For many students, AI is deeply woven into the rhythms of ordinary life. Teenagers are using tools like OpenAI ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and other AI systems to write essays, summarize readings, generate study guides, brainstorm captions, process emotions, and even ask spiritual questions they hesitate to bring to parents, pastors, or mentors. AI increasingly functions as a tutor, assistant, pastor, parent, editor, counselor, and companion all at once.
Students are not merely active users of AI; they are also passively shaped by it. Large language models are now embedded throughout the digital ecosystems teenagers inhabit—often in ways they barely recognize. AI is no longer confined to academics or productivity. It is influencing social media feeds, entertainment, gaming, advertising, online shopping, and countless other spaces that shape young people’s desires, imaginations, habits, and identities.
The Church cannot afford to view AI as merely another technological development. We must think about it theologically, pastorally, and formationally. The central question is not simply whether AI is “good” or “bad,” but what kind of people these technologies shape us to become. We are all discipled one way or another; the real question is whether we can recognize who or what is discipling us.
How AI Is Shaping a Generation
Gen Z and Gen Alpha are being raised within what many sociologists describe as the digital revolution. They are true digital natives—the first generations immersed in smartphones, social media, algorithmic feeds, streaming platforms, and constant digital interaction from birth. Technology is not merely something they use; it is the environment in which they live, relate, learn, and form identity.
At the same time, adolescence itself is already a uniquely vulnerable season of development. Neuroscientists have consistently shown that the adolescent brain continues to mature, particularly in areas related to executive functioning, impulse control, emotional regulation, discernment, and long-term decision-making.1 The prefrontal cortex—the region associated with wisdom, self-regulation, and judgment—continues developing well into early adulthood.
This developmental plasticity makes teenagers especially susceptible to environments built around stimulation, immediacy, affirmation, and emotional reward.2 Repeated patterns of attention, attachment, and affiliation shape the adolescent brain. What students repeatedly turn to for comfort, validation, identity, and guidance will inevitably shape their formation. This creates an added layer of complexity and urgency when it comes to AI and the formation of students—physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.
Observations on the Ground
In my own studies and ministry observations among Gen Z students, this vulnerability is becoming increasingly visible. Many teenagers are already gravitating toward AI because it offers what embodied relationships often cannot: immediate responsiveness, personalized affirmation, endless patience, instant answers, and the absence of social risk. AI feels accessible. It feels genuine and emotionally convenient. It feels (almost) like the human being we want it to be.
Unlike previous forms of technology, AI does not merely deliver information. It simulates interaction. It mimics conversation and produces responses that increasingly feel personal and relational. It’s the parent we wish we had; the friend we longed for; the pastor that never disagrees with us. For a culture shifting away from person-to-person interaction, this is deeply troubling. And for teenagers navigating loneliness, insecurity, anxiety, confusion, and pressure, that matters deeply. Many students already feel more comfortable asking AI difficult questions than speaking honestly with parents, pastors, teachers, or peers because AI appears immediate, nonjudgmental, endlessly available, and emotionally accommodating.
Gospel-Shaped Spiritual Formation
But therein lies one of the great spiritual dangers.
Christian formation has always been relational and embodied. God did not merely send information to save his people; he sent his Son in the flesh. The gospel is fundamentally incarnational. God is not a distant, abstract being; he is immanent (active and present within creation). Jesus Christ did not disciple his followers through detached prompts, but through embodied presence, sacrificial love, correction, suffering, touch, communion, and covenant relationship. In addition, Christian formation also unfolds amid the realities of ordinary life—through both its joys and sorrows—as believers learn to follow Christ in a world marred by sin.
So, in a time when AI shapes students’ formation, what should youth ministers focus on?
We must think through the embodied process of biblical community as a pathway and tool of deep discipleship. Again, we trend towards AI because it is immediate, convenient, and non-confrontational. The youth minister can model how students think, learn, serve, pray, and even argue and disagree together with the gospel at its core. This could include addressing and teaching the realities of how a youth group can be difficult. Examples from the Scriptures and church history of how communities wrestled through difficult moments and yet fixed their eyes on Christ as the perfecter of their faith (Heb. 12:2)
It’s also important to think through how you’re teaching, not just what you’re teaching. What if the role of the minister is to help students learn how to think and how to ask good questions rather than providing answers? Also, in a time like this, youth ministers should learn the basics of pedagogy and learning. How often do we just give our students the answers? How simplistic are the lessons when they rarely require students to analyze, discuss, and defend their answers? Maybe you can teach them how to find the answers for themselves and let students sit with the ambiguity of the text, because it mirrors real life rather than a three-second-generated answer.
Remember Your Theological Foundation
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape the world around us—and will likely do so at an unprecedented pace—Christians must remember that the deepest questions surrounding technology are ultimately theological questions about God, humanity, truth, worship, and redemption. Jesus teaches that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second is like it: to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:29–31). These are profoundly human callings rooted in relationship, worship, embodiment, and covenantal love.
The gospel reminds us that human beings alone are created in the image of God, and God’s redemptive plan is directed toward humanity. Our ultimate hope is not found in transcending our humanity, upgrading ourselves through technology, or becoming something “more” than human. Our hope is in the redemption and restoration found in our union with Jesus Christ. In Christ, we do not escape our humanity; we discover how God redeems it.
Discussion Questions
Here are some questions that youth ministers and parents can discuss with teenagers:
- What are ways social media, AI, or technology can subtly shape how you see yourself?
- In what ways can AI be helpful? In what ways can it become spiritually dangerous?
- Have you ever been tempted to use AI to avoid hard work, vulnerability, or dependence on God?
- How is this technology shaping your heart?
- What would it look like for you to pursue wisdom instead of merely consuming information? What about for parents?
- What messages about identity and worth are your children absorbing from technology and culture?
- In what ways are devices and AI shaping your family rhythms, conversations, and relationships?
The 2026 Rooted: Biblical Humanity Conference will explore the biblical story of humanity—from creation to fall to redemption to final glorification—and how it shapes the way we disciple children and teenagers. Join us October 22-24 in person in Nashville or digitally via our brand-new livestream option for churches and individuals.
- Cf. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain (New York: PublicAffairs, 2018), 35–74, 151–76; Laurence Steinberg, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), 19–47, 93–113; B. J. Casey, Rebecca M. Jones, and Todd A. Hare, “The Adolescent Brain,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1124, no. 1 (2008): 111–26, https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1440.010; Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Trevor W. Robbins, “Decision-Making in the Adolescent Brain,” Nature Neuroscience 15, no. 9 (2012): 1184–91, https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3177
↩︎ - Laurence Steinberg, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), 19–47, 93–113; Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain (New York: PublicAffairs, 2018), 73–105, 151–76; Eveline A. Crone and Ronald E. Dahl, “Understanding Adolescence as a Period of Social-Affective Engagement and Goal Flexibility,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 13, no. 9 (2012): 636–50, https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3313; Leah H. Somerville, “The Teenage Brain: Sensitivity to Social Evaluation,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 22, no. 2 (2013): 121–27, https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413476512.
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