How Christian parents can help their kids use AI to be co-creators rather than consumers

In the last of his series, James Burden show how, as AI becomes a daily tool, Christian parents can inspire kids to use it faithfully and creatively—turning passive consumption into acts of service and imagination

A few months ago, a friend of mine told me about a thirteen-year-old at a church youth group using an AI tool to draft a letter in Swahili. He was writing to a child his family sponsors in Kenya, and he wanted to include a few sentences in their own language. He typed his message in English, reviewed the translation, asked the AI to make it simpler “because she’s only nine”, and sent it off. The whole thing took about four minutes.

I’ve been working in digital technology for over 25 years, and that small moment strikes me as something genuinely new. Not the technology itself — translation tools have existed for a while — but the instinct behind it. Nobody told this boy to do it. He saw a need, saw a tool, and used one to meet the other. He wasn’t consuming AI. He was creating with it, in the service of someone else.

the question we bring to AI and our children isn’t one of damage control. It’s one of calling

When my friend told me this story, I felt something I don’t always feel when I read about AI: ……