Church Tech Today shares "The Church AI Policy Every Pastor Needs in 2026" (9-minute read), on the five questions a church AI policy has to answer: who it covers, why your church uses AI, how it may and may not be used, where it must never go, and what happens to your data. In the 2026 State of AI in the Church survey, 78% of leaders surveyed used AI weekly or daily. 9% had a written policy.

Editor's note: The FAQ takes the small-church objection head on — a church of 80 holds counseling notes and giving records the same way a church of 8,000 does, usually with fewer safeguards. The article closes with a call to action to attend Church Tech Today's AI Policies Made Simple masterclass, an on-demand online class that costs $79.00. Their free AI Policy Readiness Scorecard is the cheapest way to see your own gaps before you write anything.

REACHRIGHT shares "The AI Church Workflow That's Saving Entire Staff Teams Hours Every Week" (44-minute watch), as Thomas and Shiloh walk through three workflows from Thomas's own church. Feed Sunday's sermon transcript in and get small-group questions, icebreakers and captions. Draft bulletin and newsletter copy — but train the tool on your past emails first, or you get what Thomas calls "bizarre, vague spiritual stuff." And run sermon research through Claude Code for context, Greek meanings and commentary.

Editor's note: His church buys staff a $20–$25/month subscription and spent 90 minutes agreeing its limits — as with the piece above. Note the tension it never resolves: it cites unsourced U.S. figures of 5–10 hours saved a week, while Thomas says his own team isn't working less, just producing better work.

ICYMI — Planning Center shares "Announcing the Planning Center MCP: Connect ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI tools" (4-minute read), announcing a connection that lets an AI tool read your Planning Center data and answer questions in plain language — across Services, Giving, People, Registrations, Calendar, Groups, Publishing and Check-Ins. What a person can already see is what the tool can see. The only write access is in People. Admins are notified on first connection and can revoke it any time.

Editor's note: Planning Center says it is contractually prohibited from using your data to train AI models — but you still have to switch model training off inside your own ChatGPT or Claude settings, and read its security checklist. That second switch is yours, not theirs. We covered this in our July 19 issue.

The Pro Church Tools Show shares "We Put 8 Popular Church Trends on Trial" (42-minute watch), as Brady Shearer and Alexander Mills give each a verdict: keep, kill, or reinvent. They keep the 360-degree stage, cinematic sermon reels (filmed handheld from front row), the rage-bait pastor interview and LED walls. They reinvent the pyramid projector and AI artwork. They kill a fresh visual identity for every sermon series, and unreadable trendy typefaces. Their axiom: clear over clever.

Editor's note: The low-cost versions are worth stealing — a 360-degree "stage" can be a rug in the middle of the room, and Nucleus's free Church Color Palette Generator turns a photo of your town into a series palette. On LED walls they are blunt: do not save toward one. FYI - Adobe Color is a color palette alternative.

ChurchTrac shares "Getting Started with the Giving Screen" (14-minute watch), a walkthrough of recording contributions — batches, one check split across two categories, anonymous cash from the plate, and a memo field for who counted it — then statements, pledge campaigns and online giving through Stripe, including a QR code for a single category with the amount pre-filled. Both pro tips are setup rather than use: load your people first, and settle your categories before you start.

Editor's note: Vendor-specific, and it assumes you are already on ChurchTrac — but both setup habits transfer to any system, and the warning against offering donors "an insane amount of options" is sound counsel for whoever has to reconcile the deposits afterward.

Churchfront shares "The Leadership Shift Every Church Tech Director Eventually Has to Make | Danielle Iselin" (34-minute watch), a conference talk by Vive Church's production director on leading when you're the only one who knows how things work. Her four moves: know what you don't know; stop doing it alone, as Jethro told Moses; be secure enough not to be the expert, because "nobody likes a know-it-all, but they love a learn-it-all"; and master the vision, not the console.

Editor's note: The title says tech director; the talk is aimed at whoever does it alone, which at a small church is usually a volunteer. She recruits on character — faithful, available and trainable before interested. Her closing question is worth sitting with: if your tech team doesn't look like your congregation, who are you overlooking?

REACHRIGHT shares "The 7 Hires That Grow a Church (You're Hiring in the Wrong Order)" (14-minute watch), arguing that churches hire whatever hurts on Sunday — worship, kids, admin — and end up with every seat facing inward and nobody thinking about people who haven't found them yet. Thomas cites Lifeway Research studies in which 77% of the pastors surveyed named developing leaders and 76% named reaching outsiders as their greatest needs: the two jobs with nobody's name on them.

Editor's note: The top of his ladder is "hire an agency," and REACHRIGHT is one — weigh that accordingly. Three closing steps cost nothing: mark every role on your org chart inward or outward; time how long finding service times takes on your phone; and name who owns reaching new people. His salary calculator is free.

We thank you for your time. We trust that this information was useful. Please consider sharing via the links at the top of the post. Finally, please take our brief Reader Satisfaction Survey to help us understand how to serve you better. Thanks and be blessed!

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.