The Table: an AI readiness project
For churches and nonprofits that want AI to give their people more time for people.
AI can draft the newsletter, sort the spreadsheet, and remind volunteers about their next shift. It cannot sit with a family in the hospital or welcome a neighbor by name. I help your team use these tools for the first kind of work so there is more of you left for the second.
I use AI in my own ministry work every week and have built several small tools for church teams, so what I recommend comes from practice.
Back to Acts 6.
Chreia's name comes from Acts 6, and the story there is about a system breaking down. Greek-speaking widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. The apostles took it seriously and asked the church to choose people full of the Spirit and wisdom to oversee it. Luke uses the same word, diakonia, for serving those tables and for the ministry of the word (Acts 6:1–6).
Good systems are one of the ways people get seen. That is why AI belongs in the conversation, and why I am careful about where it goes.
Tools for the tasks. People for the people.
Some work should get faster. Some work should never be rushed. I help your team tell the difference by sorting its work into three lanes.
- Automate. Repetitive work AI can handle with a quick human check: meeting notes, reminders, scheduling, spreadsheet cleanup, and first drafts of routine emails.
- Assist. Work where AI helps while a person still thinks, decides, and signs their name: newsletters, grant reports drawn from your own program data, research for lessons and sermons, discussion guides, and first-draft translations reviewed by a fluent speaker.
- Accompany. Work that stays human because presence is the point: pastoral care, counseling, prayer, recovery conversations, hospital visits, hard conversations, and decisions about who receives help.
AI can notice that a family hasn't been seen in three weeks. A person should make the call.
Who it's for
- Churches and nonprofits with small teams and more work than hours
- Leaders who are curious about AI and cautious about it
- Teams already using AI informally who want shared guidelines
How it works
Listen.
A short intake form and a free conversation about where your team's time goes.
Map the work.
We look at a normal week with your staff and key volunteers and sort the tasks into the three lanes.
Start together.
In a working session with your leaders, we choose two or three places to begin and set them up, using tools you already have when we can.
Train and hand off.
I train your team and leave a short guide, and everything we set up runs on accounts you control. When you're ready for the next step, I'd love to keep building with you.
What you leave with
- A one-page AI plan: what to automate, where AI assists, and what stays human.
- A plain-language AI use policy: what never goes into AI tools, who reviews what, and when to tell people AI was involved, ready for your board or elders to adopt. I'm not an attorney, and I'll tell you when something needs legal review.
- Two or three working starting points, set up and tested with your team.
- A training session for staff and key volunteers, with a short guide to keep.
What I hold to
- People make the decisions. AI can suggest. A person reviews and owns anything that affects someone's life.
- Confidential stays confidential. Care and counseling notes, recovery stories, children's information, giving records, and anything shared in trust stay out of AI tools.
- Every name is a person. The people your systems track bear the image of God, and nothing we build should treat them as less.
- Honest about the tools. I help you decide when to tell people AI was involved, and I'm open about how I use it myself.
- Yours to keep. What we set up belongs to you, runs on accounts you own, and comes with instructions your team can follow, so it never depends on me.
- Start with what you have. I look first at tools you already pay for, and at free or nonprofit pricing, before recommending anything new.
Fees
Project fees are fixed and agreed before work begins.