You may have seen the story from Japan about the Buddhist temple where they have asked a robot to serve as their new priest.  So far Mindar, the robot, mostly just preaches the same sermon over and over, but its designers are hoping that developments in the field of artificial intelligence will lead to a cyber priest whose programming and the use of algorithms will allow it to offer spiritual advice and pastoral counseling. I would think it could be really good at balancing budgets and keeping calendars.

With my retirement planned for next year, I think I may be getting out of the clergy business just in time.  But, also what an opportunity for LPC to be on the cutting edge of pastoral technology.  It’s not too late for us to change the call for our October 6 congregational meeting from electing a pastor search committee to electing a pastor programming committee. Continue reading →