Churchfront is an audio, video and lighting integrator. We design and install systems for churches. We are also, as of this year, an AI company.
Not because we are building software. Because we are using AI to its fullest extent, and it is letting us do our work better than I ever imagined. In the video above, Luke Jackson and I walk through what our days actually look like now, and what the same tools could do for a worship and production ministry.
Two worlds at once
Luke and I both serve on worship and production teams at our local churches. We also run a specialty construction and AV integration business. AI is changing both of those worlds at the same time, and in our experience the business world tends to feel it first. So we wanted to share what we are doing now, then translate it for ministry.
“I don’t even open my email anymore”
Luke has removed his email app from his dock entirely. He still does email, but through Claude.
Three times a day, Claude sweeps his inbox. It archives the promotions and the rental car offers he never clicks, flags anything he has shown interest in before, and surfaces the messages that need a reply. Before any of that, Luke had Claude read back through his past replies so it learned his tone. Now his email time is reviewing drafts that are ready to send and refining them. Claude does not send anything on its own.
The time he used to lose to the inbox now goes to the work that needs his brain.
How to get started
This is simpler than it sounds.
Sign up for a paid Claude account from Anthropic. It is around $20 a month for an individual. Then find the connectors settings and connect the apps you already live in: your email, your calendar, your file storage. Each connector asks what Claude is allowed to do, such as read, write or delete.
Next, fill in the about me section. You can ask Claude what it needs to know to serve you well, and it will interview you and write that section itself. That is how it knows, for example, how long it takes to get to your local airport and through security when you book a flight.
Then start building skill files. A skill file is a set of instructions Claude follows every time a certain kind of task comes up. I have one for my email and calendar. When I dump a train of thought into Claude about a meeting I need, it knows who I mean, drafts the email, and puts the event on the calendar, in about 20 to 30 seconds.
And you do not write the skill files yourself. You describe what you want, Claude writes the file, and every time it gets something slightly wrong, you tell it how to do better and it updates the file.
Your whole life, organized
The same approach works well beyond the office. Connected to Dropbox, Claude can go through years of badly named scanned documents and rename and file them so they are easy to find. With a Notion database of preferred vendors, you can notice the house needs pressure washing and have an email drafted to the right person in seconds.
What this could look like in ministry
This is where it gets exciting for church teams.
Stand in your tech closet, take one wide photo of the shelves, and ask Claude to find the documentation for everything in the picture. It will identify the switchers, cameras and microphones and find the manuals online. From there it can help you build a system inventory, and help you troubleshoot later.
Ministry leaders know the feeling of getting to Friday and realizing you did not check in with a single person on your team, because the week was consumed by a broken network or a new hire’s computer. Scheduled tasks in Claude can help with that. Once a month, it can look at your team, remind you who you have not connected with, and hand you a draft invitation for coffee. It takes the logistics out of the way so you can do the ministry.
Documentation is another one. Before a move, one of us recorded a voice memo walking through each road case of a portable church system and how the signal flowed, then asked Claude for a simple PDF diagram for whoever came next. That two-page document meant the incoming worship leader did not start from zero. The same idea works for a weekend away or an unexpected absence.
It even helps with plan sets. Anyone who has inherited a thick packet of as-built drawings knows how long it takes to learn to read them. Being able to simply ask where a tie line goes would save months.
Fewer apps, more systems
We run our projects in JobTread, which has an open API and a Claude connector. Claude can do almost anything in JobTread that I can do by hand, and most of my work now happens through Claude, even when the data lives in other apps.
Notion is the other piece. Most software is a database with a nice interface on top, and Notion lets you build exactly the database you need. Our hiring intake runs as a custom Notion app that Claude helped build. (We are hiring AVL technicians right now, at churchfront.com/careers.) I think we will see far fewer single-purpose church apps over the next few years, because churches will be able to build what they need.
That shift affects us too. Training information is becoming easy to access, so Churchfront is focusing more on what is harder to replace: community, coaching and personal expertise.
Keep growing your own intelligence
One caution. AI is most useful when you understand what you are trying to accomplish. Some people will use it to learn, and some will use it to skip learning. We want to be the first kind. When Claude is working through a long task, sometimes the best use of that time is to pick up a book.
Where to start this week
Get a Claude account, connect your email and calendar, and build your first skill file. Once it is saving you time, bring the same thinking to your ministry: your inventory, your documentation and your team.
If your church is planning an AV project and you want a partner who thinks this way, start a conversation with us.