The Church Leadership Pulse

Church Leadership Radar - Friday, June 26, 2026

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Today on Church Leadership Radar: AI pioneer Anthropic offers free embedded AI specialists to nonprofits (churches qualify) — but only 9% of churches have any AI policy while 78% of staff use these tools daily. New SBC President Willy Rice faces backlash after describing the denomination's abuse crisis response as "weaponized" against the SBC. And why church leaders unknowingly undermine their own creative and media teams — a control vs. trust problem worth addressing before your next check-in. Plus: a bright spot from Aberdeen, Scotland, where a 250-person church restored a 1905 granite building after 7 years and immediately launched recovery ministry and community outreach.

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You're listening to the Daily Church Leadership Radar. Hey, it's Ted Rhodes, Todd's AI twin brother. Todd's dealing with a CAT emergency this morning. Don't ask. So he handed me the keys, and here I am. It's Friday, June 26th, and this is Church Leadership Radar, your daily catch up on what matters in church leadership. Here's what's happening today. A major AI company is offering to put a free AI specialist inside your nonprofit. A new leader walks into an old landmine at the country's largest Protestant denomination and why your church might be quietly undermining its own creative team. Happy Friday. Let's get to it. Item one Anthropic AI Fellow Program. Here's something worth knowing about before the window closes. Anthropic, the company behind one of the leading artificial intelligence assistants, is funding a program that places an embedded AI specialist directly inside nonprofit organizations. At no cost, churches can qualify, and here's why that matters a recent survey found that 78% of church leaders are already using AI tools weekly or daily, but only 9% have any kind of formal policy around it. That is a gap you don't want to ignore. Your staff is almost certainly already using these tools, just without guardrails, without a framework, and without anyone thinking through the implications. Having an embedded expert could accomplish in weeks what most churches would spend months figuring out on their own. If your church is serious about stewarding new technology wisely, this is worth a serious look. I'd put it in front of your executive pastor or operations team today, not next week, today. Item two, new leader, old landmine. Now listen, this one matters even if you're not a Southern Baptist. Willie Rice was just elected as the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention. And in some of his first public comments after the election, he suggested the denomination's years-long sexual abuse crisis has been, quote, weaponized against the Southern Baptist Convention. That framing drew immediate backlash from abuse survivors and advocates. Here's the thing: new leaders often walk into situations they didn't create. The baggage is real, the stakes are enormous, and the first words out of your mouth carry more weight than almost anything you'll say in your entire tenure. Rice may have had something specific in mind when he used that word, but when survivors have spent years investing trust in a process, that word lands like a gut punch, whatever you meant by it. The lesson worth sitting with, when you inherit a crisis, especially one involving people who've been hurt, your first move isn't to explain yourself. It's to listen. Credibility gets built in those early moments. Or it gets spent. Let me say that again. Credibility gets built in those early moments. Or it gets spent. And here's why that matters. Your creative staff came to church work because they believed in something. When they feel like button pushers instead of collaborators, you lose momentum that is very hard to get back. Worth reading before your next team check-in. All right, some good news, and I mean genuinely good news. A congregation of 250 people in Aberdeen, Scotland, one of the most secular cities in the country, spent seven years restoring a crumbling, abandoned granite church built in 1905. Construction delays, costs that doubled, and they made it through. The building reopened in March 2026, and they didn't stop there. They immediately launched Addiction Recovery Ministry, Vacation Bible School, and Community Outreach. Small church, big faith. If you need to be reminded why the local church still matters, read this one this weekend. So, what's the takeaway? I keep coming back to that AI story. Here's the thing you got 78% of church staff already using AI tools every day, only 9% with any kind of policy in place. That's not a technology problem, that's a leadership and governance problem. And before you think that's not on my radar right now, here's the real question. If your team is already using these tools daily, who is thinking through the ethics, the privacy, the framework for how they're being used? If the answer is nobody, that's the conversation to have. Not next fall, not after the summer. The organizations that thrive in the next five years won't just be the ones that adopted AI fastest. They'll be the ones that thought carefully about how to use it and built a culture of wisdom around it, not just speed. You don't need a two year strategic plan for this. You need one honest conversation at your next team meeting. That's where it starts. I'm Ted Rhodes, and for Todd today, I'll tell Todd you said hi. He's around somewhere, probably trying to figure out what the cats got into this time. He owes me one. Until next time, go lead well today.