The Power of Music to Invite -- an Experiment with AI in the Final Session of a 4-Week Adult Education Series

[A long-read, perhaps 10-15 minutes? so to reflect pedagogically about AI and honor the experiment I engaged this past week when substituting for my husband/pastor of his congregation in their virtual-Connections Class.]

 Introduction & the ‘Experiment’ in Pedagogy/Andragogy

I think I am beginning to understand some of my students’ proclivities with respect to AI, or artificial intelligence. 

I am still a firm believer in the absence or refusal of AI in my classrooms, course-assignments, mostly because the work I do forefronts the personal-spiritual-emotional integration of dissonance or fear into a more grounded, faithful and whole-expression. Complications explored not ignored or flattened to previous assumptions. AI should never be used to mimic personal growth of a human being, though I’m sure some of my students are tempted to use it so. Their loss, however, and it’s too difficult to track if/when AI might make up personal anecdotes when asked by a fearful human being. Therefore, I do not waste time spinning my wheels with those students who cheat themselves of the hard inner work more of us need to do. You cannot force it for anyone, after all. If they were to make it up themselves, pressured from my professorial authority, fearful of me, it would be no less un-genuine than if they chose AI’s seductive force instead. Human beings will always avoid hard inner work of faith integration, I have found, until they’re ready to face it. Better for me to practice trust and spend my own time more wisely.

That said, I was amazed at the hours of work AI saved me this past week as I prepared to lead an adult education course for my husband’s church. There were a slew of tasks for my day, also including a desire to care for my body with a solid workout and recovery. I had framed our final night of a four-week series around the word, invite. In a series on the power of music in faith communities, we had already travelled through music’s power to comfort, to disrupt, and to teach. I’ve done this kind of work for nearly thirty years, having written a dissertation on the way in which music can serve as a container for spiritual insight, for Spirit/spirit intimacy in the teaching/learning journey of faith. The final framework was to inquire into how music invites. 

In a brick-and-mortar setting, I would have developed a dialogical evening organized around questions linking personal story/memoir into music’s role, presence, in such stories. I would have divided the group into pairs or small groups of three, for times of more personal sharing. I half-intended to urge this group of faithful into such an evening, organized into breakout rooms in our virtual environment. Except as a facilitator in a virtual environment, I cannot get a sense of the energies of the groups as they go deeper, become more vulnerable, relationally. In a room, when I sense fear of vulnerability or resistance, I can walk over and ease it somehow, buffer the awkwardness with a bit of humor and assurance. I’d not know how to do that in virtual-breakout rooms I was not privy to. 

Meeting virtually, then, it was riskier to do that kind of dialogical work with groups who are not accustomed to it when they meet. My husband is an exquisitely linear thinker, with a vast mental library he can access on just about anything he sets his mind to. He more often therefore transmits information to listeners who are then more passive in these adult ed environments. That comes most naturally to him, and is often the choice given his busy leadership schedule at the church. Folks who come regularly expect to listen more than comment, reflect, though of course they do some, when invited at the end. Ultimately, I did not feel comfortable changing the expectation on this last night of a series, and I didn’t have the time to create a linear-thinking analysis with commentary. So…

On a whim, I opened my husband’s subscription-level ChatGPT 5.0 to simply see what it might offer with the question “How and what does music invite in human beings of faith?” The pages of response it collated and configured for me (in about 3 seconds) stunned me. It provided “a careful map of what music actually does to people of faith (psychologically, socially, and theologically).” There were six categories of ‘invitation’, complete with specific behavioral and emotional characteristics within each category. [I’m not sure this will work, but you may be able to access the inquiry/response here.]

In other words, AI here provided an exquisitely linear argument for what music invites, grounded in what it invites in human beings. It then asked me if I wanted to explore this further with how different musical forms tend to “specific spiritual capacities” that each “tends to cultivate” in said human beings. It was moving from an analytical assessment of music as an invitational art-form into the dynamics of pastoral formation shaped by musical practices in religious communities.

In its 2-3 seconds, with each inquiry, I had an exquisitely linear argument and presentation to offer an adult education class--to transmit information for them to receive--as a local congregation. I realized that by the end of the evening, those gathered would feel deeply seen and even pleased with how well their own faith community expresses and invests itself musically. I hit “print” and went on to many other tasks of my day.

Granted, my thirty years of research, writing, and teaching in this area meant that I could flesh all of this out with stories, anecdotes, challenges, and wonderings for more. But I am not a linear thinker! Putting something like this together would have taken me hours, which is why I often move to the small-group discussion or dialogical andragogy-method in live classrooms. I trust the content that learners bring within them, and it’s important for them to access that content, do the work of connection and integration. Having made the pedagogical/androgogical choice to keep the expected ‘type’ of teaching/learning, however, I thoroughly enjoyed meandering through its provided structure with all that I remembered, felt nudged to say to flesh it out from my thirty years of experience. This AI experiment actually allowed me to maximize my gifts and still meet an adult ed class where they expected to be met.

The Power of Music to Invite…

Human Beings and then Fairmont Congregational Life

[My interpretation of the ChatGPT summaries]

Guided by AI’s extensive resourcing, then, this is how and what music invites in human beings of faith, followed by the specific spiritual capacities shaped in various musical ‘forms.’ It’s actually not inaccurate, though it sings best when made personable by a living human being.

The six categories of invitation include participation (before belief), emotional permission, memory & identity, communal unity or synchronization, transcendence, and moral imagination. If we dip into each one a little bit more concretely, you really do get to sense the power of music in faith communities to comfort, disrupt, teach and grow spiritual maturity in human beings.

First of all, participation before belief. “People will sing words they are not yet ready to say,” it began. Sung music gives opportunity to feel one’s way into something. What does it feel like to sing of the promises of God/de* in a suffering world, for instance? We can proclaim a creed or attempt to persuade with a sermon, but singing praise to Godde amidst suffering gives the body a felt sense of hope, of those promises. Human beings can sense into tentative belonging, safe experimentation, low-risk participation, even courage to hope before certainty. “Music lets a person practice faith before possessing (or professing) faith.” (parenthetical added, for precision of speech with respect to ‘faith,’ which as trust cannot be possessed, per se, only professed, witnessed to…An editorial correction of AI here.)

I’ve often named the gift music brings in providing a container for emotional expression, known and previously unknown. In this listing, AI notes that “many adults – especially in late modern culture – live emotionally compressed lives.” Music can then function as an emotional interpreter, or emotional permission to cry without explanation amidst a shared liturgy or hymn. Here music invites release – grief and/or praise, etc. – as well as a hope that feels embodied. Singers or participants may experience relief from anxiety or drawing closer to Godde in deeper honesty. “Music gives permission to feel what theology alone cannot unlock,” it concludes.

Third, music invites awareness and/or celebration of memory and identity. “Human beings remember sung words at vastly higher rates than spoken words.” It becomes a portable theology, independent of books or creeds. Folks who companion the elderly in rehab or nursing homes speak to this all the time. “Alzheimer’s patients often still sing hymns when they no longer recognize family members.” I have a personal memory of that with my paternal grandfather, which I shared in the first session of the adult-ed series. Music here invites continuity across life-stages and intergenerational connection. It can facilitate faith expression in dementia and dying while providing a shared language for suffering and hope.

Communal unity, or synchronization, points to the next gift music can invite in human faith communities. Whether performing, singing, or playing, music invites people to breathe together, pace themselves together, adjust to one another, and listen in order to stay in harmony with one another. It’s not social niceties here, but a neurological and social entrainment. It requires human beings to attend to one another. “Before a church can practice forgiveness, generosity, or mission, it must first learn coordination. Singing is coordination practice for love.” Which means trust, attentiveness, humility (I must listen to others) and mutual dependence are all invited by music. “Choir rehearsal is actually moral formation,” this section concludes.

The final two categories of consideration are therefore transcendence and moral formation. “There is a moment in certain musical experiences…where people report “Something larger than us was present.” Music suspends chronologically-mundane time, invites an ability to imagine a future not yet visible. Transcendence. Which invites awe, surrender, reverence, and openness to Godde. “Many people first experience God not in doctrine but in a sound.” As such, music also invites moral formation by teaching ethics in affection, feeling. Faith becomes actionable when it becomes singable, making courage emotionally possible before assuring social safety. The civil rights movement songs, for instance. They invited courage, solidarity, justice motivation and sacrificial love. 

In sum, music invites five dimensions of faith formation: Belonging before belief in participation. Honesty before Godde within emotional permission. A durable theology across generations in memory and identity. Coordinated love through communal attentiveness. Then openness to divine presence in unexpected moments of transcendence.

Musical Forms & the Spiritual Capacities or Muscles They Cultivate

ChatGPT then offers a pastoral insight, especially relevant to congregations today and well-represented in decades of literature I’ve read. “When music becomes only a style preference debate, a church unknowingly shifts music from formation to consumption.” Our late-capitalistic habits of mind insure we think in terms of objects, commodified and abstracted from relational-life-worlds. “What kind of music do you like?” is the question that makes music a what, not a who or whose. Congregations think they're fighting over 'kinds of music' that some people like and others do not. It can become a political power game with unreflective, unconscious undercurrents.

But if we return music to all of its dimensions–its embodiment, vibrations, rhythms, sensations, power to entrain and coordinate–we can ask instead, “What kind of people is this music helping us become?” That is a question of formation that yet honors there are different musical forms emerging from globally diverse contexts and communities. That is a question where there will be much more common ground for human beings coming together to be community together. There will still be divergences, of course, but they can be tended with emotional integrity and awareness of importance, hospitality, compromise.

ChatGPT compiled the variety of musical forms most represented in the literatures, pointing toward feasible spiritual capacities they would cultivate in human communities: classical hymnody (organ-led singing, chorales, hymns), contemporary praise&worship (band-led, repetitive refrains), Gospels/Spirituals (African-American church traditions), chant/Taize/contemplative song (simple, repetitive, meditative), liturgical/choral/choir-led sacred music, and then folk/acoustic congregational song (camp songs, simple guitar, Iona-style). 

The literatures come to a fairly strong consensus that healthy congregations almost never choose just one form of musical practice. Those that do often demonstrate a monolithic, even short-sighted faith expression with one really strong spiritual capacity yet little development in all the rest. Healthy congregations will rotate and alternate their musical expressiveness, because each form cultivates a particular spiritual capacity. “Hymnody trains stability and a people who understand faith as something received, inhabited, and carried. It does externalize belief–the words are given to you – you don’t invent them.” A theological literacy is therefore cultivated, pointing to endurance in suffering, reverence, intergenerational continuity and humility before one’s elders, one’s tradition. “The core spiritual posture AI names is trust. A hidden gift here is that hymns give people words when they no longer have their own.”

Contemporary Praise & Worship music trains relational immediacy with Godde. The believer practices personal address, with the divine grammar becoming I/Thou instead of “God is…” In an emotionally illiterate culture–which is most of the Protestant world(s) I know today–this kind of music cultivates emotional expression toward God, an experiential awareness of divine presence, both of which are significant in cultivating a personal prayer life. Its uncomplicated tunes and repetitive refrains creates more accessibility for seekers, a way to actively participate without needing to know how to read music formally. “The core spiritual posture here is intimacy. It also has a hidden risk, however. “If not paired with other forms, faith can become dependent upon emotional confirmation alone.” God is only present when I feel good, or affirmed, in other words–which is exquisitely untrue within the human lifeworld. Depth traditions speak to the dark night of the soul, purification or refining fires of God. Contemporary praise & worship can lack this emotional-reality or depth dimension, even sounding triumphalistic without critical thought.

African-American church traditions have lived the spiritual capacities in music within and beyond the sanctuary, pointing to music’s capacity to train hope under pressure. When one looks at the civil rights songs, or the spiritual songs, Gospel music, one can see the cultivation of resilience, communal care, embodied worship, courage in hardship and justice consciousness. It produces a “faith that expects God to act in history.” The core spiritual posture is therefore hope. And the hidden gift? “This music prevents Christianity from becoming merely therapeutic or private.”

Taize or chant entrains attention within Christian worship traditions. This kind of music slows cognition and reduces verbal processing. “People stop thinking about God and being attending to God.” It cultivates a variety of spiritual muscles as well: “tolerance of silence, contemplative prayer practices, patience, inner stillness, receptivity.” The core spiritual posture here is surrender, and it can heal religious burnout. It invites a faith that is less reactive and/or anxious. People become more capable of lament and waiting.

Choral performance or choir-led sacred music cultivates listening. Congregations need not produce the sound here, only receive it. They can develop the spiritual muscle of beholding, which further cultivates awe, reverence, theological imagination, appreciation of beauty, and God-centeredness rather than self-expression. Faith here becomes one of encounter, not performance. Adoration is the core spiritual posture. The hidden gift can be an imagination of God beyond the self.

Finally, folk/acoustic congregational song can train belonging. Through iona-style or camp songs, performance barries and signals become lower. One doesn’t need skill or singing expertise to participate. Which cultivates hospitality, small-group bonding, shared voice, accessibility across ages, and emotional safety. Faith becomes something relationally warm and approachable. The core spiritual posture here is companionship.

Conclusion

ChatGPT suggests that congregations fight about music because unconsciously we are arguing about what kind of Christians we are trying to become. Each congregation with its primary musical expression forefronts a particular character or image. Hymnody will produce faithful caretakers. Praise music will grow expressive believers. Gospel points Christians toward resilient discipleship. Chant hones contemplative living. Choir can focus on performances hoping to invite worshippers into adoration, awe. Folk or acoustic tends toward creation of relational communities. “The conflict is not aesthetic so much as a disagreement over the spiritual future of the congregation.”

The pastoral implication of this entire reflection, this overview of the power of music to invite faith communities into the how and what of their purpose, suggests healthy congregations will never choose just one form of musical practice. The healthiest communities will look to hymnody for stability, praise-contemporary for intimacy, gospel music for resilience, chant or contemplative Taize for attention, choral music for awe and beauty, and acoustic/guitar for belonging.

The question we are left with is a good one. “What capacities are currently underdeveloped in our people – and which musical practices could gently grow them?” What kinds of music would your congregation refuse to even explore, and why? Might they awaken to their resistances and learn the value of all forms of musical practice for a well-rounded faith expression? 

So the next time someone complains to you about the hymn-choices for the day, invite them into a deeper appreciation of the elders who wrote the hymn, who are lending their voices to our own faith understandings and deepening spiritual maturity so to lean in, to learn. 

If someone complains about the contemporary praise & worship music that seems trite to them, not as rigorous for Christian faith, remind them that this type of musical expression invites a human being to be more vulnerable with God, to prioritize an emotional connection in Spirit more than a doctrinal or theological statement. True intimacy is not for the faint of heart, especially for many Presbyterians. 

Let’s say someone in your congregation wants to weave in a contemplative chant they’ve learned, or share a Taize worship service. Look to the meditative quality invited, the slowing down that your own mind and body most likely need in our overactive, social-media-hyped cultures today. What gift might Godde be offering YOU, me, us in a contemplative chant? 

When the Gospel singers come in with their intense affect and a long history of sorrowful songs put to joyous-feeling music, breathe into the decades, even generations, of resilience the human spirit can be capable of, singing hope in suffering, trusting in Godde’s promises though unseen in so much of the chattel-slavery-history of the USA. 

When the choir stands to sing their offering, open your heart to receive, even if you’re not particularly attuned to the key or type of singing. What beauty can you receive in such an offering of souls? 

And when the solo guitar guy gets up to croon a song with a reminiscent hymn tune, look for the belonging such vulnerable sharing invites. Remember the summers around the campfire, if you got to enjoy such things…the sense of singing into something or Someone larger and more transcendent than a small circle of human beings.

The healthiest congregations alternate and explore a wide variety of musical expressions, acknowledging that diverse human beings are grown into maturity in different ways, sometimes only known to Godde. The power of music to invite curiosity, wonder, tenacity in human community life is indisputable.

Even to artificial intelligence, apparently.

*God in written form tends to prioritize the Masculine in popular use, regardless of our claims that there is no gender in God. One day in some process-writing, I was given a different spelling that honored my experience of a woman and allowed me to speak easily in today’s congregational settings NOT (consciously) interested in the experiences of women. When spoken aloud, it sounds like ‘God’ but its spelling–Godde–honors the middle ground between God and Goddess. It also aligns with a Germanic etymology/history, Gotte, which suits my Pennsylvania-Deutsch heart. So, when I’m writing, this negotiation becomes obvious. Godde. Sometimes I’ll do the God/de neo-logism to honor the Oneness of God, indivisible in our human ways. But mostly, I say and write Godde, because I’m in a woman’s body.