Preaching with AI: an exploration of preachers' interaction with large language models in sermon preparation

This study explores how Swedish preachers incorporate AI chats such as ChatGPT into sermon preparation. Based on interviews, chat logs, and sermon manuscripts from six priests in the Church of Sweden, the study uses relevance theory to analyse the preachers' prompting and evaluation strategies. The preachers primarily use large language models (LLMs) for brainstorming and inspiration, critically evaluating the AI-generated responses, guided by their convictions, theological training and pastoral experience. Their prompting strategies reveal that many of them have a rudimentary understanding of how LLMs work. This leads them to underutilise its synthesising capacities and underspecify their homiletic context in their prompts. We argue that the preachers both underestimate and overestimate the LLM's communicative capacities, due to its humanlike style of communication.