Truth North (Part 1)

Todd Rhodes introduces a special week-long series featuring an AI-generated "epistle" created by feeding all 366 episodes of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast into ChatGPT. The resulting 15-page document called "True North for Church Leaders" synthesizes years of ministry wisdom into a biblical letter-style format that offers encouragement and perspective for church leaders.

• Experimented with ChatGPT to synthesize wisdom from all 366 podcast episodes
• Created a modern-day "epistle" (pastoral letter) offering ministry encouragement
• Document spans four chapters addressing church leadership challenges
• Each chapter will be read on the podcast Tuesday through Friday
• Full document will be available as a free download
• Content reflects Todd's ministry convictions but was generated by AI
• Designed as encouragement for church leaders "still showing up, still carrying the weight"

Join us tomorrow for Chapter One of "True North for Church Leaders." Subscribe to ensure you don't miss any part of this special series, and reach out with questions or comments at podcast@chemistrystaff.com.

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Healthy Church Staff

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hi there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at FinisterStaffcom, and I'm really glad that you're joining me today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. This week is going to be, I'm going to tell you, it's going to be a little bit different because today is just a teaser for what we're going to tell you. It's going to be a little bit different because today is just a teaser for what we're going to do the rest of this week and I think it's going to be interesting. I hope that you enjoy it.

Speaker 1: 0:32

I recently did a little experiment. We've talked a lot about AI here on the podcast, but I recently did just a creative experiment just for fun inside of ChatGPT. Honestly, I've been spending a lot of time inside ChatGPT. It helps me a lot that we use it a lot in our work at chemistry staffing to kind of synthesize thoughts and ideas and do some research those kinds of things. So I just kind of wondered what could ChatGPT, what could AI do with kind of maybe taking a library of thoughts, so feeding things into it and asking it to really kind of synthesize thoughts? And I thought I've got a pretty big body of work here We've done. I believe this is episode 366, if you can believe it or not of the Healthy Church Staff podcast. So I decided I've got all the transcripts from all 360 episodes. I took all those episodes, all the transcripts and everything, and I fed it into ChatGPT and I asked it to do something unusual. I said can you glean every bit of wisdom that you can find, if there's any, from all of these conversations, these over 350 conversations, from all of these conversations, these over 350 conversations, and summarize it in the form of an epistle?

Speaker 1: 1:51

We've talked about epistles. You've been a Christian since you were three years old probably, or maybe you were born a Christian, I don't know. But we talk about epistles in the Bible. But I don't know if you're really keen on I don't know that I was either what the really the true meaning of an epistle is. It's just a letter. It's not like anything inspired or anything. The term epistle is just simply the term for a letter. It's often public, it's often pastoral, sometimes it's written to offer encouragement or wisdom or correction. It's not really a sermon, it's not a theological treatise. It's more like kind of field notes from somebody who's lived some life and done some ministry and wants to help others stay faithful in the process. And that's exactly what I asked GPT to do is to take these 350 episodes, everything that, if you've been listening for a long time, everything that we've talked about over the last 360 episodes to take that and to give just a short in epistle style, a short treatise on some of the real things that we should really be valuing in ministry.

Speaker 1: 3:03

And I've got that available as a download. You'll have to come back tomorrow because I don't have it quite ready to go yet, but I've got it available as a download. And then each day it's going to be a little weird, it's going to be a little different. What I'm going to do is I'm going to read there's four chapters in this epistle. I'm going to read the four chapters, one chapter each day Tuesday, wednesday, thursday and Friday.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Now I'm going to be really clear. What I'm going to read was not typed by my fingers. Okay, these are not my words, but they are my thoughts. The heart behind them is mine. They're the reflections and convictions that have been shaped by I hate to say it, but decades working with churches and serving on staffs and walking alongside leaders, really in every stage of church health and burnout and renewal, and I was really taken aback by and, honestly, surprised and encouraged by what came out of this kind of just a fun project that I thought would be. Yeah, let's just see what Chet GPT thinks that we've talked about and valued here.

Speaker 1: 4:08

It reads like a book of the Bible. Okay, I'm going to tell you that right now and when I read it, you're going to see that because I wrote it in that style, or Chet GPT wrote it in that style, but it's not scripture. Okay, I'm not trying to don't ever anybody, when I read it, don't think that Todd's trying to write a book of the Bible. That's not it. It's not scripture, it's not a manifesto, it's not a leadership strategy either. It's just a modern day epistle. Okay, a letter of encouragement for church leaders who are still showing up, still carrying the weight, still believing that this work matters. Showing up, still carrying the weight, still believing that this work matters. So I would invite you back tomorrow. We are going to start. I'm going to do chapter one tomorrow, and then chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, and I will also give you a link to where you can download this.

Speaker 1: 4:57

I'm calling it True North for Church Leaders a modern day epistle. It's only like 15 pages long, but I'll give you the link tomorrow where you can download that and read it and hopefully that will encourage you in your journey. I think it's going to be a pick me up for when you're having a good day and it's going to be a call to action when things are really rough, which I know they are for a lot of us at times. So join me again right here back here on the podcast tomorrow. I realize this is really unusual. This was just a teaser, but I do want you. I think this is going to be really important and really speak into a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 5:32

I want you to come back tomorrow for the Healthy Church Staff podcast, and this is a great opportunity. If you haven't subscribed, wherever you're watching or listening, go ahead and hit the subscribe button so you'll get that notice when the podcast drops tomorrow. All right, thanks so much. Any questions, any comments, reach out to me. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I always love to hear from everybody that listens and I will see you right here again tomorrow for chapter one, true North a modern-day epistle for church leaders. Have a great day.