Don’t settle for an impact smaller than you’re called to make. It's time to unlock your potential and lead confidently into a future filled with growth — for yourself, your church, and your mission. Get access to some of my best leadership content, only published in my newsletters.
On The Rise: Christianizing racism, AI destroying careers, and spending Elon Musk’s Money
Published about 19 hours ago • 5 min read
Welcome to the On The Rise newsletter, where I feature fascinating, helpful, and sometimes curious content that caught my attention this week.
Today, what happens when the problem you devoted your life to solving gets solved by AI in 3 hours? Plus, how to make racism sound Christian, why it’s difficult to spend a trillion dollars and reviving the art of conversation.
When AI Solves Your Life's Work in Three Hours, What Do You Do With Your Life?
A mathematician's wrenching account.
You may have heard the debate around whether AI is coming for jobs, but what happens when it solves a problem some of the most brilliant people on earth have dedicated their lives to solving?
This fall, Open AI announced its models have started solving math problems that mathematicians have spent their lives trying to solve.
I never knew mathematics professors could be so endearing, but the brilliant, funny and poignant Steven Strogatz recently lit up the internet with this 30 minute interviewon the Daily podcast and again withthis moving articlein the Atlantic.
To say that Open Ai caused an existential crisis in mathematics is an understatement. Steven writes:
[This is] the detonation of OpenAI’s biggest bomb yet on pure math—its October 6 report that close to 400 landmark open problems had been solved by its latest model.
These were puzzles that had served as beacons in the darkness, calling and challenging and inspiring us for decades.
On average, the model took just three hours’ worth of computation to dispose of each of them.
Could you imagine if your entire life’s work and purpose was made irrelevant by a bot?
I mean it sometimes took centuries to build cathedrals. The work started by your grandfather might get completed by your son. There’s beauty in that. To have a private equity firm build a ‘cathedral in a box’ isn’t the same.
Why am I sharing this?
Well, this is coming for your church. For your congregation. It’s just happening much faster than I thought when AI and the Future Churchreleased a mere seven weeks ago.
Ultimately our purpose is found in Christ. You know that. I know that.
So what does this professor do when AI shakes his field to the core? He opens the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes to tap into ancient wisdom about the meaning of life.
The podcast is a powerful listen and the article an eye-opening read.
And it’s good prep for that sermon series on AI you’re planning out. You are planning to preach on AI soon, right? Right?
There’s no bigger story in our lifetime and maybe no greater story (other than Jesus) in human history. And it’s happening on our watch.
AI and the Future Church: A Barna Leadership Intensive
🟢 Bring your entire team to the 3-hour leadership intensive.
You and your entire team are making decisions about AI without having important conversations about it first (if you're like the majority of ministry leaders).
Where's the line between AI helping with a sermon and AI writing one? Would your whole team draw it in the same place?
Are the people in your seats already further ahead on AI than your leadership team is?
If you keep avoiding these conversations for another year, what will it cost you?
On December 1st, 12pm - 3pm ET I'm teaming up with Barna to offer you a three-hour live leadership intensive built for leaders that need to have these conversations now.
Barna's bringing research nobody's seen yet, like how pastors, staff and your congregation are actually using this stuff.
I'm bringing the cultural shifts and disruptions coming down the line, and together we're going to define what a prepared church looks like, turned it into practical next steps.
And you'll leave with a one-page plan, including language for the AI policy you needed yesterday, to equip you and your team for Monday morning.
Plus, register by November 20th with discount code AI15 and receive 15% off. That means your seat is only $167 ($197) and it's just $10 per additional team member.
Vermon Pierre explainshow Christians justified racism in South Africa, and how the same thing is happening in America today. Chilling. Soul-checking. And a conversation we need to have.
Pray With the Persecuted Church Three Times a Week
A new prayer experience from Global Christian Relief, sent straight to your phone.
For a lot of us, the persecuted church can feel far away. Pray With Us brings it close. Three times a week, you’ll get a text with a real story from a believer facing persecution in a place like Nigeria, Pakistan or Iran, along with a specific way to pray. There’s no app to download, and it takes just a few minutes.
Pray With Uscomes from Global Christian Relief, which brings Bibles where Scripture is restricted, provides emergency relief when crisis hits and helps the Church remain and grow strong. Join us and stand with your church family in prayer.
Carey Nieuwhof Communications, PO Box 160, Oro Medonte, Ontario L0L 2X0
Carey Nieuwhof
Where 100,000+ leaders get top insights to thrive in life and leadership.
Don’t settle for an impact smaller than you’re called to make. It's time to unlock your potential and lead confidently into a future filled with growth — for yourself, your church, and your mission. Get access to some of my best leadership content, only published in my newsletters.
