ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CHURCH EVANGELISM IN NIGERIA: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES

This paper examines the impact of artificial intelligence on church evangelism in Nigeria. The 21st century has witnessed unprecedented technological advancements, transforming various aspects of human life, including religion. Artificial intelligence a cutting-edge technology, has begun to influence church evangelism globally. Nigeria, with its rapidly growing Christian population and increasing technological adoption, presents a unique context for exploring artificial intelligence’s impact on the church evangelism. Descriptive method was employed in this study.  It has been revealed that, utilization of artificial intelligence for evangelization in Nigeria presents both opportunities and challenges. The paper also looks at the use of artificial intelligence for evangelism in Nigeria in the enhancement of outreach by reaching a wider audience via digital platforms, customized messaging, efficient dissemination of religious teachings including easy acquisition of cultural peculiarities of each given mission station. Extreme caution should be expressed in adopting artificial intelligence powered evangelism towards respecting cultural perceptivities along with ensuring that its missionary expertise is culturally appropriate, and also eschewing from complete dependence on artificial intelligence in order to continually give missionary enterprise a genuine human engagement, connection and personal touch in the Nigerian church missionary fields. This paper recommends that; church should develop artificial intelligence powered evangelism strategies, the need for the establishment of artificial intelligence ethics and guidelines, church should collaborate with artificial intelligence experts and theologians.