How AI Can Impact The Future Of Discipleship
As we stand at the intersection of Christianity and technology, it’s crucial to reflect on the traditional approaches to discipleship and how they can be evolved to meet the needs of our rapidly changing world.
I am privileged to be a part of a team integrating cutting-edge technology with Christianity.
Our mission is to harness artificial intelligence's potential to foster a more personalized and accessible form of spiritual growth, which we call Adaptive Discipleship. Over the past two years, we’ve put a lot of thought and effort into the idea of Adaptive Discipleship and why it matters in a Christian context.
Adaptive Discipleship: Personalized Spiritual Growth
In the 17th century, Richard Baxter, a distinguished pastor and theologian best known for his work in "The Reformed Pastor," pioneered a method of pastoral care that was deeply personal and transformative.
Baxter made it his mission to visit every parishioner's home, sharing meals and engaging in personal conversations about their spiritual journeys.
Through these intimate interactions, he created individualized plans for spiritual growth, making the pastoral care he offered deeply personal and responsive to each person's needs.
While this method was incredibly effective, it was also labor-intensive. As churches grew larger and populations expanded, this intimate model of discipleship became more and more difficult to manage.
What about discipleship today?
Modern pastors face congregations that number in the hundreds (and thousands, in some cases). Replicating Baxter's method of individualized mentorship is logistically impossible. In its place, most churches today heavily lean on more generalized tools for providing their members with spiritual guidance:
- Sermons
- Book studies
- Small group curriculums
- Men’s/Women’s Retreats
- Etc…
While beneficial, these tools cannot replace the personal touch that can often make the deepest impact on an individual’s faith journey.
Can technology help pastors manage the load?
Today, we are witnessing a pivotal moment in the history of Bible engagement.
- In 1440, the invention of the Gutenberg printing press ushered in a new era of enlightenment by making scripture accessible to the masses. Scripture was suddenly far more accessible than ever before.
- Then, in 2008, Life.Church launched YouVersion. It was launched alongside the App Store for the iPhone. Virtually anyone with a smartphone could access the Bible anytime and everywhere.
- In 2023, my team and I launched Bible.Ai - the first Christian Ai of its kind. It allows you to go on, ask any sort of question. Bible.Ai then formulates an answer based on the Bible and other top theological resources and from there it adapts a path of content to continue your learning about that topic.
- What is the next leap?
Today, Bible.Ai is setting the stage for the next generational leap of the Bible: through an idea we’re calling “Adaptive Discipleship”.
What Is Adaptive Discipleship?
Adaptive Discipleship utilizes AI to craft personalized spiritual pathways (similar to Richard Baxter’s efforts). Adaptive Discipleship tailors Biblical teaching to meet a users specific needs.
Envision logging into Bible.Ai, and setting up your profile. The AI-powered tech considers an array of personal factors:
- Cultural background
- Societal context
- Language
- Learning style
- Spiritual maturity
- Life experiences
- Educational level
…and creates a customized discipleship pathway for each believer.
Adaptive Discipleship modernizes Richard Baxter’s personalized method to accommodate the larger and more diverse church communities of today. It addresses the nuances of each individual’s experience, delivering spiritual content that resonates across diverse contexts and through multiple modalities.
Adaptive Discipleship fosters a global community united by faith and enriches it through diversity.
While this concept would be revolutionary for Christians in Western societies, its potential is magnified when applied to regions like the Middle East, Africa or Asia. All around the world, Adaptive Discipleship has the power to truly transform nations and leave a lasting impact on generations for Christ.
Adaptive Discipleship marks a significant shift in spiritual learning and growth.
It leverages Ai to address the challenges of scalability and customization that have constrained traditional spiritual resources and discipleship.
In the same way that modern medical treatments have evolved towards personalized medicine, where treatments are tailored to individual genetic and molecular profiles, adaptive discipleship aims to tailor spiritual education and growth strategies to fit individual needs, goals, circumstances, and levels of spiritual maturity, creating an “individual spiritual profile”.
As we enter a new era defined by advancements in artificial intelligence, Adaptive Discipleship offers a scalable and effective solution to the longstanding challenges of providing personalized and globally accessible discipleship.
It aims to provide true justice by addressing inequality, ensuring that every individual has equal access to tailored, meaningful spiritual guidance. While it's often easy to focus on the potential negative impacts of AI on society, it's crucial to consider how we can harness this technology for positive change.
Instead of shunning new technological advancements, we should aim to redeem them for God’s glory.
AI presents a unique opportunity to deepen relationships with Christ and empower pastors and church leaders to cultivate healthier, more vibrant communities of faith. We believe Adaptive Discipleship demonstrates the power technology can have when guided by faith and intentionality.
The Need For Adaptive Discipleship
Adaptive Discipleship involves offering every individual a personalized discipleship journey that is both custom to them and deeply engaging.
The concept of Adaptive Discipleship goes beyond merely incorporating technology for innovation's sake.
Rather, it’s about returning to the roots of discipleship that Baxter exemplified—deep, personalized teaching in individuals spiritual lives—but at a culturally relevant and global scale. By leveraging AI, we have an opportunity to create a dynamic model of discipleship that adapts to the unique spiritual journey of each believer.
The Future Of Discipleship
We’re building Bible.Ai out into a full experience expanding from just our Biblical answering system to a full offering of Adaptive Discipleship across multiple channels of spiritual guidance.
We believe today’s Christians require a true re-imagining of Biblical engagement from the ground up with the principles of Ai Adaptive Discipleship.
As we stand on the brink of this new era, we must learn from the past and embrace the future to effect change in this generation. Adaptive Discipleship represents a promising future that reimagines personal discipleship for the modern age, transforming what was once a logistically impossible ideal into a scalable, personalized approach to spiritual growth.
By embracing this new paradigm, the church can once again deepen its connection with each believer, fostering a more profound and personalized spiritual journey that meets both the challenges and opportunities of the Ai age.
