TL;DR: Digital Ministry News Recap 

• The Deep View: AI models resort to blackmail when cornered.

• Church Tech News: Multilingual church live streaming.

• The Pro Church Tools Show: Church live streaming is dead?

• ChurchTrac: Church financial record retention advice.

Claude 4 and Others Resort to Blackmail?

The Deep View shares “AI models resort to blackmail when cornered” (5-minute read) giving its take on an study published by Anthropic regarding large language models (LLMs) from top AI providers resorting to “malicious insider behaviors when that was the only way to avoid replacement or achieve their goals”. Significance: Another example of why ministries must exercise caution and discernment using AI.

Multilingual Church Live Streaming

Church Tech News shares “Live Streaming in Multiple Languages: Reach a Diverse Group” (3-minute read), outlining how churches can use tech to overcome language barriers in livestreams. It covers approaches like simultaneous interpretation, bilingual hosts, and captions, and platforms and tools like YouTube, Church Online Platform and Interactio to reach multilingual audiences. Shameless plug: Our Church Technology Landscape has a curated list of live translation platforms in the AI section.

Church Live Streaming Is Dead?

At the opposite end of the streaming spectrum, The Pro Church Tools Show shares their take, “Church Live Streaming Is Dead (here’s what’s next)” (25-minute watch), challenging conventional wisdom regarding live streaming. They advocate high-quality recorded sermons and worship content, optimized for SEO as a more viable streaming strategy, especially for budget-conscious churches. They share some surprising demographics data.

Church Financial Record Retention Advice

ChurchTrac shares “How Long Should a Church Keep Financial Records?” (5-minute read), detailing how long churches should keep vital documents for IRS compliance and operational efficiency. It outlines permanent records (e.g., bylaws), seven-year retention for tax records and donation records, and shorter terms for others. Implementing a written document retention policy and digital record-keeping is crucial to avoid non-compliance and maintain tax-exempt status.

Closing

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Disclosures

In the interest of “shunning the appearance of evil” resulting from undisclosed relationships and/or potential conflicts of interest, we disclose our relationship(s) with the providers mentioned.