What if the secret to keeping pace with AI isn't working harder, but working together? In this builder panel, three leaders make the case that open collaboration isn't just efficient, it's deeply Christian.
James Poulter hosts a conversation with:
Recorded at Missional AI 2025 in Dallas, the conversation covers why the church should reject a scarcity mindset, how AI is opening building to non-developers, and why no one has to keep up with AI alone.
Real community requires consistent commitment and a willingness to give sacrificially, even when it makes no sense for the bottom line.
Many ministries build overlapping technology, so how do we avoid acting like competitors in a kingdom with no competition? For James Kelly, the key word in community is commitment. Attending an event once a year isn't community. Being consistently committed to people, building trust over time, is.
Jesus defined the greatest love as laying down your life, so community in AI has to be sacrificial. One of FaithTech's core commitments is generosity: giving even when it doesn't make sense for the bottom line. When people ask him to show where that shows up on the balance sheet, he says, "Now we're onto something."
Ali adds that we're incarnational, embodied beings, which means we're embodied with each other. There's no separating our work from who we are. Nick calls it "irrational generosity," the heart of open innovation: giving things away in a way that looks crazy to the world, because Christians are called to be generous.
Instead of every ministry building the same foundations alone, Gloo Open invites the community to build and share trusted data, aligned models and APIs.
Much of the digital world already runs on open-source software built by communities who share a need, Nick explains. That's a model for Christians, too. If everyone builds their own version, there are no economies of scale. But the faith community shares many needs:
Organizations will still protect intellectual property that's core to their mission. But by pooling contributions, however small, a community can "move mountains."
In practice, that starts with hackathons and gatherings, online and in person, where people compare the problems they're facing, find common ground and build together. Newer and more experienced builders mentor each other. The results, Ali says, consistently surprise them: websites, datasets, APIs and standalone apps that live on and get reused in new contexts.
James Kelly sees a big opportunity here. Respected ministries with great technology often hear from people who say, "I work at Google, but I'd love to help build your app." Yet you can't just say "come volunteer." You need clear pathways and real projects. Open-sourcing work, with community builders like Ali and Nick to steward contributors, can unlock what he calls an "unearthed mineral" of Jesus-loving technologists around the world.
He thinks of his cousin, a bricklayer who comes home wanting to rest, not lay more brick. His developer friends are different: they come home and open their laptops to work on open-source passion projects. Why not point them toward world-changing kingdom projects?
AI is opening technology creation to people who've always had the ideas but not the coding skills.
James Poulter admits he's never written code, though Ali caught him vibe coding that morning. More and more, he notices, hackathons attract people who aren't developers at all.
Nick explains why. For years, many people could use technology to create content, but building felt reserved for a special class of developers working in a dark room somewhere. Now, "for the first time in history, you don't have to be a developer to build." People with great ideas who were willing but not able can now use AI to build a good-enough app, and others can pick it up and improve it.
There are so many Christians passionate about meeting real needs who could see how technology might help but never had the ability to build it. Nick believes this is the moment to unleash that latent potential, and as Christians we feel responsible not only to use technology but to build it.
FaithTech communities reflect the gifts of their cities, yet developers worldwide share enough in common to form teams across continents.
FaithTech is growing across Asia, Australia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Brazil and North America, with a recently launched London chapter and a hackathon planned in Jordan. James Kelly sees both diversity and similarity. Each city brings its own strengths; New York's community gravitates toward finance and fintech, for example, building kingdom projects that fit its gifts. Yet a developer in India works much like one in Silicon Valley or Tokyo, so teams can now come together from five different countries and be highly effective.
Nick and Ali share an early hackathon story that captures this. Fruit farmers across Central America and Africa lacked access to markets. A few technologists set out to build a digital marketplace, and their team spanned six of the seven continents. Over the 48-hour hackathon, members built while others slept, then handed off to teammates in the next time zone. Their prototype ended up far ahead of the rest.
They had a shared mission, real community and cultural alignment, Ali says, and a common faith that made forming a team easy.
Ali is most excited that AI is democratizing not just technology but missions. Having worked with Urbana on how missionaries are commissioned and sent, she sees that anyone can now serve and reach people from wherever they are, without necessarily moving across the world.
The pressure to master every new model is a performance trap; the church's answer is to stay current, decide and build together.
Models now drop on Saturday afternoons. Technology promised a four-hour work week, Nick notes, but instead many developers feel overwhelmed: did I miss an update? Do I need to be an expert by tomorrow? Some who once spent evenings on passion projects now spend them just trying to keep up.
As Christians, he says, we know our worth isn't based on works. We're loved by God through Jesus and made in His image, yet we buy into performance culture all too easily. "No matter how brilliant and gifted and how good you are at using AI, you could not do it alone." The church has a collective might no individual can match.
James Kelly, a self-described Canadian middle-walker, says AI is both different and not different. Christians have always feared new technology, and innovators shouldn't dismiss that concern too quickly. He points to a nearby Mennonite community that makes technology decisions collectively and doesn't just buy the latest thing. We feel overwhelmed because we think we must keep up as individuals, but God doesn't define us as isolated individuals. Stay informed together, decide as teams, and you can move fast.
But can collective decision-making keep up with change this fast? Nick says that's exactly why we need agile, adaptive systems that let many people participate, the core of open innovation. Pastors and ministry leaders who don't feel technical can start simply by giving permission: encourage people in your church to join communities like FaithTech or contribute to efforts like Gloo Open.
Ali adds that churches often assume participation means meetings, elder boards and votes. Open communities work differently, with asynchronous tools, collaborative writing and an equal voice for everyone.
As Nick puts it, "Any decision you make is a bet on a specific future." Redemptive technology means using technology to redeem the brokenness in the world, and not deciding is still a decision. Here's how to show up:
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[Joshua: add any Dallas 2025 talks from James, Ali or Nick worth linking here.]
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This episode was made possible in partnership with Gloo, the technology platform connecting the faith ecosystem.