WCC News: From prompts to prayers: Christian communicators explore AI and authentic spirituality at ECIC in Rome

Church communicators from across Europe gathered in Rome from 10-12 June for the 30th edition of the European Christian Internet Conference (ECIC), exploring the theme “From prompts to prayers: AI and authentic spirituality.” The conference examined how churches can engage with artificial intelligence while safeguarding human dignity and fostering authentic community. Participants of the 30th annual gathering of the European Christian Internet Conference (ECIC) in Rome visited Vatical Media headquarters and were introduced to the Pope Leo XIV’s recently published encyclical letter Magnifica Humanitas, addressing the protection of humanity in the era of artificial intelligence. Photo: Kerstin Dominika Urban/ECIC 17 June 2026 For more than three decades, ECIC has brought together a diverse network of online pastors, digital creators, web specialists, and communication professionals representing a broad spectrum of churches and Christian organisations across Europe. The annual gathering offers a unique space to exchange experiences, explore emerging technologies, and reflect together on how churches can engage faithfully and responsibly in an evolving digital world. Against a backdrop of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence, participants of the gathering in Rome reflected on fundamental questions of truth, authenticity, human dignity, and spiritual life. As AI increasingly influences how people access information, build relationships, and engage with faith practices, the conference examined both the opportunities it offers and the ethical challenges it poses for churches and Christian communities. The theological and practical dimensions of these questions were explored through a series of keynote presentations. In the opening keynote, Ilenya Goss reflected on “Between Algorithms and Identity: AI at the Frontiers of Spirituality,” examining how emerging technologies are reshaping human identity and spiritual experience. Fabio Pasqualetti continued the conversation with a theological challenge in his keynote, “No Artificial Intelligence will die on the cross for us,” highlighting the irreplaceable nature of human embodiment, relationships and incarnation in Christian faith. An example of engaging the wider society in discussion was presented by Jussi Koski in “Case Heräys – The new role of church in top level technological discussion,” demonstrating how churches can contribute actively to society-wide conversations about technological development, being at one table of discussion with scientists, state institutions and big tech companies. For its 30th annual meeting in Rome from 10-12 June 2026, ECIC  brought together a diverse network of online pastors, digital creators, web specialists, and communication professionals representing a broad spectrum of churches and Christian organisations across Europe. Photo: Markus Kartano/ECIC A longstanding hallmark of ECIC is its emphasis on peer learning and mutual exchange. During the “Tell your story” sessions, participants shared examples from their own communication work, discussed successful initiatives and challenges, and learned from one another’s experiences across different church contexts. The conference also included a special visit to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication and Vatican Media headquarters, where participants were introduced to the global communications work of the Holy See. The visit offered an unique opportunity for participants to engage with the themes of Pope Leo XIV’s recently published encyclical letter Magnifica humanitas, which addresses the protection of human dignity in the era of artificial intelligence and encourages a human-centred approach to technological development. The final day of the conference brought two keynote reflections that widened the perspective beyond church communication alone. Holger Sievert explored how artificial intelligence is transforming administrative, communicative, and spiritual practices in his presentation “Algorithm over Altar? How AI Might Be Rewriting Administrative, Communicative and Spiritual Practice.”  The conversation with Bruno Giussani, titled “What do we become when AI enters our lives?” concluded the conference programme, inviting participants to reflect on the profound human and societal implications of living alongside increasingly intelligent technologies. As AI evolves from a tool we use into an environment that increasingly shapes our lives and work, questions of ownership, power, embedded values, and human agency become ever more urgent. As ECIC marked its 30th edition in Rome, participants left with new insights, renewed connections, and a shared commitment to ensuring that the Christian voice contributes thoughtfully to the ongoing conversation about artificial intelligence. The conference reaffirmed that, even in an age of algorithms and automation, authentic spirituality remains rooted in human encounter, community, and the church’s enduring mission to communicate the Gospel across centuries and generations. As European Christian Internet Conference opens, communicators draw strength from community (WCC interview, 10 June 2026) European Christian Internet Conference marks 30th edition in Rome with focus on AI (WCC news release, 09 June 2026) Learn more about the ECIC conference in Rome, "From prompts to prayers: AI and authentic spirituality" As part of the ECIC annual meeting in Rome, Mons. Lucio Adrián Ruiz, Secretary of the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication, introduced Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas to the ECIC participants and offered a reflection on its relevance in a time shaped by artificial intelligence. Photo: Markus Kartano/ECIC See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa.  Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland

Mission Yearbook: Author discusses charting faithful future for AI

The “Faithful Futures: Guiding AI with Wisdom and Witness” gathering recently took place at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. Before the gathering, Dr. Bob Johansen, an author and futurist who spoke at the inaugural conference in 2024, offered a talk designed to help people of faith to use artificial intelligence to humanize and re-enchant leadership.

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Photo by Igor Omilaev via Unsplash

Along with Jeremy Kirshbaum and Gabe Cervantes, Johansen wrote “Leaders Make the Future: 10 New Skills to Humanize Leadership with Generative AI,” an updated book being distributed to those attending the conference in person. Together with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of Innovation, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church and The Episcopal Church sponsored last year’s gathering.

“I’m a humble futurist, but I’m also aware this is a troubling time, but it’s also hopeful,” Johansen said. “People of faith have a role to play in [the use of generative AI] but it will require us to reimagine what we’re all about.”

Johansen used to talk about a VUCA world, for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Now he and others foresee a BANI future, for brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible.

Johansen interspersed his talk with three rounds of questions from online viewers. The first round dealt with how do we frame the BANI future with faith? The second was on how you and the people can you serve cope with and be resilient in an increasingly BANI future. The third was how do you want to be augmented for the future?

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Dr. Bob Johansen (Contributed photo)

The term “VUCA” was framed at the Army War College where Johansen continues to teach. Author Jamais Cascio coined the BANI acronym to describe a world “that will be fraught with tenson,” Johansen said. “How can you have faith in a BANI future?”

He offered examples of brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible reactions. That last one includes voters across the political spectrum who “cannot comprehend why the other side behaves, believes and votes as they do.”

Flipping it over, Johansen explored the manifestations of faith that will be effective in the future of BANI. People of faith can combat brittleness with “a bendable faith, with resilient clarity stories, but nobody can have certainty,” Johansen said. An attentive faith, “with active empathy and kindness for people and communities,” is the antidote for anxiety. Johansen said a neuroflexible faith can overcome nonlinear thinking. He calls that “teaching our brains new tricks,” and said that most leadership teams he works with take improv courses “in a world where you can’t know a definitive way.” Finally, an interconnected faith is an answer in an incomprehensible world. He said his “signature line” is this: “The future will reward clarity, but punish certainty.”

“There’s no certainty in the BANI future. Faith is a lot like clarity, and certainty is a lot like extreme belief,” Johansen said, reminding viewers of Paul Tillich’s quote: “The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty.”

“Faith will be a competitive advantage in this BANI future,” he said, and it ought to be “kind and calm, inspiring trust and courage.”

During the first question-and-answer session, Johansen said the most important strategy for change in the BANI world is cross-generational work. “If you can’t work with kids, you’re going to be out of the game,” he said. “I’m not saying, ‘Just run a better Sunday school.’ I’m saying, ‘Share leadership.’ Create situations where young people, including teenagers, are involved in the leadership of the church and get involved in things more directly.” One advantage to that approach is that many young people grew up with gaming, “which is the learning medium of the future,” he said.

“I am really optimistic about young people if they have hope,” he said.

For the past two years, Johansen said he’s used generative AI on a daily basis. He calls his customized version of ChatGPT “Stretch” “because I want it to stretch my thinking.”

“I don’t use it for answers, for finals or for efficiency, and I don’t trust it,” he said.

But “we can’t just walk away from it,” Johansen said. “We have to learn from it and use it for better purposes.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Yun Kyoung Yang, Editorial Assistant, Korean, Growing Faith Resources, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Andrew Yeager-Buckley, Project Manager II, President’s Office, Administrative Services Group

Let us pray:

Lord, give us the willingness to love others to the point of sharing our faith intimately with them in deed and in words. Help us to appreciate the least of these in our midst. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: AI and the church are subjects of Office of Innovation gathering

An ecumenical group of several dozen Christians recently gathered in Minneapolis to engage in conversation about the present and future of Artificial Intelligence and the church. The event, called “Faithful Futures: Guiding AI with Wisdom and Witness,” also took place online.

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Photo by Igor Omilaev via Unsplash

Artificial Intelligence — or AI — is increasingly prevalent in society, particularly with the rise of Large Language Models (LMM) like ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI. While traditional AI focuses on analysis and prediction, generative AI produces new content, including text, images, video and audio. The rapidly expanding access to and use of generative AI by the general public has led to a number of questions about the ethical implications of such technology, including environmental impact and intellectual property rights. In addition to ethical questions, the introduction of generative AI also catalyzes theological questions about creativity, intelligence, love, truth, sin and what it means to be human.

The Office of Innovation within the Interim Unified Agency of the PC(USA) is committed to helping navigate the transformative landscape of Generative Artificial Intelligence by prioritizing Christian ethics and issues of justice, access, and equity in the use of AI tools alongside the faithful, innovative uses of AI technology.

This work included participation in the organization and implementation of the “AI and the Church Summit,” which took place in Seattle last August and convened leaders of the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the PC(USA). The summit took place both at Epiphany Parish and Microsoft’s campus and included a keynote from Father Paolo Benanti, an Italian Catholic priest who advised Pope Francis on ethical issues around technology and who helped write A Rome Call for AI Ethics. Benanti’s talk emphasized the church’s responsibility to question how technology like AI shapes society and demonstrate what ethical stewardship of such technology looks like.

Faithful Futures continued this exploration of “how the Church can help shape the future of artificial intelligence with theological depth, ethical clarity and practical innovation.” The event was organized by the Office of Innovation in collaboration with TryTank Research Institute, a project of Virginia Theological Seminary, the ELCA Innovation Lab, and the United Methodist Church’s Discipleship Ministries. In addition, Benanti participated along with several colleagues from the Catholic Church.

The event featured four speakers: Dr. Philip Butler, Dr. Jane McGonigal, Jovonia Taylor and Dr. Miguel De La Torre.

Butler is a scholar specializing in the intersection of neuroscience, technology, spirituality and Blackness. He serves as the director of the Iliff School of Theology’s AI Institute and is the founder of the Seekr Project, which explores the iterative connections between generative AI, mental health and critical Black consciousness.

McGonigal specializes in developing games that simulate and predict the future. She is the author of several books, most recently including “Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything, Even Things That Seem Impossible Today.”

Taylor is one of Amazon’s Business Technology executives and has more than 20 years of expertise in designing solutions across engineering, marketing, operations, information technology, merchandising, and supplier management.

De La Torre, who offered a charge to close the gathering, is Professor of Social Ethics and Latine Studies at the Iliff School of Theology and focuses on social ethics within contemporary U.S. thought, specifically how religion affects race, class and gender oppression.

In addition to the work of the Office of Innovation, the PC(USA) is responding to questions around the ethics of AI and how the church engages with such technology in other ways. In 2024, the 226th General Assembly directed the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy to develop of a new social witness policy and conduct a study on the responsible use of AI. The office of Research Services is also currently conducting a survey to “help gauge the perception of the wider church on Artificial Intelligence.”

Layton Williams Berkes, Communications Strategist, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Ashley Gibson, HR Assistant, Human Resources, Administrative Services Group
Sharon Dunne Gillies, Managing Editor, Presbyterian Women

Let us pray:

You who are the Word made flesh, we thank you for the many ways we have to spread your good news. May the presence of your churches reach many who are in need of ministry and the news of your living presence in our midst. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: AI’s pros and cons are subject of webinar

What is the difference between worship or a Vacation Bible School curriculum planned by AI and one written by your ministry team? What ethical and environmental concerns should play a role in when and how you use AI in your ministry? AI may be able to predict the next best word or phrase in a pastoral prayer, but can it really pray for a congregation? 

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Questions about what artificial intelligence can and can’t do permeate our current culture. and recently, Office of Christian Formation hosted a community circle called “AI-Powered Ministry,” led by the Rev. Dr. Andy Morgan, director of family faith formation at First Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. During this 90-minute webinar, a group of 30 Christian formation leaders considered how AI could power their ministries and when AI could or should not. After providing a helpful handout that included a taxonomy of AI terms, Morgan explained the current landscape of AI models and how he evaluates them through his faith and moral commitments as a disciple of Christ.

Since attending the first “AI and Church Summit” in Seattle last August, Morgan has offered his presentation in multiple church contexts. Since AI is already permeating lives and ministries, he encouraged webinar attendees to be informed and thoughtful about using it. He highly recommended that people virtually attend the second ecumenical “AI and the Church Summit,” set for September. Registration is available here.

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Morgan provided an AI taxonomy tree for webinar learners. (All Slides by Andy Morgan)

As an introduction, webinar participants identified where AI was operating in their lives and what they hoped it could do. Morgan suggested practical examples of using AI for ministry tasks, such as creating intergenerational games for VBS, liturgy and lesson plans. He explained which current programs could best be tailored to specific needs, like leveraging Google’s NotebookLM for precise information retrieval to better capture one’s own voice based on previous personal content.

“Processing a prompt on a large language model like ChatGPT is equivalent to wasting about a bottle of water due to the significant energy consumption and cooling requirements of its server farms,” said Morgan, highlighting the concept of digital citizenship and the need to balance AI's efficiency with the unique concerns of human relationships, especially in regard to environmental impact. As a personal practice, Morgan limits his ChatGPT use to 10 times per day.

Large language models like ChatGPT provide unique output to specific inputs. Because of that, under copyright law, those who send the prompts own the copyrights to its results. Because of this permissive gray area, and because AI is still generally misunderstood and anxiety-provoking, Morgan doesn’t cite ChatGPT when he uses it in worship materials, as he would another copyrighted source like “Feasting on the Word” published by Westminster John Knox Press. He admitted to using ChatGPT for liturgy, such as calls to confession based on the original prayers of confession that he writes. Morgan believes only those who love the people can pray for them, so he won’t let AI write his prayer. “ChatGPT does not love my people,” he said.

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Office of Christian Formation held a community circle webinar on AI for Christian formation leaders.

Morgan was candid that his theology and ethics around AI are personal, and he encouraged others to develop their own boundaries through the same discipleship and discernment their faith leads them to engage the world. There are times when the efficiency of AI and its access to information can benefit others, like when Morgan asks it to adapt his weekly lesson plan to the specific individualized education plan accommodations of a certain young person in his Christian formation program.

Because large language models were “initially trained on uncurated data scraped from the internet from sources like Reddit comments, Quora forums, Facebook comments, and other open internet blogs and social media platforms,” Morgan emphasized how AI is not value-neutral and needs a discerning mind to know when and how to use it. When these AI models began, according to Morgan, “the goal was to gather the largest possible dataset to help the AI learn statistical patterns of language and predict the most probable next word in a sentence.” This training approach means the models inherently carry biases “present in online comments, including racial, gender and Western biases,” he said.

Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Cuong Tran, Mail/Print Clerk, Mail/Print Center, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Tonia Trice, HR Generalist III, Human Resources, Administrative Services Group (A Corp) 

Let us pray:

Dear God, as our friends and partners embark on new tasks, give them the strength and courage. May your hand guide them and lead them, and may your arms be wrapped around them each step of the way. Amen.