It is worth restating that participation in the mission of God is not something that can be outsourced to artificial intelligence any more than it should be outsourced to the professional clergy class of the church. Instead, it is inherently the call and privilege of each Christian to join God in his work of reconciling creation unto himself through Jesus the risen Messiah.
Digital Mission Is Still God’s Mission
But AI provides a limitless set of opportunities to catalyze our participation in that missional work. It is unthinkable to me, if we truly believe that the gospel still matters and that people need the opportunity to find a relationship with Jesus, that we would not use every means at our disposal to make that happen.
Why Digital Environments Matter for Mission
Much of the potential of AI for the work of mission depends in large part on the church’s overall capacity to take mission seriously and to envision digital environments as legitimate spaces for evangelistic work, opportunities to cultivate community where discipleship can take place, and a frontier that is not beyond the reach of the Holy Spirit, the One who bids people to Christ.
Seeing the Digital World Under Christ’s Reign
Indeed, we need to consider digital environments—where many people now spend most of their time—as environments under the reign of the risen King. They are places in need for the people of God to engage beyond the status quo of simply advertising for events and gatherings in physical spaces.
Training Missionaries for Digital Spaces
We need to consider missional innovation such as training missionaries for digital environments. There is a growing need for missions agencies and denominations to develop frameworks and processes to train and send missionaries into digital environments to reach people who would otherwise be unreached by traditional forms of missionary engagement.
Reaching Restricted and Online Communities
Digital technology affords us the luxury of transcending geography and, to a lesser extent, time. This alone creates enormous opportunity to reach people in restricted access countries. But similar approaches could be cultivated to reach online gamers, people who frequent virtual worlds, and more. But digital missionaries require sophisticated missiological training so they understand how to steward relationships, discern authenticity, and cultivate appropriate environments for community in digital environments.
Local Churches and Digital Mission Strategy
While it is necessary for us to consider how this might be done by larger missions-sending organizations like denominations, this can also be done within the local church itself.
A Case Study in Digital Evangelism
A friend of mine who pastors a network of churches in Armenia does just this. They have developed a simple but effective strategy to provoke curiosity about Christianity by being engaged on TikTok. Their call to action in their posts is a to attend one in a series of youth-oriented gatherings—hosted in person throughout their city—where a more explicit gospel presentation is given. They’ve found this form of digital missionary work to be extremely effective, not only at driving attendance to their events, but also bringing young Armenians to the faith. It also has a minimal cost and requires only intentional strategy and consistency.
Empowering the Priesthood for Digital Mission
We need to develop strategies that equip and empower the priesthood of all believers to understand how to live missional digital lives and be hospitable digital citizens, revamping our approach to discipleship to include digital engagement. We need to innovate new ways to reach people using new technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality. We need to create platforms and tools where people can grow in their faith and in community with one another in online environments.
AI as a Tool, Not a Substitute
This can be done in part by leveraging the capacity of AI to facilitate the mechanics of learning and community while we, as God’s missionary people, do what we we’ve been called to do—live sent lives as ambassadors of reconciliation to the King of kings.
*Adapted from AI Goes to Church by Todd Korpi. ©2025 by Todd Korpi. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.
