Most churches aren't short on data. They're short on seeing it. Check-ins, giving, volunteer schedules, next steps: it's all sitting in Planning Center. Five years ago, turning that into a real dashboard took a big budget and a developer. Today, AI has shrunk that gap to a few hours and a little curiosity.
Pastor Aaron Grijalva of RISE Church in San Antonio put it honestly on the podcast. For years, "How was Sunday?" got answered by feel. A packed room with free ice cream was a great Sunday. Memorial Day weekend was a terrible one. Neither answer told the team much.
You can't lead well on feelings alone. Here's how three pastors are using AI to see their churches clearly, and how you can start this week.
AI is a multiplier. If your data is messy, it will multiply the mess. Pastor David Russell of Rise Church in Chattanooga said the only churches not ready for this are the ones without good records. The good news is AI can help with that too. Give it an export from Planning Center and ask it to find duplicate profiles, misspelled names, and people sitting in the wrong membership category. Then let your team fix them.
Don't measure everything. Aaron's team started with a whiteboard and electrical tape: attendance, kids, volunteers, baptisms, and next steps, week over week. Start with six to eight numbers, and use a five-week rolling average instead of a single Sunday. One rainy weekend shouldn't set your mood for a week.
Aaron's team had spreadsheets and printouts. Nobody looked at them. Then an engineer in his church saw the whiteboard, used Claude to build a dashboard, and mounted it on a vertical TV in the office. Now the numbers are in front of the staff every day. In marketing we say a message has to be seen before it can work. Data is the same.
This is where it gets powerful. Pastor Jeremy Burroughs of Catalyst Church in Washington, D.C. feeds AI three years of data and asks one question: where is the boat leaking? His church is growing in attendance and giving, but AI noticed they weren't adding to the Dream Team fast enough and that groups had slowed. Small leaks today become big problems eighteen months from now. Try prompts like:
This might be the most important step. David's dashboards don't just show volunteer totals. They sort people into lists:
Every name on the at-risk list gets a phone call from a team leader. The goal isn't a prettier report. It's making sure nobody falls through the cracks.
First, stay Spirit-led and keep thinking. Jeremy tells his staff never to take what AI says at face value. Numbers tell a story, just not the whole story. Second, don't over-AI your church. Aaron once caught a staff member "building an app to fix the app." If it isn't helping you care for people, it's busywork with better graphics.
Pick one problem. Maybe it's volunteer retention or first-time guest follow-up. Export the data, ask AI what it sees, and see what's possible. That's how you gain momentum, grow your church, and go the distance.
David, Aaron, and Jeremy go much deeper on the Build the Church Podcast, including how David turns every Sunday message into captions, an article, and a discussion guide. Watch the full conversation and every episode on the Build the Church YouTube channel.
Connect with David at rise.church (@david_russell), Aaron at risechurchtx.com, and Jeremy at yourcatalystchurch.com (@jeremyburroughs).
This post is brought to you by yourteam.church. Jeremy's data showed his biggest leak was Dream Team growth. YourTeam helps your people discover how God wired them and connects them to a team where they'll thrive, with a custom branded URL for your next-steps class, AI-powered team matching, and a volunteer dashboard that syncs with Planning Center. Try the Pro tier free for 30 days at yourteam.church.
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