Meeting Technology with a Heart for Others
A conversation with the Bearded Theologians Podcast
There’s a line I keep coming back to lately:
A new tool shows up… and the Church immediately tries to decide whether it’s the Antichrist or the answer to all our problems.
So I hopped on The Bearded Theologians Podcast with Revs. Matt Franks and Zach Bechtold to talk about my book, God and the Machine: Navigating Faith in the Age of AI—and also to talk about what’s happening underneath the AI conversation.
I wrote God and the Machine because I kept living in the middle of two worlds.
On one side: the people I pastor—especially nerds, geeks, gamers, digital natives—there are those who feel the anxiety in their bones. They’re watching artists get scraped. They’re watching the environment get strained. They’re watching the internet get flooded with content that feels… hollow.
On the other side: church and ministry spaces where people are hyped, ready to automate everything, and posting AI trend images like it’s a spiritual gift.
We talk a bit about AI, but a good chunk of this conversation revolved around digital ministry, my true bread and butter.
I share one of my favorite stories about how I knew that Checkpoint has created something special. In Discord, someone posts a prayer request… and someone else responds before I even wake up. Not because I’m failing as a pastor—because the community is becoming the community.
That’s a kind of discipleship you don’t always get in a room where everything depends on the pastor being the hub. In digital space, care can become a shared reflex. People carry each other.
In the episode, I talk about the paradox:
We want people to open Discord instead of doomscrolling.
But we don’t want to become a “better” doomscroll.
We want freedom, not addiction with a Christian skin.
And the wild thing is… we’ve seen people choose that freedom. Some folks step away from the feeds entirely and keep community through healthier channels.
A surprisingly practical moment: boundaries and burnout
The Bearded Theologians also asked a question that matters for every pastor, digital or not: How do you ever stop working when the ministry is on your phone?
And I answer it with the least mystical truth possible: Notifications are optional.
So is the expectation that you’re always available.
I talk about what it looks like to build office hours culture in a digital community, how to create “emergency lanes” without making everything an emergency, and how tools can help us set boundaries—not just break them.
There’s also a detail in there that I love because it’s so simple: using phone settings that reduce the “pull” of the screen at night. Not because technology is evil, but because pastors are human.
Listen + next step
If you want a faith-forward, practical conversation about AI, digital community, and what it means to stay human while the tools evolve—go listen to my episode on The Bearded Theologians Podcast.
And if you’re in a church that needs a way to talk about this together, God and the Machine was written to be read in community. It includes a built-in study flow, leader support, and a path toward creating healthy boundaries that fit your people.
Get the book: Cokesbury | Amazon
Make it a Bible Study: Cokesbury | Amazon