Imagine a world where high-control pastors could monitor the movements of every staff member, church member or visitor using the power of artificial intelligence. This is the sacralized dystopia being created at Lakepointe Church in Rockwall, Texas.
Of course, the leaders of Lakepointe would suggest they’re creating a utopia. With Pastor Josh Howerton signing a new podcast deal with The Blaze, he uses the name “Live Free” and warns against authoritarian governments who use mass surveillance. In contrast to Howerton’s supposed world of freedom, he warns that governments who use mass surveillance need “to be omnipotent now to control outcomes.”
But as a YouTube account named “The Religion Business” said, at Lakepointe Church, “Per insiders, there are 400-plus AI tracking cameras on their Rockwall campus alone.”
When Howerton caught wind of the online questions, he responded: “The only way I heard about this video is people texting me to say, ‘Wow, thank you, we feel even more safe now!’ Choices … ‘Churches are unsafe places where predators can go undetected’ or ‘It’s evil for churches to have extensive surveillance (ESP in Kids’ Ministry areas) and security’ PICK A LANE:).”
But is this really just a way for Howerton to protect the kids?
According to a second video, The Religion Business said, “Per insiders, you have cameras in lots of other places other than entrances and kids’ ministries. You and directional leadership had AI tracking cameras installed in most staff offices and other sensitive areas. Per insiders, the rationale for putting cameras in your staff offices was accountability.”
According to Mary Kuti, a former Lakepointe worship pastor, one of these “sensitive areas” includes rooms where women undress: “Regarding the cameras: They are everywhere. Some are hidden. In the music studio, cameras were concealed in the black rafters and were not obvious or clearly labeled. Women have changed clothes in those rooms without knowing cameras were present. That alone deserves serious questions about transparency, privacy, oversight and who has access to that footage.”
So should we trust Howerton, praise him for his protection, and “pick a lane” without questioning what’s going on here? Or should we follow Howerton’s own advice to “live free” by looking into the connection between mass surveillance and leaders who view themselves as “omnipotent now to control outcomes”?
‘The church deserves world-class technology’
Lakepointe markets itself as many typical evangelical churches do.
“Our core focus is to reach all people for Christ,” Lakepointe Director of Information Technology Bill Crowsey says. “We have six campuses. We have weekend services and we have events that are designed to really outreach to the community to get people in to know God, find freedom, discover their calling and to make a difference.”
According to Jerry Welch, chief technology officer: “The church deserves world-class technology. Just like anywhere, we have a lot to consider with a lot to protect. But our No. 1 mission is that our technology is for ministry. And that’s taking care of our infrastructure from an IT perspective and watching over our cybersecurity.”
To do this, Lakepointe has hired an AI company called Coram to help them accomplish these goals. And the leaders of Lakepointe have been pleased.
“My security team’s happy. That’s all I needed. They tell me every week a new story about how Coram saved their butts,” Welch said.
Crowsey added, “I would recommend Coram because we have seen great benefits in the features of AI with their system, also the ease of deployment, as well as just the overall gain and efficiency from a technology standpoint.”
‘Identifying bad actors’
For most churches, the idea of a single church employing both a director of information technology and a chief technology officer feels like a totally different world. And to most people who don’t understand technology, a lot of their language can sound like technological gobbledygook. So Welch sums it up: “The most important thing for our security team is identifying bad actors that approach campus that we know of or that we don’t know of.”
But how do authoritarian men define “bad actors”?
“It all started with being scared of someone named Amanda Cunningham and wanting to know when she or anyone else they have harmed is on campus,” one user alleged. Cunningham is a former Lakepointe leader who has consistently called out the harm being perpetrated in Jesus’ name at Lakepointe over the past few years.
Another possible “bad actor” is Jay Myers, who appeared on “Highest Power: Church + State” with me to share how Howerton belittles his congregation, including making fun of disabled people from the pulpit. In our interview, we played audio that was recorded during a staff meeting of Howerton saying: “You can totally disagree with me, you just can’t do it here. You know, what we have to have is a church and a staff that has 100% unity. That’s the expectation, 100%.”
Lakepointe leadership profiles anyone who questions them, which makes it difficult to cover what they’re doing. Even after staff and church members leave, they’re hesitant to talk to the media because they’re afraid of the consequences Lakepointe leadership might cause for their job security outside of the church. And anyone who talks gets labeled a “liberal.”
Tinkering with worship like a NASCAR pit crew
Before we consider what the technology provides Lakepointe leadership, it’s important to remember how Lakepointe approaches worship services.
As I detail in my forthcoming book, Weapons of Worship, Howerton has told pastors in private training videos, “We want to treat our weekend services like a pit crew treats their NASCAR car.”
He explains: “Every single week we get feedback forms from every campus. And we want to put it in the shop and tinker around with everything that’s there and ask the question, ‘How can we squeeze one more horsepower out of the engine of our church weekend services?’”
Howerton says the entire Lakepointe worship experience begins the moment people walk through the doors to watch a pre-roll video that “builds the energy in the room” and “implants vision.” Then the leaders pay attention “to the emotional flow of the service so that it just feels good.”
Worship ends with a “vision moment,” he says, because “people don’t give to need. They give to vision.” Then the top givers are invited to “Financial Leader Lunches” where Howerton tells them he’s not there to ask them for more money, but then asks them three questions “that have been fine-tuned over the course of about 12 years” in order to “unlock a new level of giving.”
Perhaps this is one of those “Rahab lies” Howerton allegedly asks his staff to tell for him off camera.
So imagine how they might be tinkering with worship now that they have AI.
Coram’s AI experience
According to training videos that are publicly accessible on Coram’s YouTube page, their surveillance begins the moment every car arrives on campus with license plate recognition technology. Coram trains clients to position the cameras in ways that will maximize the ability to read license plate numbers without being affected by angles or lighting. But even in the case where a plate number can’t be read, their AI tool allows clients to identify who is arriving based on the color of the vehicle and on just one or two characters in the license plate number being legible.
Once church members get out of their cars, they are tracked using facial recognition technology. In one video, Coram says facial recognition “uses your existing cameras and AI image recognition to detect faces, match them to profiles your team has created, and organize those appearances into clear searchable records. … You get immediate visibility into who moves through your site and when.”
When visitors walk through the door, Coram says they check in on an iPad that gets their info, takes a picture of them, and puts it all in a guest management database. They say the iPad check-in can even include legal documents that can be signed on the spot such as NDAs. So they say it “gives you a permanent auditable record of everyone who comes through your doors, and thus, “You get complete control over everyone who comes through your doors.”
Remember what Howerton said about how authorities who use mass surveillance can “be omnipotent now to control outcomes.”
Coram’s facial recognition technology allows Lakepointe Church to follow every person’s movement through what’s called a “Journey Path.” As Coram explains, “Journey Path uses AI image recognition to automatically compile footage of an individual across all your cameras into a single continuous timeline. … You get a complete rundown of their movements stitched together and ready to review in seconds.”
Then with the touch of a button, the security team can “enforce compliance,” whatever that means.
ChurchAI
Even though Coram is marketing to churches by using testimony from Lakepointe’s IT leadership, they offer services to many different companies, including schools and businesses.
But if Howerton is treating his worship services like a NASCAR pit crew treats their car by tinkering around in order to “squeeze one more horsepower out of the engine” to “put people into motion” as he puts it, what are some ways pastors like him can do this with AI technology?
Another company that markets specifically to churches is called ChurchAI. I first heard about this company when I came across their booth at this year’s Cooperative Baptist Fellowship annual meeting in Jacksonville, Fla. So AI tracking technology isn’t simply being used by Lakepointe. It appears to be a growing trend.
Surveillance cameras inside Lakepointe Church
According to their website, the goal of ChurchAI is to “make more disciples.” Again, this is pretty standard language most evangelical churches would be drawn in by. But how do they do this? They say, “Church AI watches over every person in your church.” This way, church leaders can “see who never came back … see who’s drifting … see who’s pulling back.”
“It gets to know every member’s pattern,” ChurchAI says. “It reads attendance, giving, serving and groups. … Church AI compares each person’s current pattern against their own history. … A broken pattern is the earliest reliable signal that someone is drifting.” Then it reassures pastors, “When a pattern breaks, you know.”
Just like the Coram technology, the ChurchAI representative who I spoke with told me their AI tracks what everyone does once they arrive on campus. Then it records each person’s behavior in order to establish their normal patterns. According to their website, each person gets an “Engagement Score” that gets tracked in the church’s database. Then when the church member breaks their pattern, their engagement score goes down. If it lowers enough, their profile gets flagged as crossing the “risk threshold” and church leadership is notified.
But because the system is automated by AI, the church member gets contacted by AI.
“Hey Daniel, we’ve missed seeing you these past few weeks and you came to mind,” the AI bot types. “How are you doing, really?”
Just like with ChatGPT, church leaders can change the AI message to take a “different angle” or perhaps be shorter. “When ChurchAI detects that someone is drifting, an agent drafts the right touch: a pastoral check-in, a volunteer invite, or a small group suggestion,” they say.
With every visitor or member being tracked, the AI then suggests to church leaders when the person may be ready for their next step of commitment to the church. And after each month, church leaders receive reports with details and trends.
The representative who spoke with me told me if a pastor senses a personal conversation with a member who is deviating from their behavior patterns may be in order, the AI can give them scripts to follow to draw the member back to their pattern.
The church as algorithm
The metaphors used in Scripture to describe the church or a gathering of Jesus’ followers tend to be organic and relational images like body, bride, flock, household, family or branches. The Spirit is a breath that gives birth. Even when the Bible uses the image of temples or buildings to describe the church, it calls the people “living stones.”
While church members in these contexts may think they’re receiving a message or having an interaction with a pastor who is being prompted by the Spirit to care for them, they’re actually being contacted by a robot who is prompted by an algorithm to keep them in line. It’s like worship services have been turned into episodes of Westworld.
These pastors call those who ask questions “bad actors.” But if the church is going to reform from an organism into an algorithm, then it seems some questions should be asked.
Why are these pastors behaving like gods who need to monitor their members’ every move in order to control the outcome? What are they really protecting? If they’re really free in Christ, why do they seem so insecure?
And perhaps the question I come back to the most is this: Why is it so hard to just love your neighbor as yourself?
Rick Pidcock
Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and is the author of a forthcoming book, Weapons of Worship: How the Songs of Evangelicalism Form the Soundtrack of Extremism. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.