In a takeover by our Director of Next-Gen Ministries, Erik Cave shares what he recently learned about the growing use of AI for spiritual advice and the renewed importance of relational discipleship. At the foundations of the Covenant Church, he emphasizes, is walking together in faith and we celebrate all the ways we have gathered this fall as a conference to be encouraged to grow in our faith while continuing to prioritize relationships.
You can listen to Barna’s Faith and Culture Report on AI, Authenticity and the Future Church HERE. For Carey Nieuwhof’s book AI and the Future Church click HERE. You can also check out the organizations: Relationships Win and Tenx10 for more information and resources on relationship discipleship. Our upcoming MUD retreat is November 13-15. Find more information HERE.
Transcript:
Hello Pacific Northwest Conference family. This is Erik Cave, your Director of NextGen Ministries. Our superintendent and his wife, Mary, are on vacation. It's well-deserved, and I hope you'll be praying for them as they're cruising around Europe right now, that they'll be able to rest and come back revived and ready to go.
As it is Thanksgiving season, I thought I'd share some things I'm thankful for. When I think about this fall, I think about all the retreats that we've been having. They've been so much fun, and I'm really thankful for them. We've already had our Women's Ministry Retreat, Thunder (our retreat for middle schoolers), our Ministerial Association Retreat, and our Spiritual Directors Retreat. We're going to share pictures of those on this blog post so you can look back and be thankful for those as well.
In two weeks, we are coming up on the 20th anniversary of MUD, our high school retreat. Now, when Mark Carlson, Carolyn Potter, and Ben Kerns set out to start MUD, they did so because they knew how important it was to gather together for discipleship. I think this is more important today than ever.
I recently got to participate in a webinar series by Barna called Preaching in the Age of AI. They shared a research study showing that 48% of people say they trust AI advice for growing spiritually. It also showed that Christians are actually leading the way in AI use: 68% of Christian respondents said they use AI regularly, whereas the overall response rate was only 60%.
I think this is a little dangerous, because God created us to grow in our faith in relationship and community with other believers. The takeaway from the webinar was that the church needs to lean into this moment by leaning into what it can offer and what it has always done best: discipleship in relationship and community.
This is something the Covenant has always been really good at. When I was in my Covenant orientation class, I learned that our forefathers got into the practice of regularly asking each other two questions: Where is it written? How goes your walk?
Relationship is the foundation of the Covenant. Our growing together to become more like Jesus and follow him in mission and community is right there in our name. The word Covenant means our covenanting together to go on mission.
As I wrap up, I want to share a couple of resources that I think will help in figuring out how to lean into relational discipleship. I have a close relationship with an organization called 10x10. Their mission is to make faith matter more through relational discipleship radically focused on Jesus. I recently attended their summit and was inspired by stories of churches and leaders who are going past programs in order to build significant relationships, especially with the next generation.
They are doing a media campaign right now called Relationships Win, and through it they are promoting two significant free resources: Relational Discipleship Kickstart and Simple Mentoring.
We already have churches in our conference that are engaging with these resources, doing a great job, and already seeing results. I'm really excited about that and highly recommend you check it out.
I'm going to put links to those resources, the Barna research, MUD, all the pictures, and everything else I mentioned in this video right underneath this in the blog post.
As you move towards Thanksgiving, what I would encourage you to do is take time to think about the relationships that you're thankful for, especially the relationships that have helped you grow in your faith, and then make the decision to lean into those relationships more. Do everything you can to encourage those relationships, not only in your own life, but in the lives of the people who are important to you.
Happy Thanksgiving, Pacific Northwest Conference!