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On Sunday, July 14, 2024, our Congregational Church of Patchogue offered an all-AI-written service. Everything, including the invocation, prayers, music, sermon, and benediction were AI. Almost two years later, on May 25, 2026, Pope Leo XIV wrote an 83 page encyclical (manifesto) about AI. In it, he said, "we must ask God for the wisdom to interpret the great trends of our time, particularly technological advances. In recent years, it has become increasingly evident how rapidly and profoundly digitalization, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are transforming our world."
This Sunday, June 7th, at 10 a.m. ET, in-person (95 East Main St.) and on the Facebook page of the Congregational Church of Patchogue, we will not offer a service fully written by AI (although there is one AI-written surprise). Rather, we will offer "Our Future Artificially Intelligent Church." During it, we will honor and recognize our 233 year old church housed in our magnificent National Registry of Historic Places building. We have gone through many traditions, transitions, and transformations in the past 233 years. But, like it or leave it, deny or accept it, we are going through a dramatic and huge transformation now. Will our congregation and the church writ large survive and even thrive in this transition also?
On Sunday, we will reflect on God, congregation, and community in the past and present. I will offer, in my sermon, a vision of the possible transformation of church and ministry beyond anything we have seen and perhaps can even imagine. Music includes traditional hymns as well as, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears. As always, in the congregational tradition, we will not pitch the correct answer, but we will unearth and envision some marvelous questions. "Fear not!" (as it says in the Bible, over and over again). Every ending is a new beginning.
Peace and Other Blessings,
Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter, AKA,
Pastor Dwight
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