AI Comes to the Church

Preston Pope is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of TAPOS, where he oversees the development of its AI-powered faith technology platform. He is also the founder of Splinter Glass Solutions, a consulting and app development firm that delivers custom software solutions and strategic digital operations. Preston lives in Jefferson, Texas, with his wife and two sons, where they enjoy ranching together as a family.

Nick Smith serves as Pastor of Bulverde Chapel and as the Chief Product Officer and co-founder of TAPOS, where he unites his passion for ministry and technology to help churches disciple in the digital age. He lives in the Texas Hill Country with his wife and two sons, where they love playing sports together — and Nick continues to prayerfully explore his “calling” as a golfer.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome to Eight Principles Voices. Conversations with those who are making a difference. I'm your host, Larry Johnson, founder of the Eight Principles. Now join me as I welcome this week's guest, as they invite us to come along on their journey. Hey everyone, it's Larry Johnson, your boy, your host for A Principles Voices. I've been having a delightful conversation with these two young guys, and they're running this AI thing. They're going to tell you more about it. I met them at a conference in Dallas about a few, well, I guess it was that four five months ago. Preston Pope and Nick Smith. You know, they could run rings about me with their with their computer knowledge, even though I'm a graduate engineer, as you know. But I want to get to it right away. Welcome, Preston. Welcome, Nick.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Thanks, Larry. Thanks for having us. Yeah, we're excited to be here. Now, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

You want to give us sort of the thumbnail of what it is you do. I see the name of your company up there, but you know, what is it you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah, I'll give I'll give mine and then I'm curious. So Nick's a uh from the so I come from an engineering background as well. Nick's a pastor, and so we we have very different takes on our mission. Uh we're in alignment on a lot of things, but but I'm curious as to his his reflection. So my the way I think of this is we are equipping and empowering the church and ministries in the AI age to basically take those those first safe steps into the AI space. Um Nick, what's your what's your your one sentence?

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Yeah. Um currently Tapos is about taking your content, uh, whether it's a pastor or content creator, uh, and making them all searchable, shareable, and then hopefully unforgettable. That it it'll continue to disciple way beyond uh the person delivering that.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Now, is this a um is this encapsulated in a downloadable app or how is it presented?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah, so we have a web app um where you can interact with it. It's mobile friendly. So, you know, any device that you're interacting with it. Um the biggest way that people end up utilizing our platform, though, is in embedding it on their own church's website or their own ministry's website. And so being basically an extension of their voice and of their content, um, as well as on the back end side, having a lot of resources and toolkits for the administrators and the staff to be able to generate resources and see insights that they didn't previously have.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

All right. So um I use um Halo, the devotional app, which I which by the way is I are you familiar with it at all?

SPEAKER_01 2:36

I've I've heard of it. Yeah, I haven't used it personally.

SPEAKER_03 2:38

Well, you should look at it. It's very sophisticated. Um, and of course, it gets it. They spend a lot of money advertising it and all that, but it's it's very it, there's a a breadth of stuff in there. There are prayers, they're devotionals, and of course, it's Catholics, so there's certain kinds of there's rosaries all the days. It's all there. You have many different voices from clergymen to nuns to the likes of Mark Wahlberg and and what's his name? Pratt, the the actor. Um Chris Pratt. Um, so you can tell me, you can tell what generation I'm in. So anyway, so that's uh um they've done a very good job of it. And the um uh the um um I I well I had a friend of mine who's who's uh uh chaplain of uh of a uh of a Christian college, and I said, here here, Grant, I want you to listen to this. And one thing he liked about it was the and I hadn't thought about the devotionals are recorded in a way they give you plenty of time to respond to them. If they ask you to ponder this or ponder that or pray for this or pray for that, there's plenty of space. He said, Oh, this is paced really well, so you're not rushed through it. So, but anyway, so um does the church create the content? You create the content? How does that work?

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Yeah, so uh it's taking the church's content that's already been preached. Um so the sermon works, you know, all week. Um, and then you preach the sermon and it hopefully falls on some ears who are listening that are actually taking that seed and letting it be implanted in their heart to where they they're thinking about it more, applying it. But uh most of the time it gets forgotten. And so uh you take that sermon and you upload it to Tapos, and now it's just a part of your content library that you can search through, ask questions, generate resources to continue discipleship. Uh and so we're we're essentially taking pastor's content and uh making it accessible.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

Okay. All right. All right, yeah. Well, you're are you are you ordained, Nick? I am. Okay. Well, I have a theological education, but I'm not ordained. I I was at Yellow Divinity School when Henry Nowen was there. But that's another another topic. Um the um of course I come from a different tradition than you, I'm sure. I come from an Anglo-Catholic tradition. So any any sermon that's more than 15 minutes, it's done. We're out of here. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

And so you do you mute the mic, the sound guy in the back?

SPEAKER_03 5:21

Play the music? Well, the the rector's just figured out, you know, no one's listening after 15 to 16 minutes. And and and in many ways that's true, because human nature is such that, and that's before the information age shrunk the attention spans down to nanoseconds. That's before then. Um and the other thing, and of course, you if you're an expository uh minister or you prepare it, you know, and I know that to prevent present uh an idea in a shorter amount of time with fewer words requires more work.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

More work to get it to the point where it communicates, you know. And um, in uh uh when I was in the eighth grade, and yes, I was in the eighth grade at one point, um, I had an English teacher who would do that. We should give us a writing assignment, and then she'd say, Okay, do it again and have as many words. Do it again and have, and she would go through two or three cycles. It got really tough, Nick, to do that because you had to okay, how do I communicate this tersely?

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Yeah, the it it is so difficult um on Twitter or X, whatever, um, to try and communicate your thoughts in how many characters is it? 180 characters?

SPEAKER_03 6:39

They've actually doubled it now, but uh it's 200, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

They've doubled it, but yeah, it's still so try trying to break it down and go, what is the most effective thing that I can communicate and how to communicate it? Um Twitter's done a really good job of preparing us on in how to do that.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Yeah. Um so um is this you're both the founders of this thing, right? So tell me about how did this brain child come to be? Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, yeah. It it kind of comes back to what we were talking about there before of the um these sermons that are just out there that are just getting lost. Um, and so I was sitting in a Bible study. Uh, this is probably a year and a half, maybe even two years ago at this point. Um, and I was sitting there with with some guys, we're chatting, talking about some some topic, and there was something that we'd recalled vaguely that the pastor had said a couple weeks ago that was the exact thing that we needed in that moment to minister and to speak into you know the the topic we were discussing. Um, and so at some point we all pull out our phones and we're panning through YouTube. And after like five minutes of eight guys panning through YouTube videos trying to find that clip, we just gave up because we're like it's it's lost to the treasure trove of of these sermon archives. Um and that was when I realized like this is it's a travesty. Like we're sitting on just a gold mine worth of amazing Holy Spirit-inspired, gospel-centric truths in these sermon archives and podcast archives and commentaries and all these things that they're just not accessible. Um and so that that was kind of the inspiration. I was like, man, we got to build something better. And so my background is in engineering and I have a software development firm. And so I was like, all right, let me see if I can tackle this and just kind of as a side project to get started. And so um, I started building it out. Um, I went to my parents' church that I grew up going to because the vision here was what I would love to have is imagine when I'm sitting there struggling with anxiety or patience in my parenting or whatever you name it, whatever it is, um, to be able to go. Who would I want to go ask advice of? Um and so can I craft this round table essentially where I can go take the insights from my parents' church that grew up and then formed me as I was a teenager, my church I went to in college, the church I'm attending now, maybe some of these pastors that have spoken into my wife. And Nick's church as well, of course. Sorry. Um, and be able to seek wisdom from that round table of trusted voices. Um and so I started doing that. And uh when it really um the first moment when I was like, oh man, this is there's something really here was I was sitting in an Uber and we just a very, very beta version of the product out there, just with my parents' church that I'd grown up going to. They had decades worth of content that we brought in from their YouTube channels and trained up the AI on. Um and I was sitting there, and this Uber driver opens up with me that he's recovering from addiction. Um, I personally don't have that in my story, and thank the Lord, but the um because of that, I don't have the wisdom or the experience to speak into that, you know, in a very meaningful or authentic way. Um and so what I was able to do though in that moment was a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Well, you could do can I do what the Pharisees always do, just condemn him and move on.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, and just say, I'll be right back. I could just say, Hey, I'll pray for you. How about that?

SPEAKER_03 10:03

See, Nick, we were talking about this before he got on, and I said, you know, that unfortunately there's a good stripe of today's evangelicals that would fit into the Pharisaical category uh today. All about judging, all about pat responses, you know, uh uh uh pardon my French, my shit don't stink. Okay, uh kind of thing. And yet what does St. Paul say to us? He says, even our very best efforts are just tawdry and filthy, they so far below what God expects, you know. And I think some people forget what that word grace means, it means unmerited favor. We didn't deserve any of this. Hello. I said that once. We're I was in a I was in a Bible study. You'll love this, Preston. And I come out of a tradition where there's a big big um focus on sanctification, you know, and there was this thinking of, well, more or less saying, you know, we're gonna get there. I said, Oh no, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no. What we deserve is hell and damnation. People looked at me and I said, What we receive is grace, which is unmerited favor. Of course, the other meaning of that word would be in the um, you know, uh the uh the uh monarch, uh the the ear of the monarchies, you know, the monarch gave you grace in a situation, he would give you unmerited favor. Maybe you didn't deserve it, maybe you did commit that crime, but he had the power to give you grace. You see, it's the same, it's the same application there. So yeah, but I liked it, Nick. He he he caught you. That's okay. Keep going.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

And uh you're exactly right, though. That's the whole point, is like there's so much of the church today, uh, and I'm I'm guilty of this myself, where I'll just listen and consume on Sunday, um, and then just go out through the rest of the week and like, oh, you know, I checked off my box for the week. So I can go off. I don't have to engage with the culture, I don't have to engage with my Uber drivers. I can just give them the the cursory, oh yeah, sorry, man, I'll pray for you. Uh, instead of, you know, clearly it's working in that moment. Yeah. Clearly, God was working in that moment there. And so be you know, wanting to be able to speak into that. And so what I was able to do in that moment was pull up Tapos and say, Hey, give me some advice on just ways to speak authentically and you know, gospel truth into someone recovering from addiction. Um didn't give me a script, I could have asked it for a script, but that's not what I was going for.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

But he gave you he gave you heartbelt advice, he gave you heartbuilt advice. And this was all the conversation to it.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

More than that, it gave them biblical advice. It wasn't just pulling at heartstrings, it was rooted in in scripture.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Because it's based on this church's content.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

They've had freedom ministries, they've had sermon series, kind of you know, so this Uber driver was sitting in driving you around, and you say, you know, this is what I'm doing, and out comes this.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Well, uh, we just start talking about life. Like we I didn't know.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

I know, but my point is this was no accident, okay. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's just it's like here's here's why, though. You made yourself available to this man. Yep, you didn't just you know dismiss him or do like when I was living in New York, the last thing you want to do is talk to the damn taxi driver. You just want to get there, you know, you've got too much going on in your life, you know. And Ubers are a little friendlier. Um, you're not sitting in some hole in the back of a checker cab with this thing up between you, but still, you know, it's um you can certainly keep that distance.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Now, Larry, do you Larry, do you think it's Uber drivers are nicer, or is it just New York versus Texas?

SPEAKER_03 13:38

I know is it southern or Chicago? I'm not going there. You know, just don't get me started. All right, you know, it's just you know, see, Texans have one thing in common. They all have very, very, very large heads. Um, everything's bigger in Texas, you know?

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Yeah. Oh, you know, did you know? Did you know the Texas state motto is uh not everything is bigger in Texas? It's actually friendship. Can you believe that? It's ironic there. They have a soft heart.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Well, and yes, I mean you you take it's like anything else. It's like you know, New Yorkers get blasted for stuff that is just simply you know overdone. Texas do the same thing, you know. I I'm not horses to work, you do all wear your horses to work, right? Um always, yeah. And uh and wear cowboy boots everywhere. Um, although I I was in Dallas in April and attending a conference, and I um uh there was a man uh uh I had a coup one of my best friends in college lives there, and so he him, him and his wife took me out to dinner one evening. We went to Fort Worth, you know, and there were some really fancy cowboy boots and fancy outfits down there, I tell you. And um yeah, yeah. Now I live in Idaho, so I have cowboy boots, you know. I I have those things, and my wife is a horsewoman. Um, so I've learned to ride, Nick. Um, I I was definitely Billy Crystal when we started. Um, and I knew that I had uh I had made it when she told my sister-in-law, I don't have to worry about him falling off anymore. Okay. So um, and I remember my big thing I I always wanted to do it, but the big thing I learned was riding a horse is a cooperative venture between you and the animal. It's you have to collaborate together to make it happen. You know, it isn't just giving the horse commands and hoping for the best. Yeah. Um but uh so it was an Uber driver. I'm I'm still fascinated, but you know, we miss so many opportunities when we don't have when we don't take time or we don't just kind of say, what's what's what's what could happen here? You know, what what's and then this is something that actually, well, I think annoy would be too strong a word, but uh certainly it's something that uh uh my wife doesn't always feel comfortable with because whenever we travel, uh whether it's in a hotel or or in an elevator car or at the airport, I'm just always talking to people, total, complete strangers. I'll say, hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you learn some really great things, by the way, Nick. You do. I mean, and more often than not, people really want to engage you in conversation. Um, and of course, you with a little humor, it always works, you know. Um, so that uh, but see, that's you have to be open to possibilities. And that's what I tell her. You're gonna be open to possibilities. She's in finance, Nick. Can you tell?

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Um my wife's the exact same way. Type A, she's a pediatrician, will not talk to strangers, and she gets so annoyed because I talk to everybody.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

Oh okay. So that's how it got started was you were in there and in this thing, and then how did the two of you hook up with each other? How'd that happen?

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, so we we go way back. Um, we uh we uh when I was in San Antonio, we were in the same Bible study together. Um so Nick was Nick was leading that Bible study then, and um you know, so we we stumbled along through Nick as he was learning the ropes. But no, our families are real close. We have kids around the same age, uh, we go on vacation together. So it was um as I started building this thing out. Um well well, Nick, I'll let you tell the story of when I called you with the idea. Please.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Yeah, so um yeah, let me clarify some things that Preston just said. Um our wives are close, our children are close, and you know, Preston's all right. We talk to each other. Yeah, we tell each other. Um, Preston calls me and he's like, dude, what do you think of this idea? And I go, okay, give it to me. And you know, Preston and I talk a lot about ideas, so it happens often. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So he's like, Man, could you imagine having all of your sermons accessible and public and shareable? And and I'm going, man, that sounds awful.

SPEAKER_03 18:05

Um it could be this, it could be the seventh level of hell, Nick, depending on what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

I was like, I don't I don't post on YouTube. I don't have social media, I don't want anyone hearing, you know, like what if what if I say something heretical or so all the F bombs he drops in uh sermon?

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

You would be the first person, let me tell you. If that's the worst thing you do, Nick, that's nothing. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

I I've seen some pretty bad things. Um, so um didn't know.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

Well, you know, I don't want to interrupt, you know that a lot of people in our acquaintance think that taking God's name in vain is uttering the oath, but it's not in Hebrew. Taking God's name in vain is actually using the name of God to feather your own nest for your own personal gain. Okay, so in our world of evangelicals, oh oh I'm a Christian plumber or I'm this or I'm that's what that means. You're invoking the name of Christ to help you in your business, you know. Self that's what that's what that what they're talking about, and you know that, you know. But but you say GD and people just kind of like, oh my god, they just go go nuts, you know, and that's not really what it is, you know. That's not a very pleasant thing to say, but that's not what we're talking about. So anyway, you you you're he's sharing this idea on you. I want to hear this.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Yeah, and so what Preston didn't know was uh my dad had just told me that he was gonna retire from pastoring for 20 years after 20 years of service. Um and so I was like, man, 20 years, let's say he's preached 40 to 50 times a year. That's a thousand sermons. Where are they? Um and so hearing Presson go, could you imagine having all this searchable? I'm going, man, I could have my dad's wisdom, and you know, I don't even have to talk to him anymore. I have all this content. Um just kidding.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

So I love it. You're so you're so yourself. I love this. I just love it.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

So jump so being able to jump on the platform, take my sermons, take my dad's sermons, and then now with my two sons, being able to hand all that over to them when they're you know of age and having grandpa and dad's wisdom um spoken over them and used was I mean, how do you pass up on an opportunity to do that? And so they're just a bunch of light bulbs going off of going, man, it could be used for this and this and this discipleship and this. Um and then getting my hands on the product and being able to shape and go, pastors want this, pastors need this, and and then watching Preston make it come to life is every day, it's exciting right now.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

So and the beauty of it is it's we're not seeking to replace Nick Stad. We're not seeking to replace the pastor, but there's such a bottleneck there. Like Nick Stad only's got so much time in a day.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Yeah. So then let me get this straight. You are taking existing content and customizing it for a custom use, meaning this is congregation specific.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Yeah, so our heart is for um the congregation. Our heart I'm a pastor, I love pastors, but essentially it's going, um you can use this product and you should, but we want to equip the saints for ministry and have more Uber stories to where people are actually being used by God in events where they're able to minister and feel equipped.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

So then uh let's say uh I'm trying to uh wrap my head around this. Um let's say I'm a minister at a parish and I'm pretty damn good expositor. And uh How would you so these sermons have to be captured in some way at the front end, correct? Um is it is it there's a deliberate attempt to record them and then they're transcribed, transmitted, simply copied? How does it work?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah, so we have a couple of you know ingestion mechanisms. Um so if if your stuff's recorded, if it's on YouTube, we can auto-pull from that. So we can auto-pull from a playlist every 30 minutes. So it's very simple, you know, if a lot of churches put their stuff on YouTube.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

So how so you're telling me a lot of churches now put their stuff on YouTube?

unknown 22:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Now, would this be pretty much evangelicals or would it include Catholics?

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Um I would say mostly evangelicals. Uh, I would say I can't speak to the Catholic side of it. Um, but but that's just one mechanism. There's also you can just drop the recordings into a drive that we pull from. They can be private drive. Uh it can you can upload the PDFs, you can upload the just the transcripts of the documents. Uh either way, we will transcribe it. So if it's just the raw audio of the sermon, that's the more you know Nick started recording his, I think, on video now, but previously it was just he would just record it on his phone. Yeah. Someone through his wife's phone or something.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Yeah, I've gone through every step. So uh the first three years I didn't record anything. So I just uploaded my PDF notes and put it on tapa, so now it has access to all of that.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Um and then I said, So these would you these would not be voice, it would be text that people could and then of course because of the because of the algorithm, the text can be searched, uh big contact terms, uh key terms. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Yeah, more than just more than just searched, also. Um whenever you ask a question, for so we want to lead out with trust. And so whenever you ask a question, we show you every source we pulled an answer from. And so then you can see all of the sources. Hey, it you know, we pulled from a sermon six years ago, 17 years ago, we pulled from these PDF notes, from this book, whatever it is. Uh, and then the user can actually go and click on the actual um uh content that was uploaded, and they can see my PDF notes right then and there. Or they can see the book.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

Yeah. Uh so this is sort of a this is sort of a mini large language model, sort of a mini AI application. That's what this is. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Exactly. It's essentially training up your own personalized AI for your congregation, but also you can also access third-party content as well. So, for example, Bible Bible Project has been extremely generous and offered up their entire corpus of material as a third-party source. So, think about like a small church plant. They started like last week. So they have no sermons, they have no library to train up their own AI.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Now, Nick looks, he looks pretty competent to me. All right. He looks pretty competent to me. Now, but I suspect that you you don't wear vestments, right, Nick. I see. He'd be a lot more, he'd be a lot more um, what's the word? Um believable if he had a surplus and chalice on. You know, okay, surplus and cassock. Okay, he's the dude. I can listen to what he has to say, you know. But that comes out of my background, Nick. Okay, it's like you you gotta have the uh gotta have the right clothes here for this for any job, you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

And but sometimes I wear shorts and boots when I preach.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Shorts and boots. Did you really have to tell me that? All right. Tank talking about the best. And here I was learning to respect you, you know. I mean, come on. That was a mistake. At least you're not in boxer shorts, that would be the ultimate worst. Well, you don't know. You only seen half of you like this guy? You like this guy?

SPEAKER_02 25:41

I told you he's he's decent. He's he's all right.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

This is this is half of our conversations, just this.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Well, I I am I'm really pleased that you feel that comfortable. I you know, this is great. That means I'm getting this straight. Stop. All right, I love it. Okay, so then so you do this congregation by congregation. Okay. So let's say that a congregation wanted to employ you or use this. Would they just call you up, Preston, or call you up, Nick, and say, I'm interested. How would the process unfold?

unknown 26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Go ahead, Nick.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

You you either go to www.tapos.app and there is a get started button, um, seven-step widget, and then your account's created, upload some content, and start engaging with the EAI. Uh, or you schedule a call with me and we jump on a call and we walk through everything.

unknown 26:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

That's usually the best way. Um our our product, to be honest, is a bit of a fire hydrant in terms of feature sets and functionality. Um we do have a an exciting update. This is this is first time this is public, actually, uh, is we have officially merged products with a company called LiveAI and the founder Eric Kidwell. Um, and so there's a lot of benefits that's coming from that. But the reason I mention it is it's a whole fresh uplift on kind of the design and the UI to make it a lot more a lot more accessible for someone to just sign up and and be able to walk through the process themselves, kind of in a self-service manner. Um the current way I would recommend with Topos would be to actually call Nick or I and we help you set it up just because there is a lot of functionality and features outside to navigate.

SPEAKER_03 27:19

And then it's um and then it's uh I guess it's priced on the basis of the number of users and the size of the content, how much is there?

SPEAKER_01 27:28

It's based on mostly based on content size. And so um, so we've intentionally, and this is I'm glad you asked this question. We we've intentionally not priced the features of the larger plan different than the features of the smaller plan. And the reason why is we want the the church plant to have the same feature sets and functionality as the megachurch. Um so the pricing tiers are purely based on the content size. So how much content you want to upload, how many different knowledge bases of content, and then how many different AIs do you want to have? So do you want to have one AI that's purely external facing that you have on your website, one AI that's purely internal, that's maybe just for your staff and your administrators and your pastors that can use, and maybe that has a little bit of different content that it's being able to pull from. Um so purely just based on essentially usage. Um the amount of AI calls and interactions that are being done and the size of the library that you want to store.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

And then we do have a free version also for churches that you know can't uh you may be a church plant, you may have $20 in your bank account. Uh there's a free version that we want to serve you guys with, also.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

Okay. All right. So all right, you guys are young. Um, well, in my view, you're young. Um neither of you have seen your 40th birthday yet. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

All right. That's young. Um, so that what's I mean, we're just projecting, but what's the future look like for you guys? I mean, you're a you're a gearhead, I'm an aforementioned electrical engineer, you're a minister. I did go through theological school. You you're coming out of two different sides of your brain. You obviously get along with one another. You see, you have common ideas of of of kind of how life is set up in the world. So, what would you like to do? Say in 10 years, where would you like to be? If I'm not asking too much.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

No, no, I love it. Um, so I I'm gonna answer this a little zoomed out first, but but it I promise I will get to your question. So, I mean where I see us being at, um, just collectively as as the world, uh, is at a very interesting inflection point with this AI uh revolution. We're basically coming out of the information age that shrunk all of our you know attention spans, but also provided just a massive amount of information. Some good, some bad, um, but none of that is digestible. Um, we are moving into this AI age where that all the information from the information age is now able to be accessed and utilized for a variety of different things, good and bad. And so, really, where I feel kind of a um a passion, I'll say, uh, in in this moment is to try and help the church and ministries navigate this space, um, which means things like Sora 2 dropping this week, um, starting to help churches navigate, hey, what does it look like to integrate that? And so Tapos really sits as kind of a foundational thing to build AI functionality and toolkits on top of. And so I could see, I mean, I I would love it if if, you know, Lord willing, we are able to continue moving forward and helping to build a foundational infrastructure for churches and ministries to basically utilize and harness the AI age for the amplificate amplification of the kingdom. Um, so I would love to keep doing this. Um, I also wouldn't mind just gardening in my backyard. We moved out into the country, and so that's uh been a ha a pastime of mine. And so uh I I I I also you know build AI apps, but I but I wouldn't mind just uh sitting out and gardening.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

That last that latter option probably implies some sort of exit strategy, Preston.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Um potentially, yeah. That's not necessarily the goal where we're we're building towards. Um but uh that you know that we're open to to something like that. Um if it if the the the opportunity came. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

No no political career, Preston, nothing, nothing like that.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

I think that's I think those have died. Yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe that's the 20-year mark.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

Okay, all right. Well, the you know, AI is something that is um um has a lot of potential either way. Um and um there's a there's a book you guys ought to read. It's called Cybernetics, C-Y-B-E-R-N-I-T-I-C-S, uh, by Norbert Wiener. And then Norbert Wiener was a um uh electrical engineer, actually at MIT. And this was written in the 50s before any of this came along, and he was foreseeing a lot of this. And it's it's it's pretty it's it's scary some of the things, some of the scenarios he paints. Um and he tells the story of the monkey's paw. Have you ever heard heard of the story of the monkey's paw?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

I don't think I mean I know what a monkey's paw is, but I will let you google that.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

You know, the it's the story of the monkey's paw. And um, but um I encourage you to read that book. It's it's one of the really stark books early on, and this is from a uh a mathematician. Uh and he foresaw a lot of what we're seeing now. Um, and uh so that it's it's it's a little book, it's not real big. I don't know where I don't think I have it in here. Uh I do have it. I think it's it must be in the other room, I think. But I do have it. Um, but I would encourage you to get it. Uh and that if that doesn't raise the hair up off your head, nothing will. Okay, because you're seeing the confirmation of a lot of the things that were put into print 65, 70 years ago. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

So the the potential here to for this to go very south uh is very real, uh, which is why I think Nick and I, yes, we enjoy what we do, don't get me wrong. Uh we have fun, but but there's also a a sense of urgency in that unless this is crafted in a way that is intentionally generous and intentionally gospel aligned, um, you know, teens, everyone really, uh I feel like at this point uses AI to go answer questions. You've got teens going out there asking, hey, can I have sex with my girlfriend to chat GPT? And the response that you get back to the case. See, this is a good feeling. It's up to you.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

This is generational. I would never ask a friggin' machine life questions. Excuse me. I mean, hello. Because somebody generation they are. They're see, somebody had to load somebody had to load those options into that machine. It didn't think on its own. It's whatever has been loaded in there, as you know. And for me to like, I can't believe this. Now, I've just recently begun to use any kind of AI because mainly my uh my my sales guy said, Larry, you know, I know you're a superb writer, blah blah blah. I don't use it to write, but what it can do if you just put a few things out there, it can give you some new takes on terms that you've not thought of, okay, because you get into boxes, and it was pretty good with that. You know, I use chat GPT, excuse me, but uh to ask life questions and expect an authoritative answer, hell no.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

I mean, but but so many people are like, and that's that's the thing, and it's only gonna keep growing um as it gets more realistic and the voice is a bit like it's it's moving that direction. And so it's we're at this inflection point where it has to be very carefully crafted and guided, and the church needs to be on the forefront of hey, how do we utilize this in a in a trusted, in a gospel-centric and aligned way that it is aligned with the core Christian beliefs?

SPEAKER_03 35:14

Have you familiar with the case a few months ago where this man who was a semi-retired uh data expert lived in uh Connecticut, and he was talking to this AI thing, and it convinced him that his mother was trying to kill him, and it was all fictional. The guy's paranoid, so he kills his mother and commits suicide. Yeah, all of the basis of whatever this bot was telling him. Oh my god, that's scary.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

I mean, that's the danger.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

It's it's and he wasn't he was in his 50s. This man was in his 50s. Yeah, he should have known better. Um, I don't think he was all that tied down to begin with, but um anyway.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Um But still, I mean the point is there's so many like people like that. Like and it's so without this unchecked, so so can we provide, can we as the church provide a lamppost where someone, hey, maybe I'm not able to connect with a minister right now, maybe I'm not willing to do that, but but hey, I can go to this church's website and I can ask questions and know that the sources and the responses are be going to be grounded in truth and actually tied to real sermons or real podcasts or real commentaries from that church as a trusted resource, as opposed to just asking.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

That to me, excuse me, that to me is the real power of this thing. Okay. It's it's not in simply searching and parroting back someone's words, um, you know, so that Nick can can prepare his next sermon next week without too much effort. Um, but uh I hate to say that, Nick. I know how that works. Anyway, so um I have to tell you about my uh um one of my uh well uh uh well I'll tell you later because it's taking up too much time. But um my uh you you you you've taken uh uh biblical Greek, Kohnate Greek, correct?

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Uh no, I'm not I'm not uh um what's the word I'm looking for? Uh I have not been to seminary. I've only done my religious studies degree from a liberal college.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

Oh, okay. All right. Well, I went to theological school and I took both biblical languages, and uh the way they teach um uh Koine Greek, this the street Greek of the first century, is they give you a um a grammar and then you use the Greek New Testament, and then you translate certain pieces of that. And one thing you learn very quickly is that you see the differences in the style and sophistication of the biblical authors much more starkly than you do in the English translations. Uh, for instance, the simplest uh uh work in the New Testament are the is the Johanna material. Uh John um has a very simple vocabulary, simple sentences. And then at the other end, you have the work of St. Paul, which was a very complex vocabulary and compound sentences. Very you could just see it. There are two different people that wrote this, you know. And they obviously use start you with the simple stuff first. Okay. Well, um I uh I was at Yale, I told you, and then it was a five-night a week class, and they assign you every night. Well, you learn very quickly that the English version that is the most literal of any of them is the new American standard, and just word for word, no idiom introduced, no extra phrases, nothing. Okay. So on this one particular evening, and this has been a few years ago, I decided instead of doing my my translation, I wanted to go to Harry's Bar with my friends. So I went to Harry's Bar with my friends. And the next morning in a class of around 12 or 13 people, and this was back in the days when uh, well, what is that? I mean, this is for big boys and big girls, and either you fit in or you don't. That's just the whole attitude. And uh, and I, you know, my my teacher, you know, uh Child's was one of the top two uh scholars in the world in this subject, and so he starts off, and everyone was by their never called you by your first name. Mr. Johnson, would you start us in our recitation this morning, please? Well, I swear I wasn't more than three words out, and I crippled it, of course. And he's he just announces to the class, class, it's obvious Mr. Johnson came unprepared, Mr. Jones. Will you continue? Just cuts me off and goes back. And he was telling me, he was saying to me, don't ever, ever do that again. Just don't show up, you know. So this was a take no prisoner's addict a place, you know, and uh I felt like I was the dumbest person there, Nick. Let me tell you. But um, it was that way. But yeah, but but that's it's like there, whoa. And so, but anyway, I the I like this. I like this very much. So if if we may we I may want to do another one of these with you. Um, do you have a is there a is there a case study that you could pull up and we could do we could make a whole podcast out of? May you change the names to protect the guilty. I mean, you know. Um, but um well, if someone wanted to to, I mean, we have we'll have this will be published with a bio, of course, but if someone wanted to get in touch with you, um where the what what email, what website, where should they go?

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yeah, if you want to reach out, so our email is hello at topos t-a-p-os.app ap. Um, so hello at topos.app. You can also just go to our website and book a book a demo that'll be with either me or Nick. Um so you're getting straight to straight to the the founders there. Um so we we'd love we we it it brings us such joy to walk through people through the product and show them what it can do and just see the light bulbs and the the eyes light up of like, oh wow, that solves this problem and like that the potential for what this can do. Um it's it's such an encouragement, uh, and it's really why we do this is to help equip and empower the church through this.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

So okay. And where did the name Tapos come from?

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Yeah, great question. Uh I'm gonna tell you the original name. I think I think you'll enjoy this. Uh Nick's enjoying this. Oh, yeah, because Nick knows it. Yeah, so before Nick was involved, I won't throw Nick under the bus with the he would see this is before him. So when it was just me kind of ideating on this, um, I I love the name Sophia, like the I the idea of Sophia, the you know, wisdom there of the uh Greek, right? You know, obviously. I know I'm the problem.

SPEAKER_03 41:37

So she likes people.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

I was like, oh yeah, how can how can we use that and incorporate that in? And so I had like Mero Sophia, which I think like I don't remember what Mero stood for, but then I was like, I don't like that. And so I was like, all right, what about like you know, find Sophia, Seek Sophia? And so for a while there, I was running with like the operating name of like Seek Sophia. So we'll go seek and then I told my wife that. I think Seek Sophia is gonna be the name of the app. And she just stops and is like, no, that's that's a Russian dating site, is what you're building right there. The name Seek Sophia, it's all I will ever think is just a Russian dating site. And so from that moment on, I was like, okay, yeah, we gotta find something new.

SPEAKER_03 42:16

So Seek Sophia, you know, this is uh, you know, uh uh what is it um uh mail order bride, you know?

SPEAKER_01 42:22

And they they show up for we might need to buy that domain and then redirect it because I think the marketing campaign there is a well I'm serious.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

If you know, if there's anything you want to try to eliminate, you buy the domain and make it go to because uh well, because you know, you know, the people do that all the time. You know, it's these these women want to get out of Eastern Europe in a bad way, and um, and then they got this, you know, wealthy Texan who wants them to come to Texas to get married. Man, they'll show up, you know. Um, how many movies have been done on that theme? Okay, so anyway, so then the real name though.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Yeah, so the real name came from so the idea is um, you know, we use the metaphor of like a treasure trove of wisdom that we're sitting on, but also you know, the the way I think about this as well is like, hey, we have these threads of wisdom that are sitting out there, these these sermons, these podcasts, these threads of witness sitting out there. And so, what would it look like to weave those together into a tapestry of truth or a tapestry of wisdom that we can wrap around ourselves as we actually go out into the day? So instead of just listening and consuming on Sunday, let's actually take those threads of wisdom and wrap around ourselves and go and you go into the world and utilize and make disciples with and equipped and empowered by the wisdom of the church uh that we're attending or the sources that we've we've brought in. And so tapos means this comes from tapestry of logos, so trap tapestry of wisdom or truth, um, kind of a mashup of the two. And so you can kind of see in the logo, we may actually change that. Yeah, it's kind of like a loom, like kind of the pen of the loom with the threads of the tapestry underneath.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

Okay, well, um, well, I'm gonna call it, I'm gonna close now, but we're gonna do this again. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to use an example. We're gonna go through an example, all right? Yep, okay. Well, I want to thank the audience today and those of you who've taken a little time to share with us in this. And uh, I certainly appreciate Preston and Nick doing this. Uh well, they're really cool dudes, you know, and that says a lot, you know. Uh if you you know, if you're not having fun, guys, you're not it isn't life, right? What do you do?

SPEAKER_01 44:27

What are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 44:28

You're gonna have fun. So, and they're also very serious at the same time. Uh, thank you very much for spending your time today with us. Um, we appreciate that. And uh audience next week, somebody else with somebody else to learn. Thank you for listening today. Join us for our next episode when I'll have another thought provoking leader as my guest. Guest comments and opinions are their own. The recording is copyright by the eight principles, all rights reserved.