The Handbuilt Church. Get your week back: the Handbuilt Lab teaches pastors to put AI agents to work on the weekly writing and admin that eat their time, with every word still in their own voice.
The Handbuilt Lab · Cohort 2
Six weeks.
What you keep.
A six-week lab for church leaders who want practical experience with AI and a thoughtful approach to its use.
A working setup, connected to your church’s information
AI tools installed on your own computer and connected to the systems where your church’s information lives, such as QuickBooks, your online giving platform, email, and cloud storage. Which connections fit depends on the tools your church uses.
A faster weekly bulletin
A bulletin workflow that starts from the readings, hymns, and announcements and ends with a print-ready booklet, with your review before anything prints.
Board meeting preparation
A repeatable way to prepare for monthly or quarterly board meetings: financial summaries, reports, and packets drafted from your church’s own records, with each figure traced to its source.
An updated brand
Build or refresh your church’s identity, then apply it to the bulletins, announcements, and social posts your office makes every week.
October 12 to November 18, 2026 · Mondays and Wednesdays at noon Eastern · $199 plus applicable tax
Who it’s for
Too much to write.
Not enough week.
Sermons, newsletters, the bulletin, the board update, the flyer for Sunday’s event, the logo the youth group asked for. The Handbuilt Lab teaches pastors and church staff to carry that writing, design, and admin with AI agents, without sounding like a robot and without giving up the decisions that are yours. You do not need to be technical.
How it
works.
The same pattern works on anything in your week: name the steps, decide which ones an agent supports, keep the last call. Here it is on the sermon.
You lead
You choose the text and frame the questions worth asking.
AI supports
Gathers commentary, context, and cross-references fast, with citations you can check.
You lead
You sit with it, pray it, decide what the moment needs.
AI supports
Surfaces tensions and angles for you to weigh.
You lead
You set the spine, the claim, the through-line.
AI supports
Pressure-tests structure and flags what wanders.
You lead
You write from your direction and keep the pen.
AI supports
Drafts passages on demand for you to cut or keep.
You lead
The last call. Every word answers to you.
AI supports
Checks the draft against your voice and theology.
You keep the voice, the theology, the judgment.
Source Gravity
Your question is the gravity.
Strong sources lock. Weak sources fall away. You decide what holds.
- Karl Barth
- Greek: charis
- Local homelessness data
- A member’s question
- Cross-ref: Romans 5
- Generic devotional blog
- Unsourced quote
- Off-topic news item
The Discernment Gate
Speed is cheap.
Discernment is the work.
What is the tension?
What does this parish need?
What am I willing to say?
What must not be outsourced?
AI can give you twenty angles in a second. Only you can say which one is true this Sunday.
Voice and Integrity Pass
The last pass is not polish.
It is authorship.
Every word answers to you.
Proof
Open the drawer.
Monday to Sunday
The real rhythm: research Monday, discernment Tuesday, direction midweek, drafting Thursday, voice pass Friday, final say Saturday.
Prep hours
10 to 12 hours of weekly writing and admin, handed back every week.
A command sequence
One I run weekly: read Sunday’s supply clergy from my calendar, reconcile against a canonical pay manifest, create the invoices in our vendor system, and queue them for my review.
What AI does not do
It does not decide the point. It does not write in your voice unasked. It does not get the final word. You do.
Built and taught by a working priest who builds with these tools in parish life. Sunday to Sunday, in a real pulpit.
Integrity FAQ
The questions a serious pastor asks.
No. You do. AI gathers sources, surfaces tensions, and drafts passages on request. You keep the voice, the theology, and the judgment. The workflow is built so the pastor’s decision lands last at every stage.
No. The Lab is built for the everyday pastor, not only the tech-savvy. We start where you are and build the workflow with your own hands, in plain steps.
A computer, a reliable internet connection, and a paid subscription to Claude, the AI assistant we teach with. Everything we teach carries to other tools. The exact software list goes out before the first session; ask at hello@gethandbuilt.com if you want it sooner.
$199 plus applicable tax, one time, for one participant. That covers 6 weeks of live sessions, up to 6 private appointments, and every runbook and file you make. Software subscriptions and printing are paid separately. Full details are on the Lab page.
A weekly teaching session, a weekly working session, and one optional 30-minute private appointment each week for focused help with your church’s work. Group sessions run Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. Eastern / 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. Pacific, October 12 to November 18, 2026.
Yes, through your own projects. Each week pairs a method with the choices it raises: what information to share, how to check a source, when to disclose AI’s involvement, and what work needs a person’s judgment. There is room for the wider questions too, about people, communities, labor, and the environment. By the last week those decisions become a short working guide for your church.
Yes. Whoever pays enters their details at checkout, then emails hello@gethandbuilt.com with the participant’s name and address so the welcome goes to the right person. For several seats at once, book a call and we will sort out the details.
The Handbuilt Lab · 6 weeks · October 12 to November 18, 2026
Join the
Lab.
$199 plus applicable tax. Mondays and Wednesdays at noon Eastern. You leave with a setup connected to your church’s information, a bulletin workflow, a way to prepare for board meetings, an updated brand, and a working guide to AI use that your colleagues can follow.
Dates don’t fit?
Leave your email and I will tell you when the next cohort is scheduled. Nothing is charged.