Original Research

Acclimatising church leadership to the thrills and spills of artificial intelligence in Zimbabwe

Kimion Tagwirei

Received: 14 May 2025; Accepted: 25 June 2025; Published: 29 July 2025

Copyright: © 2025. The Author(s). Licensee: AOSIS.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) demonstrates extraordinary operational speed and has, paradoxically, brought both exciting opportunities and catastrophic challenges that could affect humanity on a global scale. While the Church is not of the world, she is in the world and also affected, like everyone else, by technological advancements. Consequently, it is progressive to acclimatise Church leadership with AI. Contemporary African ecclesiology will be retrograde if we neglect AI. Despite the integral position of leadership in determining the adoption of AI in the Church, little research has been done in Zimbabwe about ecclesiastic leadership and AI. This study employed a qualitative case study, engaged with the skills theory of leadership and conducted in-depth interviews with 15 randomly sampled leaders of different evangelical and Pentecostal members of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe. It uncovered that the majority of ecclesial leaders have limited understanding and adoption of AI. Using a descriptive and interpretive approach, this study reviewed the benefits, (mis)use and concerns regarding the management of AI in the Zimbabwean context of Church leadership and made recommendations for how AI should be managed. While we appreciate both the thrills and dangers related to AI, we conclude that Church leaders can, if they hone their application skills, optimise their work by using AI, or they can ruin themselves and their churches if they misunderstand and misuse it.

Contribution: This article enlightens and empowers Church leaders to engage with AI from an informed position for inclusive development.

Keywords: acclimatising; church; leadership; artificial intelligence; thrills; risks; adoption; management.

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) has demonstrated remarkable operational speed and, paradoxically, exciting opportunities and catastrophic challenges that could affect humanity globally. Tang et al. (2020) assert that it is irrefutable that innovations in AI are occurring at a rate faster than ever before. Hidayat et al. (2025) claim that AI can increase efficiency and productivity, as well as provide more accurate predictive analysis. However, the application of AI is also faced with challenges such as the need for sophisticated technological infrastructure and ethical risk management. While the Church is not of the world (Jn 17:11, 14–15), it is in the world and, therefore, also affected by technological advancements – like everything else in the world is. It is, therefore, timely to acclimatise Church leadership in Zimbabwe with AI. Studies on the Church and AI in Zimbabwe are mostly focused on hermeneutics, homiletics and AI. This study interfaces Church leadership with AI. It starts with brief overviews of the skills theory of leadership and AI and then explores the adoption and factors that affect the use of AI in the Church in Zimbabwe. It concludes by suggesting strategies for managing the thrills and dangers that AI in Church leadership involves.

Understanding the skills theory of leadership

This study employed Katz’s (1955) skills leadership theory, which stresses the significance of three developable technical, human and conceptual skills, which, Katz argues, leaders should develop continuously. Peterson and Van Fleet (2004:1298) define a skill as ‘the ability either to perform some specific behavioural task or the ability to perform some specific cognitive process that is functionally related to some particular task’. As an example of technical skills, they cite operating a computer and also refer to human and conceptual skillsets. Because this study is focused on AI, relevant examples of requisite skills – besides operating a computer – may include the ability to use ChatGPT, Canva, Chatbots and Grok, related tools and other AI technologies that could optimise research, administration and other leadership and ministerial engagements. Purohit (2023) explains that the skills leadership theory defines effective leadership according to a set of skills, instead of personality traits:

It discusses leadership from the leader-centred perspective. It stresses on the abilities and skills that can be inculcated and developed rather than the innate personality traits that are generally fixed. (p. 23)

While personality traits are an integral part of leadership, developing technical skills enhances leadership effectiveness, especially in today’s age of AI. Unless they upgrade their technical skills, Church leadership could fail to identify and utilise the convenience of AI, which could enhance Church governance, operations and missionary work. Furthermore, if they ignore AI, Church leaders may fail to manage the threats posed by AI to pastoral ministry, ecclesial administration and congregational and community engagements.

Understanding artificial intelligence

Church leaders in Zimbabwe have different understandings of AI. Interviews with 15 randomly sampled leaders – founders, pastors, elders and deacons – uncovered that the majority of Church leaders have a very limited understanding of AI. A pastor and consultant of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ) said that ‘AI is a fast way of accessing information’. A pastor of the Assemblies of God Church in Gokwe defined AI as ‘the technology that enables computers and machines to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence’. An assistant pastor of a Pentecostal church and one of the department leaders of the EFZ said that ‘AI is what makes research and work simpler through technology’. The conference secretary of one of the growing neo-Pentecostal churches in Harare, who identified himself as Reverend GBN, said that ‘AI is quickly obtained information or knowledge from a secondary source for purposes of swift answers and solutions’. The head of one of EFZ’s missionary departments said that ‘I do not understand AI at the moment’. A founder of an evangelical church in Bulawayo, who withheld her name, said that ‘AI is computerised easy accessibility of information’. The rest of the interviewees that were engaged expressed total ignorance about the meaning of AI and could not contribute anything.

According to Ghosh and Thirugnanam (2021):

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the branch of computer science, which makes the computers to mimic the human behaviour to assist humans for better performance in the field of science and technology. (p. 23)

Leyton-Brown (2023:6) asserts that AI can be explained as ‘the study, design, and development of computational processes to solve problems that previously required human intelligence’. For Stryker and Kavlakoglu (2025), AI is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem-solving, decision-making, creativity and autonomy. Overall, it can be concluded that AI involves computationally imitating, generating, processing and providing information and services. Banh and Strobel (2023) assert that:

… recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) have enabled new paradigms of machine processing, shifting from data-driven, discriminative AI tasks toward sophisticated, creative tasks through generative AI. (p. 1)

Accordingly, AI is rapidly developing and producing novel and realistic content in all disciplines. Artificial intelligence can now imitate, produce, analyse and share texts, images, videos and other content. This means that ecclesiology, hermeneutics, theology and homiletics can now be done with the aid of AI – as every other engagement can, including medical diagnosis, researching, interpreting, analysis and writing. In the context of ecclesiology and Church leadership, Ruggerio (2023) explains that AI helps streamline and enhance various aspects of church operations. This technology could enable church leaders to leverage data and automate processes that might otherwise take hours of work. Thus, AI can be used as a tool to enhance Church leadership, administration and ministries.

Types of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is becoming woven into our daily lives and influences our engagements with almost everything. Various types of AI are used for different purposes. Murphy (2025) explains various types of AI, among which are Narrow AI, also referred to as Weak AI, Generative AI, Strong AI and Super AI. Murphy explains that Narrow AI is ‘expertly designed for a set task. Unlike more advanced forms of AI, it can’t think or learn beyond a single focus’; it could be human-controlled devices that set alarms or make calls. According to Murphy (2025), generative AI is explained as ‘a subset of artificial intelligence that creates new content, such as text, images, music, and videos, by learning patterns from existing data’. Examples of generative AI include ChatGPT, Grok, Claude and Perplexity. Strong AI, which is also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), is ‘capable of behaving and performing actions in the same ways human beings can. AGI mimics human intelligence, and is able to solve problems and learn new skills in ways similar to our own’ (Glover 2024:n.p.). Super AI is defined by Kanade (2022) as a form of AI that is capable of surpassing human intelligence by manifesting cognitive skills and developing thinking skills of its own. It can be discerned that artificial superintelligence is advancing and becoming quicker, more powerful and more intelligent than before.

According to Ministry Brands (n.d.), there are a number of AI applications that could be useful for the Church to use, such as TurboScribe, which can transcribe audio and video recordings of sermons, lectures and meetings into precise text; Bible-Answers, which is AI that uses advanced technology to answer Christianity-related inquiries; Clearchat chatbot, which can direct visitors to church websites by answering enquiries and delivering information; and Church Loom, which converts sermons and spoken information into usable multimedia formats. Ministry Brands (n.d.) also mentions Bible.ai, which is a platform that provides millions of AI-powered responses to biblical research, SermonScribe, which transcribes sermons into audio or written text and Church.tech, which is a collection of AI tools designed for various church-related tasks, such as sermon preparation, discipleship strategy, church communications and media editing.

Reviewing the adoption of AI in Church leadership and ministries

Scholars such as Thorne (2025), Odeleye and Obaloluwa (2025), DeLuca (2024), Gungadoo (2023) and Chambers (2023) report that AI can be useful for Church leaders and their churches as a tool for research, data analysis, biblical hermeneutics, language translation, communication and other functions. In view of these views, this section discusses the adoption of AI in evangelical churches in Zimbabwe.

A pastor and consultant of the EFZ said that he has not yet adopted AI for his Church leadership and ministries: ‘Not yet in my church, but in my studies and consultancy work’. He explained that, before he adopts AI, he should be well informed and trained to use it to avoid breaching Christian ethics. A founder of one of the fastest growing evangelical churches in Gweru said that ‘I use AI in researching and preparing my teachings as well as church leadership work’. Likewise, a pastor of the Assemblies of God Church in Gokwe said that he has already adopted AI for his personal use:

‘Yes, in language translation. I have used AI in translating sermons from one language to another e.g. from Shona to English and vice versa. I have also used AI in data computation and searching scriptures when doing Bible studies.’ (Assemblies of God Pastor, Interview: 20 April 2025)

However, he said that he has not considered adopting AI for congregational use, arguing that the majority of his subordinates have limited knowledge of technology and limited network accessibility and financial capacity to afford the cost of using AI in rural areas. Another interviewee, who identified herself as Pastor Shingi, said, ‘No, not yet in my leadership and ministry, but our media department uses AI for projection of scriptures during our church services’. A pastor who chose to be identified as Reverend GBN from Harare said that ‘our church is mixed with urban and rural folks. We are yet to adopt and use AI due to a lack of knowledge and financial resources’. An apostle from Bulawayo said that:

‘[W]e only use AI in some of our administrative work in church, with Bible school students as well as in gathering resources for Sunday school. We also store up some of our church information on Google and Cloud for future reference.’

One of the department leaders of the EFZ said that he has limited know-how and does not use AI in any of his work with EFZ or his church. Similarly, a pastor from Masvingo said that ‘I am not yet well versed with AI, so I do not use it in any of my pastoral and personal engagements’. Some interviewees did not indicate whether they have adopted AI or not in their church leadership and ministries. However, the responses above suggest that the majority of Church leaders in Zimbabwe have not yet adopted AI because of limited technology skills and money. However, responses of those who have already adopted and started using AI, either personally or in their churches, indicate that AI can enhance ecclesiastic leadership and ministries if it is used well. These findings confirm the observation of Ministry Brands (n.d.) that AI can optimise Church leadership and ministry by enabling the rapid gathering, processing and customisation of data and execution of certain administrative work. In light of this finding, the following section presents the thrills of AI to Church leadership and ministry in Zimbabwe.

Appreciating the thrills of using AI in Church leadership

It is notable that the swift development of AI has brought exciting benefits to the Church across the world. While the understanding, adoption and use of AI by Church leaders in Zimbabwe are still limited, most leaders concur that the benefits of AI hold thrilling potential for their work and ministries. A pastor from Gweru said that it was electrifying to experience how quickly AI provides information. An EFZ consultant said that ‘AI is revolutionary’. He explained that AI can quickly provide information that would usually take a long time to gather. This claim is confirmed by Ruggerio (2023:n.p.), who says that ‘AI allows church leaders to leverage data and automate processes that otherwise might take hours of work’. A pastor of the Assemblies of God Church in Gokwe said that AI ‘helps to solve some complex problems in a short space of time. It informs and enables better decision making’. Additionally, an elder from Kadoma said that AI enhances the speed of doing research and administration. While some of the interviewees expressed ignorance about AI and could not contribute to the discussion, those who had something to say concurred that the most exciting aspect of AI for Church leadership is the speed at which it does information gathering, processing and dissemination. They agreed that AI technologies and applications would enable them to save time doing research, data capturing and interpretation. ‘We can now research and understand certain scriptures so swiftly with AI’, said a pastor. He explained that Church leaders can now also use AI for hermeneutics. A study by Chabata (2024) uncovered that Church leaders in Zimbabwe find AI beneficial because it can process large amounts of scientific information by automatically collecting data from multiple sources, including published articles, books, databases, websites and other sources of information. Chabata narrates that Zimbabwean ecclesial leaders report that AI helps them with biblical information and social analysis. The voices of evangelical church leaders in Zimbabwe confirm the view of Ministry Brands (n.d.) that AI is beneficial for them and the Church when it aids leadership and ministerial work:

Many church leaders regard artificial intelligence as a viable tool for evangelism and outreach, capable of reaching a larger audience through targeted communication and digital channels. Churches have the ability to employ AI to improve their outreach efforts, give individualised spiritual content, and engage with communities in new ways. (Ministry Brands n.d.)

Ruggerio (2023) adds that:

you might find AI useful in figuring out how to outline a sermon, coordinating schedules, or even double-checking the tone of your emails … Since Church leaders often juggle numerous administrative tasks that could be easily handled by an AI service, AI can improve the efficiency of routine tasks by assisting in financial management, organising volunteer schedules, and automating paperwork. From aiding in budget creation and monitoring to scheduling events and volunteers, AI can help reduce the administrative burden on church staff, allowing them to focus on their core mission – not numbers, but people. (n.p.)

While the functions of AI produce thrilling results, as reported above, three-quarters of interviewees indicated that they were still hesitant to adopt and use AI in their leadership and ministries in Zimbabwe. To investigate why this is the case, and taking the reasons they gave into account, the following section explores and troubleshoots the adoption and use of AI in Church leadership in the Zimbabwean context.

Troubleshooting factors affecting the use of AI in Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe, the use of AI is problematised by a variety of factors. Pastors, elders, deacons and leaders shared a number of factors that militated against them using AI, such as their limited technical knowledge, cultural disruptions and multiple economic constraints.

Limited knowledge

Artificial intelligence demands adopters to adapt to the new speed, efficiency and disruptive ways of doing things with the aid of technology; however, very few pastoral leaders in Zimbabwe have adequate knowledge-based skills to use AI and digital gadgets in their ministry. A large number of pastors who participated in this study could not efficiently digitalise their ministries. Because of inadequate skill sets in the digitised vineyard, some pastors have been unable to come to terms with the pace of new technologies. A number of pastors, especially those who were older and less educated, reported difficulty coping with new technologies, which affects the adoption of AI and makes it ill-resourced, inconsistent and inefficient.

A pastor and consultant of EFZ said that ‘the use of AI is still at its infancy in many churches in Zimbabwe hence we are not yet fully aware of what is happening’. His views echo those of another interviewee, this one from Bulawayo, who said that ‘Church leaders are not aware of what is happening and when problems arise, they are not sure about how to deal with them appropriately, so training matters’. Reverend GBN of Harare explained that ‘most of our leaders are still uninformed about AI, and when exposed, they fail to contextualise what they get to appeal to their local leadership and ministries’. A church founder from Bulawayo concurred and said that only a few of her leaders were knowledgeable about AI and that the majority were unable to use it. A pastor, and an EFZ department leader, said ‘I do not understand AI’ and indicated that he, consequently, does not use it.

We agree with White and Lidskog (2021), who explain that what is unknown about AI affects its use and governance. It was found that the majority of Church leaders in Zimbabwe are still hesitant about adopting and using AI in their ecclesial leadership and ministries. Arguably, they cannot adopt and use AI unless they understand what AI is, how it is informed, how it works and how they can govern its use in the Church. Limited knowledge about AI limits its adoption and use because the leaders are afraid of unknown and unintended consequences. They fear misinformation and deepfakes, which are defined by Yasar, Barney and Wigmore (n.d.) as a type of AI that creates convincing yet fake images, videos and audio recordings. Such misinformation militates against the adoption and use of AI by Church leadership. Considering that the Bible – the basis and authority of the Christian faith – calls for truthfulness, honesty and integrity (Col. 3:9; Eph. 4:25; Ja 1:26), misinformation and misrepresentation could taint the image of the Church. Thus, the adoption and use of AI by Church leadership relates to the gap in their knowledge. It is recommended that Church leaders who are unable to use new technologies seek assistance from resource persons within their churches, and in cases where congregations lack a member who is knowledgeable, training must be outsourced and efforts made to acquire essential skills in order to remain relevant and effective in changing contexts. Reverend GBN of Harare suggested that churches should seek training on using AI for their leaders and selected persons who represent human resources:

‘I recommend churches to do training workshops, leadership empowerment and team building to capacitate leaders, to embrace AI and wisely use it to the Church’s advantage other than being slaves to it.’

A pastor of Assemblies of God church in Gokwe added that:

‘[R]egular trainings and raising awareness on the proper use of AI and highlighting potential dangers associated with the use of AI matter. Mentorship through regular workshops, in-house trainings, inviting resource persons, enlightening and empowering leaders to use AI-powered tools to engage can help.’

An interviewee from Bulawayo said that:

‘[T]he Church should explore all possible ways to get informed about the good and dangers of AI, pursue what is good and beneficial to the church while developing its governance in Church.’

She explained that capacity building regarding AI is crucial for the Church because the functions of AI are growing dramatically, and AI is overtaking human knowledge. The bulk of interviewees agreed that there is a need for Church leaders to be enlightened and empowered about AI so that they can educate their subordinates and followers on how to use AI and for what.

Cultural disruptions

In a cultural sense, Church leadership and ministries are traditionally used to praying and fasting for divine inspiration and spending time reading the Bible, researching and delivering their work in person as well as in consideration of their contexts. For these leaders, using AI to do hermeneutics and homiletics is a foreign idea and may disrupt local cultural operations. Reverend GBN said that:

‘[T]he main danger is that AI relaxes and limits people’s thinking. It can blur our creativity and some will be blinkered to AI then it affects the aspect of originality and naturality.’

A founder of a church in Chivhu said that:

‘[O]ne of our youth leaders once used AI and presented information that was not biblically and contextually correct. Likewise, some of our leaders find information that they don’t understand and present it in a different context as it is.’

Another interviewee, from Bulawayo, said that ‘AI cannot be contextually relevant, so it often gives what can disrupt our traditional value of context’.

A pastor and an EFZ consultant said the following about using AI: ‘is a problem when sermon preparation is no longer depended on prayer and personal study of the Bible but on AI’.

A pastor from Gokwe referred to:

‘[R]esistance to change by some members. There is fear that we may become over-reliant on AI and compromise the pure gospel, as not all information given by AI is correct. It can mislead people and lead to strange, diverse and corrupt doctrines.’

The pastor added that ‘I cannot imagine getting computerised interpretations of scripture. I may eventually do other things with AI, but not preparing my sermons and teachings’.

Chabata (2024) explains that AI can supplant and usurp human supremacy and replace it with synthetic artefacts. Ministry Brands (n.d.) reports that most religious leaders around the world argue that AI lacks fundamental human characteristics such as empathy, moral judgement and the ability to engage in profound ethical and theological reasoning.

Although AI can process information swiftly, it cannot take on the role of human leaders in pastoral care and spiritual leadership. In reflecting on the importance of culture for contextualisation, a deacon of an evangelical church in Chegutu said that:

‘[O]ur ministries and administration is very cultural. We feel of service when we operate manually. We are afraid that AI may replace our human service, and that will not give us peace.’

As reported by Ministry Brands (n.d.), there is concern that AI systems are capable of making decisions in the absence of human oversight – even decisions that have a substantial impact on people’s lives. Therefore, the Church should establish policies to ensure that AI does not operate autonomously. Some local pastors and elders also questioned the moral and theological implications of using AI. These questions centred on problems such as the concept of the soul, free will and humans’ unique status compared to robots. Church leaders and theologians should investigate these issues to gain an understanding of how AI fits into the larger context of Christian teaching and human existence.

As narrated by Chabata (2024), ecumenical and denominational church leaders in Zimbabwe have warned that AI should not be over-glorified as a panacea for local hermeneutical issues because it is mainly informed by Western sources that are sometimes contrary to contextual moral values.

Although AI can give relief from some pastoral and administrative duties, it can also lead to laziness and disrupt processes that require human presence and care. The predominant cultures of Zimbabwe – Shona, Ndebele and others – expect Church leaders to spend time in prayer rooms and office libraries and on home visits. Digitalising and quickening their work can disrupt inculturation. However, as Warren (n.d.) argues, AI can be managed to do specific administrative tasks, while reserving what requires human engagement to be attended to manually:

Did you know AI can summarise articles, draft documents, analyse data, write reports, and manage schedules? Historically, these tasks have taken hours of my time, and yours, each week. But now, these can be completed in a fraction of the time. By letting AI attend to these tasks, we can focus on what truly matters. We can stay focused on nurturing relationships, guiding and supporting people in their spiritual journey, and building a vibrant community. It’s important to remember that technology, when used intentionally and thoughtfully, can enhance our work instead of replacing our calling. (Warren n.d.)

We agree that AI can be a helpful assistant for Church leaders to help them navigate certain responsibilities more strategically, conveniently and swiftly than before, while ensuring that pastoral impact continues to grow in this dynamic world.

Multiple economic constraints

Few congregations and Church leaders in Zimbabwe can afford the costs of accessing and using AI. The country has experienced ever-deepening economic crises since the reign of the late Robert Mugabe; these crises continue under the military-assisted rule of incumbent president Emmerson Mnangagwa. Various factors have caused the economic crisis, such as:

…irresponsible citizenship, self-serving leadership, moral decadence, systematic corruption and related travails, which are ruining the beautiful landlocked nation politically, economically, and socially. (Tagwirei 2024:8)

Consequently, and because the majority of churches in Zimbabwe depend on traditional sources of income, which are unsustainable and incapacitating (Tagwirei 2022), few Church leaders can afford to use AI in their economically troubled motherland. Church leaders and congregations cannot afford the cost of digital resources such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, recording cameras; technical expertise, data and electricity. Because of their limited financial capacity, few pastors, even those of economically sound denominations, can afford, access and use AI. This means that Church leaders cannot use AI to any great extent, regardless of how thrilling its benefits may be.

Unlike in other countries, where online communication has wide fluidity and pragmatic usability and is more effective than conventional communication, Zimbabwe is problematised further by erratic electricity supply and networks, which weaken the fluidity, usability, reliability and efficacy of communication. Even for the few somewhat resourced clerical leaders who can afford to use AI, keeping up to date with modern technologies remains difficult owing to regular electricity blackouts that incapacitate digital gadgets. As Chabata (2024) states, AI is intermittently accessible in only some parts of Zimbabwe because of electrical and network unreliability in most of the country.

Managing the thrills and dangers of using AI in Church leadership: Conclusion and way forward

Regardless of the variety of challenges that affect the adoption and use of AI in Church leadership in Zimbabwe, it will not be possible to avoid the effects of AI because AI is already with us and some of us are already using it. Artificial intelligence is likely to affect Church leadership positions, responsibilities and operations both positively and negatively. Therefore, Church leaders must deepen and widen their minds with regard to managing both the thrills and dangers of AI in ecclesiastic contexts. Church leaders should consider developing policies and ethical codes of conduct to guide AI adoption and usage in their churches. As argued by Vanderbloemen (n.d.), AI must not only be adopted and used freely; it should be controlled to prevent AI replacing the personal touch and pastoral spiritual discernment. As some participants of this study aptly reported, AI should not be allowed to replace the work of the Holy Spirit or the gospel minister. Although AI will undoubtedly change administration, preaching, teaching, evangelism and worship, this study concurs with Bretts (2024:n.p.) that AI will, but should not, be allowed to function as a legitimate substitute for authentic pastoral leadership and care. What AI should be allowed to do and how it will do it can only be governed by policies and ethical codes of conduct, without which AI can become a disturbing source of leadership and congregational abuse, confusion and destruction, and the Church may succumb to AI-related risks, such as deepfakes. Thus, Church leaders must wake up and become acclimatised to AI, develop policies and, as Ruggerio (2023) suggests, enlighten their congregations so that everyone is on the same page.

Considering the economic crisis facing Zimbabwe, the Church should build up human, financial, material and immaterial resources to manage the thrills and dangers of AI so that it serves the Church’s mission and operations and is inclusively sustainable. Developing the human resources of the Church should include training the untrained and refining the skills of pastors, elders, deacons and other leaders on modern technologies. Such skills development will enable the leaders to identify and use AI for the good of the Church, while managing risks. In relation to financial constraints, the Church should innovatively diversify its sources of income to enable sustainability and meet the rising costs of using AI while concurrently attending integral missio ecclesiae. Without innovative ways of diversifying income, it will be impossible for churches in the poverty-stricken Zimbabwean environment to afford the cost of AI.

Regarding immaterial support, Church leaders can identify, nurture and develop intercessors who can intercede for them and guide the Church towards wisdom on how to manage the potentially disruptive thrills and dangers of contemporary AI. Without God-given wisdom, it is likely to be difficult for Church leaders to withstand increasing social, spiritual, economic, political and environmental disruptions caused by AI. Meanwhile, growing congregational resilience to AI also matters. I recommend that Church leaders prepare their congregations by teaching biblical literacy and spiritual discipline, such as integrity. Instead of taking a helpless wait-and-see stance while AI is already deepening its roots in their domains, Church leaders must rise up and pursue theological and practical questions to enhance individual and collective management of AI. As Balls (n.d.) asserts, becoming theologically and practically grounded promotes firmness and resilience in Christianity against the potential for secularisation that AI poses.

Acknowledgements

The author declares that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.

K.T. is the sole author of this research article.

Ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from the University of Pretoria Research Committee and Research Ethics Committee (No: T016/21).

The research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, K.T., upon reasonable request.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are the product of professional research. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency or that of the publisher. The author is responsible for this article’s results, findings and content.

References