Recalculating: What We Lose When AI Does the Driving

When I turned 16, I distinctly remember my first road trip. I sat at the kitchen table with a Rand McNally Road Atlas and traced the route with my finger. I then handwrote directions to my destination. This taught me not only how to use the atlas but also how to navigate on the road.

Before Garmin created running watches, they were the go-to devices for GPS driving. Now, with our smartphones, we have many applications and routing options. Technology has changed our driving habits. The skill of navigation quietly faded. You probably know someone—or maybe you are the someone—who genuinely isn’t sure they could find the grocery store without turn-by-turn directions.  

I also remember the technology that crept into the math classroom: calculators. When faced with a math problem in elementary school, it was so much easier to grab a calculator than to solve the equation by hand. Our teachers said it wasn’t good for us since “we wouldn’t always have a calculator handy.” Now, the joke’s on them. Or maybe not.

What were meant as tools to assist have, at times, turned into tools that hinder. What we designed to help navigate has evolved into the only way to get to any destination. What was meant to help calculate has turned into our only means of doing math. In short, what was meant to help us do things faster has quietly replaced our ability to do them at all.

The quiet cost of shortcuts 

In life, we often default to the easiest solution. This is part of our natural tendency to avoid pain and struggle. When pain comes, we avoid it. When we avoid it, we discover a better method to avoid the pain next time. This is how most inventions came to be. A problem was encountered, and an invention was created to solve it more easily or effectively. Take the GPS and calculator—both were designed to solve a problem.

I love technology. I love being able to travel anywhere in the U.S. and get updates on traffic, road obstructions and weather conditions. I love being able to calculate any number or perform any formula with the press of a few buttons on my phone. Technology has made my life much easier, but now, I find myself asking a harder question: Is some of what we’re offloading actually what we’re supposed to struggle through?

We are living through an unprecedented period of technological acceleration. AI isn’t just a faster calculator or a smarter GPS; it is reshaping how we write, plan, counsel and lead. The local church is not insulated from this shift. Pastors use AI to draft sermons. Staff teams use it to generate discipleship curricula. Leaders use it to process data that once required long seasons of prayer, conversation and discernment. Many of these things can be generally helpful if done and used correctly, but I think it’s worth slowing down long enough to ask what we might be skipping. 

Formation in the wilderness

The Bible tells a different story about shortcuts. From beginning to end, Scripture highlights a recurring pattern: struggle precedes formation. The hardest chapters of life aren’t obstacles to God’s purposes. These difficult seasons are often the very purpose of God.

David doesn’t become the man after God’s own heart in the palace. He becomes that man in the wilderness—fleeing Saul, hiding in caves, writing Psalms soaked with honest desperation. In Psalm 119:71, he writes, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” He saw his own struggles as positive in light of the man he became. He doesn’t describe the hard years as a detour. He describes them as part of the point.

Israel spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness. This was not a logistical failure. Out of this struggle, the Israelites found themselves tested. Deuteronomy 8:2 says, “And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.” The wilderness wasn’t the delay before the destination; it was the curriculum.

My favorite story of struggle leading to redemption is the story of Joseph. He was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused and imprisoned. If anyone had reason to want a shortcut, it was Joseph. When he finally has a chance to stand before his brothers, he says, in Genesis 50:20, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” His struggles in life prepared him to care for the nations and his brothers. Every hard thing Joseph endured prepared him for something he couldn’t have imagined in that pit. You cannot fast-forward your way to Joseph’s wisdom. In each of these cases, struggle helped refine and define the characters. 

James says it directly: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (Jas 1:2-4). Trials are the processes God uses to produce something in us that cannot come any other way. 

Remembering the destination 

So, what do we do with AI? I’m not saying delete the apps. I’m not even saying to stop using AI. I use it quite a bit. I am saying that, as church leaders, we need to be honest about what we outsource and whether those might be the very things God intends to grow us.

The pastor who uses AI to avoid wrestling with a Text might be skipping the very encounter with God that his congregation desperately needs him to have. The leader who uses AI to avoid sitting with uncertainty in a hard decision may be bypassing the dependence on God that produces the kind of wisdom no tool can replicate. The counselor who reaches for an AI-generated framework before genuinely listening may be short-circuiting the compassion that only grows in presence. 

Before reaching for the tool, I recommend asking these three questions: 

1. Is this a task or a formation? Drafting a calendar invite is a task. Wrestling with a difficult passage is formation. The first can be delegated; the second probably shouldn’t be. 
2. Does this require my presence? A grieving family member doesn’t need a well-worded message. They need their pastor. 
3. Am I reaching for this to multiply my effort or escape my struggle? Multiplication is good stewardship. Escape is something else, and it usually costs me something. 

I know that, for every pastor, in every context, things will look different in the usage of AI, but now might be the perfect time for you and your ministry to draft an AI policy handbook. Where is the line for you and your ministry? What is acceptable use, and what is unacceptable?

The GPS won’t always lead you wrong. The calculator won’t always make you weaker. Used wisely, tools are a gift. However, wisdom is the operative word. As AI continues to develop at a pace nobody could have fully predicted, the most important question isn’t “How do we use this?" but instead, “What might I be missing in the struggle?”

Some struggles are forming something in us. The goal isn’t to find the fastest route around struggle. The goal is to arrive at the destination God has in mind and to trust the road he has chosen for us to travel—even the hard, bumpy spots. The struggle isn’t something to be skipped but a part of life to be embraced for the potential outcome for which God is using it.