One Thing Is Necessary: AI and the Ministry of Presence

Guest Article by Dr. Hunter Chadwick, Head of School, Calvary Day School

A scene in Luke could have been written for right now. Jesus comes to Martha and Mary's home. Mary sits down at his feet and listens. Martha works. And she doesn't keep it to herself. She is "distracted with much serving," and she wants Jesus to send her sister to help. His answer is gentle, but he does not blink. "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:41-42). We are a generation of Marthas. And we have just been handed the most powerful serving tool in history.

The pitch for AI is efficiency. Draft the memo. Summarize the report. Sort the inbox. Prep the board notes. It can do all of that, and it is fast. But efficiency was never our real problem. Like Martha, our problem is that the serving never ends. The faster we clear it, the faster it comes back. Oliver Burkeman says it well in Four Thousand Weeks: "when you get tremendously efficient at answering email, all that happens is that you get much more email." Speed does not buy margin. It grows the appetite. Hand AI to a hurried leader and you do not get a rested leader. You get a hurried leader who can now be anxious about twice as many things. So the real question is not "how do I get more done?" It is Martha's question, whether she knew it or not. What is the one thing, and what are the many things?

For a Christian school leader, the one thing is almost always people. The eighth grader who needs to be seen in the hallway. The teacher who is one hard conversation from quitting. The parent who is scared and just wants to know their kid matters here. Andy Crouch names the test in The Tech-Wise Family: "Technology is in its proper place when it helps us bond with the real people we have been given to love." That is the whole test. Not whether the tool is impressive. Whether it hands you back to the people you are called to love.

Presence is not a productivity trick for us. It is the job. And it is the pattern Jesus set. He was interrupted constantly and hurried almost never. He told his worn-out disciples, "Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while," because the crowds were so relentless that "they had no leisure even to eat" (Mark 6:31). He had every reason to optimize. He was not interested. Dallas Willard, quoted in John Mark Comer's The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, put it bluntly: "hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day." A tool that helps you rush more efficiently doesn't help you. It is just making you a better Martha.

Now here is the turn. The tools are not the enemy. Scripture never tells us to waste time. It tells us to redeem it. "Look carefully then how you walk," Paul writes, "not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:15-16). Making the best use of the time is not the same as squeezing in more tasks. So use these tools to clear the ground, not to stack the pile higher. Let them carry the work that does not need you, so you can protect the work that does.

In practice, it is ordinary. Let AI draft the first version of a routine letter so your energy goes to the two sentences that actually matter. Let it turn your meeting notes into a clean summary so you walk in ready instead of scrambling. Let it triage the inbox so the fires show up and the noise disappears. None of that is the ministry. All of it is the underbrush between you and the ministry.

But here is the part we have to own, because the tool will not own it for us. When the hour you saved gets swallowed, the problem is usually not the technology. It is that nobody decided what the hour was for. Moses prayed, "Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). We do not get endless days. We do not get endless attention either. Greg McKeown says the same thing in plain terms in Essentialism: "If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will." Decide first. This hour is for walkthroughs. This one is for the teacher you keep meaning to encourage. This evening is for your family, with the phone in the other room. The automation is easy. The decision is the hard part, and the decision is the whole point.

AI is not a threat to Christian schools. Misused efficiency is. It lets us confuse motion with faithfulness. A leader can be more productive than ever and less present than ever at the same time, and no dashboard will catch it. The people will feel it long before the numbers do. Martha's house was busy and well run. She still missed the one thing sitting in her living room.

So here is the charge, to my fellow heads and to me first. Use the tools. Let them carry what they can carry. But decide ahead of time that the hour they give back does not go back on the pile. It goes to a person. Let the machines do what a machine can do, so you can do the one thing no machine will ever do for you. Sit down, unhurried, with the person God put in front of you. Martha chose the many things. Mary chose the good portion.

Choose the good portion.