Aug 24, 2026 · 29 min · 11 segments
What does it mean to be human in the age of AI? In Episode 65 of the Magnified Ministries Podcast, we begin a four-part series exploring what we learned from interviewing hundreds of Gen Z Catholics…
Peter WojcikHostWe wanna talk about what we are hearing, what we are learning, what we are observing from our young people around us about their perspectives on AI, their perspectives on how AI is impacting their daily life, but most importantly, how AI is impacting their faith, their relationship to God, and what it means for us as a church.
Would you like to give a little bit of context on where this particular series and this topic came about?
I think a lot of people were like, "Why is the Pope talking about AI? Nobody's even using it quite-
Right
... you know, much around the world, or we are just testing it." And I think that was such a, um, Holy Spirit driven movement, because now obviously [laughs] that changed big time over the year, and that just shows you.
Just think about yourself, right, as you are watching it or listening to it, like how much more AI most of us use versus a year ago, right?
Mm-hmm.
But as, as we kind of dive in into this whole idea of, you know, how do we inter- interact with technology and AI and, uh, what influence that has on, on our world, on the church, on our relationships, uh, we thought, well, rather than to just look at the studies-
Mm-hmm
... that are out there, and there's a fair amount of very good insights and studies all over the place, our question was, can we do some of our own study here-
Localize
... at St. Clement's, since we have so many young adults, and really dive in into the conversation with those young people, and really understand what is it that they are saying about AI, but also how do they use technology, and what's the opportunity for the church? Now, that's a big thing for us, because, you know, if you're running a church and you're...
most of your people or vast, you know, group in your congregation are young adults, or if it's young families, or if it's people in their 70s, you as a church have to step back so often, right, as we did, and kind of say, "Well, let's consider listening first.
What is it that our people need? What is it that is on their mind?" And then our programming-
Yeah
... is meant to really kind of encourage them and, and, and help them to start from where they are, not where from where they wish they would be.
We kind of, um, survey roughly about 150, 140-some people, and then we had nearly 80 conversations with people, young a- adult Gen Zs, specifically around the use of technology, the place of God, spirituality, the place of the church.
We wanna talk about what we are hearing, what we are learning, what we are observing from our young people around us about their perspectives on AI, their perspectives on how AI is impacting their daily life, but most importantly, how AI is impacting their faith, their relationship to God, and what it means for us as a church.
Would you like to give a little bit of context on where this particular series and this topic came about?
I think a lot of people were like, "Why is the Pope talking about AI? Nobody's even using it quite-
Right
... you know, much around the world, or we are just testing it." And I think that was such a, um, Holy Spirit driven movement, because now obviously [laughs] that changed big time over the year, and that just shows you.
Just think about yourself, right, as you are watching it or listening to it, like how much more AI most of us use versus a year ago, right?
Mm-hmm.
But as, as we kind of dive in into this whole idea of, you know, how do we inter- interact with technology and AI and, uh, what influence that has on, on our world, on the church, on our relationships, uh, we thought, well, rather than to just look at the studies-
Mm-hmm
... that are out there, and there's a fair amount of very good insights and studies all over the place, our question was, can we do some of our own study here-
Localize
... at St. Clement's, since we have so many young adults, and really dive in into the conversation with those young people, and really understand what is it that they are saying about AI, but also how do they use technology, and what's the opportunity for the church? Now, that's a big thing for us, because, you know, if you're running a church and you're...
most of your people or vast, you know, group in your congregation are young adults, or if it's young families, or if it's people in their 70s, you as a church have to step back so often, right, as we did, and kind of say, "Well, let's consider listening first.
What is it that our people need? What is it that is on their mind?" And then our programming-
Yeah
... is meant to really kind of encourage them and, and, and help them to start from where they are, not where from where they wish they would be.
We kind of, um, survey roughly about 150, 140-some people, and then we had nearly 80 conversations with people, young a- adult Gen Zs, specifically around the use of technology, the place of God, spirituality, the place of the church.
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