Prompt Engineering for Consecrated Persons

AI can be put at the service of the Gospel. One has to use prompt engineering to set AI to serve the Church and the Gospel. Prompts are the right instructions or questions that a person gives or ask that guide a language model like Chat-GPT. AI like Chat-GPT can assist religious to draft a talk or sermon on a specific theme. Thus, for instance, a priest who has to preach a person on the theme of love of God and has specific text of the bible like John 3: 16 as a basic text can use Chat-GPT as a help to draft outline, come up with good sermon title, develop attention catching illustrations, research other verses etc. There are different AI performing different tasks. Here we shall only deal with Chat-GPT, a large language model that gives human language like responses and seek how it can assist a religious person to enhance the effectiveness of his/her ministry.

All of us go through what may be best described as writers block. Priests and religious can also suffer this block as they seek inspiration for a theme for their next spiritual talk or sermon. In such situations, Chat-GPT can be a good source of inspiration for novel ideas. Asking questions like ‘what are some great topics for spiritual talks or sermons?’ are too generic and will not help. It will only give general topics. Hence, one has to be more specific. Let us say, we may instruct Chat-GPT, ‘ I want to preach a sermon on the beatitudes in the Gospel of St. Mathew and St. Luke ‘. In this situation, we are more likely to get specialized help’. With this specific theme, we can ask for an outline of our talk or sermon. We can ask for a suitable title, we can ask for slides, we can also ask for mind catching illustration. But in each case, we will have to prompt specific instructions to Chat-GPT.

Chat-GPT can assist us to organize our thoughts by providing outline of our sermon or talk, complete with heading, subheading and bullet points. Thus, Chat-GPT can help us to maintain a logical flow of talk or sermon. Thus, for instance, if we want a sermon/ talk on God’s love and adoption based on Ephesians 1: 15, we will have to instruct Chat-GPT in the following manner: ‘ I want to focus on how God’s loving adoption of us into his family changes the way we see ourselves and others. I want to end the sermon by asking the audience to either adopt or donate to an adoption agency. Do you understand?’ Chat-GPT might offer the following reply: ‘I understand . Based on what you have requested, here is an outline for your sermon:

I. Introduction
Start by acknowledging how family shapes our life
Introduce the concept of adoption and how it mirrors God’s love
Share a personal story or anecdote that highlights the power of adoption

II. God’s Adoption of us
Discuss how God’s love for us is demonstrated through adoption
Explore how God’s adoption changes the way we see ourselves and others
Emphasize adoption by God as gift and grace not earned by us.

III. Our responses
Explain as adopted children of God, we are called to share his love with others
Discuss how adopting or donating to an agency can be a tangible way of to demonstrate God’s love or give our response to God’s love.

We can edit the inputs of Chat-GPT. The next thing is that we need to craft an attention grabbing title for our talk or sermon. It is said that we do not judge the book by its cover, yet we have to agree that a good caption for a talk goes a long way to catch attention and interest of the people. We therefore, have to prompt Chat-GPT saying ‘ I need thought-provoking or humorous title for the sermon/ talk’ . But one has to be specific. Hence, one has to instruct Chat-GPT saying ‘ I need titles for my sermon . Give me 10 thought-provoking titles that mention God, adoption and Ephesian 1: 5’ . To this prompt, one may receive the following prompt reply: ‘Here are ten potential titles for your sermons:
1. Chosen for Adoption: Understanding God’s Love Through Ephesians 1:5
2. From Orphan to Heir: How God’s Adoption Reflect God’s love
3. The Father of Adoption: Discovering God’s Heart for Families… etc.’
We can, thus, using specific instructions get Chat-GPT to give us several potential titles and choose the best that we find as suitable for us.

Chat-GPT can give us memorable illustrations for our talks or sermons. Chat-GPT cannot just give us great ideas for illustrations but can write an entire script. One can, therefore, ask Chat-GPT, ‘write me a somber sermon illustration about adoption. To this prompt Chat-GPT replies
‘certainly, here’s a somber sermon illustration about adoption:

Imagine a child who has been waiting for years to be adopted. They have spent their entire life longing for the love and security that comes from being a part of a family. Finally, a family comes forward and decides to adopt the child. The child is overjoyed at the thought of finally having a permanent home and a family to call their own.

But what if that family then changed their mind and decided not to adopt the child alter all? How devastating that would be for the child, who had finally allowed themselves to hope for a better future.

This is the reality for many children who are waiting to be adopted. They have been let down and disappointed by broken promises and shattered dreams. Yet, in the midst of this heartbreak, we are reminded of God’s love and faithfulness towards us.

In Ephesians 1:5, Paul writes that “God predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.” Unlike the broken promises of human adoption, God’s adoption is unchanging and eternal. He will never abandon us or let us down.

The somber reality of failed adoptions should lead us to recognize the depth of God’s love and the security that comes from being adopted by him. May we find hope and comfort in the knowledge that we are loved and cherished by our Heavenly Father, who has adopted us into his family through the sacrifice of his Son on the cross.’

We can also make slides for our sermon or talk with the help of Chat-GPT. To get going we have to give specific instructions: ‘ create points for slide prestation from the given content’ ( paste the entire content). Chat-GPT will promptly give us the content arranged in sild format. Then we have to export the content organized by Chat-GPT to Canva AI and it will convert the same into power-point presentation. There are several other application of Chat-GPT that can assist the religious in their ministry. It is for each religious and priests to discover it and learn prompt engineering to access the same and make optimum use of the for ministry and the kingdom of God.