What Used to Take a Whole Department, You Can Now Do Yourself.

When we first started Resource Global, we had nothing. No donors. No database. Not too much momentum. But rather a bunch of ideas and options. Each idea had its own risks. Which idea were donors going to fund? Which ideas had legs and were viable? And which idea should we be the one doing? If we wanted to do something new, we needed to find more people or more money. Usually both. We needed help with design and websites especially. And thus we went out to hire people to do it, and boy was that expensive.

Our last post was about efficiency, doing your old work faster. For today we are going to talk about doing things you could not do at all before.

Let me show you what I mean with things I have actually built in the last six months (remember, I do not know how to code).

• An AI Bible Research Assistant. I built an assistant that pulls cross references, historical and cultural context, and observations on a Bible passage. I have been able to partner with leaders to get key content to build the knowledge base and analytical engine for this platform. And I've been able to do this on my free time or in the background while I am working on a few other projects including leading Resource Global.
• Websites and apps. In the past I had to literally hire out a team to do design and build a website. It would take weeks to do and be so expensive. Thus, many of my ideas were put on hold or never launched because of cost. Now I still need a designer to work on high priority items, but for start up ideas and basic design I can do all of this myself now.
• I have found that Claude is TERRIBLE for design. I have not really used the DESIGN feature in workflow. But for images, ChatGPT+ is better. And for websites Claude is not bad. It tends to have the same look and feel, but it's ok for me.
• Vibe Coding: I still don't know how to do coding, but I at least now know how to navigate through it and build different things. I've also had to learn how to understand Agentic AI and prompt engineering.
• Writer. Writing was never something I was ever passionate about. It takes me too long to write and I end up reading the same sentence over and over again. But now I've loaded a lot of my personal writing and asked Claude to start me off. I then edit it, add in my own stuff, and then ask it to edit with the correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If you connect your Claude to your Gmail, you can then ask it to read your reports for the month and write a report based on what it has read.
• Creating Revenue. I've been using AI as a thought partner to help me think through and create revenue generating products that create additional income for all of the things I am doing. Whether it's research, showing me prototypes and design, or doing the building for me, it's been so useful. For those who are ministry and non profit leaders, feed your organization into the AI and ask it to examine what you are currently doing and give me some out of the box thinking to grow my organization and new innovative ways of looking at my organization. You should also ask it to compare your organization with other organizations similar to what you are doing and produce three or four ideas that you can implement to make your organization better.

How do I do this? I've had to learn how to think AI, whether it's prompt engineering or designing subagents to help me. I've also had to learn which platform is good at certain things and how and when to use platforms like Claude Cowork, Claude Code, Gemini, ChatGPT+, etc.

Seriously, the subagents are great!! I encourage you to ask Claude what subagents are and to give you a list of the most popular subagents. Try it out. I currently have a subagent who is my prompt specialist, another subagent who is my code reviewer, a subagent who is a debugger, a writer, and a fact checker. I even have a subagent who gives me a theological lens, and I had to build out the framework for this subagent theologically before I launched it.

One thing you can do this week. Make a short list of things you always assumed were out of reach because you are too small. A custom tool. A translated service. A real website. Pick one, and spend an hour seeing what AI can do. Better yet, go to Claude Cowork (the free version) and say "This is my first time using Claude. Give me a list of things that people have done to get me onboarded with AI."

Also create in your Claude Workflow an "information feeder." Ask it to feed two key tips for AI each day for you to learn and practice.

Five action items to get started with AI.

1. Try it once this week. Open a free AI tool like Claude or ChatGPT and hand it one real task you already dread, like formatting the bulletin, turning your meeting notes into action steps, or drafting the first pass of a newsletter. Let it take a swing, then edit it in your own words.
2. Build one thing you assumed was out of reach. Pick a small idea you shelved because of time or cost, a simple tool, a translated resource, or a basic website, and spend an hour seeing how far the AI can take you.
3. Let the AI study your ministry. Feed it what your organization does and ask it to compare you with similar ministries and hand you three or four fresh ideas you can actually put into practice. Choose one and start.
4. Take it into your sermon prep. This week, do your own study first, then ask the AI to pull cross references, historical and cultural context, and observations on the passage. Let it deepen your study, never replace it.
5. Turn one Sunday into a week of content. Take a message you already preached and ask the AI to help you turn it into a few short clips, a daily devotional, small group questions, and the midweek email. The same work you already did, with far more reach.