody the reconciling power of the gospel across human differences, Christopher has spent years helping the church think faithfully about one of the defining technologies of our age. His article is not merely about technology. It is about discipleship, human dignity, and ensuring that the church continues to shape culture rather than simply being shaped by it.
As you read what follows, I encourage you to consider AI not simply as a new tool to adopt or resist, but as a cultural force that is already shaping the people we are called to disciple, as it will continue to do.
Christopher helps us ask the right questions. My hope is that his insights will encourage us to steward this moment faithfully, remembering that while technology will continue to advance, God’s mission remains unchanged: forming one new humanity in Christ for the sake of the gospel.
If healthy multiethnic churches are called to model God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, and they are, then we cannot stand on the sidelines while AI reshapes the very people we are called to welcome, equip, and empower. We must engage this moment as a diverse people, united as one in Christ and the church, with wisdom, humility, and confidence in the gospel. Having demonstrated that the gospel reconciles people across every human divide, the next frontier of the multiethnic church movement is to help ensure that the technologies shaping humanity reflect the dignity, justice, and flourishing of every person created in the image of God.
AI Is Forming the Church… But Whose Voice Is Shaping It?
By Rev. Dr. Christopher J. Benek
On Monday morning, before your first cup of coffee, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already shaping your congregation.
- A teenager wakes up to an algorithm-curated feed that subtly trains what they notice, what they desire, and what they fear.
- A church leader drafts a difficult email with the quiet assistance of an AI tool, smoothing language but perhaps softening something more human.
- A job seeker in your pew has already been filtered out by a hiring system before a person ever saw their name.
- And someone, somewhere in your congregation, has asked a machine a question they were too afraid to ask you.
By Sunday morning, they arrive already spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually shaped by systems that are powerful, invisible, and far from neutral.
The question is no longer whether AI is shaping the church. It already is. The deeper question is this: whose voices are shaping AI? And as importantly, whose voices are missing from its own formation?
One of the most important truths we must come to terms with is that AI is not neutral. It is trained on human data: our language, our images, our histories, our habits. Because of that, it reflects the world from which it learns.
As I wrote in Church Leader’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence, these systems inevitably mirror the values, assumptions, and biases embedded in their training data.
That means:
- When certain voices dominate the data, they dominate the outcomes.
- When certain communities are underrepresented, they are misunderstood or overlooked.
- When entire perspectives are absent, they are effectively erased.
Much of today’s AI ecosystem is shaped disproportionately by western, English-speaking, and economically privileged contexts. That reality is not simply a technical concern. It is a theological one, because the gospel has never belonged to a single culture.
From the beginning, the church has been a multiethnic, multilingual, globally embodied people. At Pentecost, the Good News was not proclaimed in one dominant voice, but in many languages at once. That moment was not just miraculous; it was instructive. It revealed something essential about how God works in the world: through a diversity of voices held together in unity. The Spirit did not flatten difference: He elevated and honored it.
The systems now shaping human thought, communication, and decision-making, however, are often being built without that same diversity. This has created a quiet but dangerous gap.
To the degree AI lacks diverse voices, it is not simply incomplete; it becomes unjust, and we are already seeing such consequences:
- Hiring algorithms that disadvantage certain communities.
- Language systems that flatten cultural nuance.
- Facial recognition tools that struggle to accurately identify darker skin tones.
- Content moderation systems that misinterpret context across cultures.
Such things are not hypothetical risks; they are present realities. And they reveal something deeper. Technology does not just reflect society. It can reinforce and scale its inequities.
If the church in general, and more specifically, the multiethnic church does not engage this moment, we risk allowing systems to shape the world in ways that contradict the very justice, dignity, and reconciliation we proclaim.
In many ways, AI functions like a mirror. But mirrors only reflect what is placed before them. If the data is narrow, the reflection is distorted. If the voices are limited, the outcomes will be too.
So, the question is not only what AI is showing us, but who is seen and who is missing from the reflection. For a multiethnic church, that question cuts to the heart of our witness.
We are living in a time when intelligence is scaling rapidly. AI can generate language across contexts, translate across cultures, and predict behavior at extraordinary levels. But scaling intelligence is not the same as cultivating wisdom. And wisdom, as Scripture reminds us, is never abstract or detached. It is relational, contextual, and deeply attentive to human dignity.
Wisdom requires listening. It requires humility. It requires the presence of voices that see the world differently. Without that, AI may become more powerful but not more just; more efficient but not more faithful; more capable but not more humane.
This is why the presence of multiethnic voices in the AI conversation is not optional. It is essential.
Christian theology affirms that every human being bears the image of God. No single culture fully reflects the fullness of that image. The Body of Christ is made up of many parts, not one. Which means that when systems are built without diverse perspectives, they are built without a full reflection of the Imago Dei.
This should concern us deeply because the work of redemption has always been about restoring right relationship across difference, division, and systems that fail to honor human dignity. In that sense, AI is not just a technological frontier. It is a new space where that redemptive work must take place.
Healthy multiethnic churches and their leaders are uniquely positioned to step into this moment, not because we are the most technologically advanced institution or people, but because we are the most theologically grounded. Healthy multiethnic churches cultivate cultural intelligence by regularly engaging the diversity of their communities. Leaders have learned to not just preach a message of reconciliation but bring it about. With wisdom from above, they compel others to recognize that human worth is not defined by productivity, efficiency, or optimization, but by being created by God, loving Him, and loving one another as He first loved us.
Healthy multiethnic churches carry within them the lived experience of diverse people living as one on mission, navigating cultural complexity, and holding unity without erasing difference. That is precisely the kind of wisdom needed in shaping AI.
This does not require every pastor to become an engineer. But it does require us to become more aware and attentive. That means creating space for diverse voices in our congregations to speak into how these technologies are understood and used. It means helping people see how AI affects different communities differently. It means building partnerships beyond our own cultural and institutional contexts. Perhaps most importantly, it means forming people who can engage technology with discernment… asking not just what is possible, but what is faithful.
This is not simply about adopting new tools. It is about formation. If the church is not intentional, it will find itself responding to people who have already been shaped by systems it did not help influence.The invitation before us is not to resist technology outright or to embrace it uncritically, but to:
- Engage it faithfully.
- Ensure that the voices shaping these systems reflect the diversity of the Body of Christ.
- Insist that human dignity is not lost in the pursuit of efficiency.
- Remember that wisdom cannot be automated.
- Bear witness that humanity’s future is not ultimately determined by what we build, but by who we become as the people of God.
In the end, our goal is not merely better technology, but a more faithful humanity. For in an age of intelligent machines, the church’s calling remains what it has always been: to ensure that what is being formed in people, culture, and even in code, reflects the justice, diversity, dignity, and love of God for every people, every culture, and every generation.
