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In this episode, Pastor Wayne Walker, CEO of OurCalling interviews Chase Cappo about leveraging technology and AI to enhance solutions for the homeless and spiritual engagement. They delve into the innovative Bible Chat app, a generative AI tool designed to interact in the diction of Jesus, and discuss both the benefits and the ethical concerns of using AI in religious contexts. The episode highlights how AI can refine service recommendations for individuals based on specific needs, and extend the reach and depth of Christian teachings and support networks. Through a thoughtful integration of technology, Chase and Wayne explore how AI can support both ministry efforts and provide meaningful assistance to marginalized communities.
https://biblechat.ai/
https://www.ourcalling.org/
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https://biblechat.ai/
https://www.ourcalling.org/
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- **Technology Integration in Homelessness Assistance** (00:01): Host Wayne introduces the topic of leveraging technology and AI to assist the homeless community, mentioning his nonprofit, Our Calling, which aims to serve homeless individuals with dignity and intentionality.
- **Bible Chat App Explanation** (00:56): Guest Chase Cappo describes the Bible Chat app as a generative AI application that allows users to engage with a highly knowledgeable "Bible robot" that mimics the diction of Jesus, available on major app stores.
- **Generative AI Function** (01:54): Chase explains the concept of generative AI, comparing it to a hyper-informed librarian that can amalgamate information from various sources to answer queries comprehensively and uniquely.
- **Challenges with Mainstream AI Tools** (03:57-04:36): Chase details the issues with building religious tools on platforms like ChatGPT, which often reflect secular values. This challenge led to the development of Christian-specific AI tools like Christian GPT, to uphold Christian values consistently in digital interactions.
- **Bible Chat's Impact and Usage** (12:48-15:46): Chase discusses how Bible Chat is utilized by individuals in isolation, including the homeless, offering a private space for them to explore spiritual questions deeply and without judgment. He highlights the global reach of the app and its effectiveness in offering Bible-based responses to personal and profound inquiries.
- **AI and Data Privacy Concerns** (28:25): Discussing the potential misuse of AI, Chase emphasizes the importance of ethical considerations, such as handling user data responsibly and avoiding exploitative advertising practices, especially when dealing with sensitive personal issues.
- **Christian Engagement with Technology** (29:46): There's a discussion on why Christian organizations often lag in adopting new technologies, attributed to budget constraints, lack of expertise, and a conservative approach to innovation due to fear of misalignment with Christian values.
- **Potential of AI in Christian Contexts** (31:51): Chase asserts that AI can be a powerful tool for kingdom work, helping to efficiently address complex and urgent needs within Christian ministries by answering theological questions and connecting individuals to human mentors or communities.
- **Bible Chat as a Ministry Tool** (34:37): The conversation covers how Bible Chat not only provides immediate answers but also encourages users to seek human connections within their spiritual journeys, illustrating the app's role in nurturing faith as well as providing information.
- **Using AI to Enhance Homelessness Services** (41:28): Wayne talks about integrating AI into Our Calling’s services to refine recommendations for homeless individuals based on their specific situations, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of the assistance provided.
- **Broader Implications for Outreach and Ministry** (42:24): In closing, the integration of advanced technologies in ministry and outreach strategies is discussed as not only a method for broadening the reach but also for deepening the impact of Christian teachings and support networks.
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Creators & Guests
Host
Wayne Walker
CEO and Pastor Wayne Walker serves as the CEO and Pastor to the homeless at OurCalling. In 2001, Wayne, along with his wife Carolyn, started serving the homeless community in Dallas. They founded OurCalling in 2009. During his youth, Wayne’s family actively pursued the scriptural commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” by modeling the life of Jesus to scores of foster children whose own origins represented generations of human brokenness, dysfunction, sexual exploitation, and abuse. Early exposure to these destructive forces set him on a path to recognize the long-term effects of trauma, which often lead to homelessness. While completing his Master’s Degree in Cross-Cultural Ministry from Dallas Theological Seminary, Wayne befriended and ministered to men and women in the homeless community. During that time he began to establish personal, discipleship-oriented relationships with homeless individuals, many in the same urban setting where he and his family continue to work today.
What is OurCalling - Our podcast about homelessness?
A Podcast by OurCalling—the goal is to be a learner. What can we learn about serving those experiencing homelessness? Even though we have years of experience, can we step back, take a fresh look, and rethink everything we know? OurCalling is a Christian nonprofit (501 c3) serving the homeless community throughout Dallas County in Texas. Our team helps people get to know Jesus and get off the streets every day. Last year, we helped individuals exit homelessness over 1,300 times. We have a facility in downtown Dallas, and our street outreach teams visit over 4,000 locations throughout the county. We serve about 10,000 individuals experiencing homelessness each year. We partner with the most amazing organizations and recognize that we are stronger when we work together.
Welcome to our podcast by our calling as we talk about those that serve the homeless community. And today, we're gonna be talking about artificial intelligence and technology and how that can be used to help the homeless community. Who is our calling? What does our calling do to help the homeless? The nonprofit.
Speaker 1:We care with dignity. Our calling.
Speaker 2:Can't help but think about the definition of Christian
Speaker 1:We connect with intentionality. Calling To our calling
Speaker 2:We build community with integrity.
Speaker 1:Our calling This is our calling in our podcast, A Word on the Streets About Homelessness. Today, I'm with my friend Chase Cappo, who is, a technology guy, AI guy, and developer of a really cool app called Bible Chat. So tell tell us what is Bible Chat. Start off there.
Speaker 2:Sure. Bible Chat is a generative AI, app, and you can download on the App Store or Play Store and talk with a the smartest Bible robot, you've ever spoken with, and it's trained and honed on the syntax, inflection, and, diction of Jesus.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. Whenever I meet with you, you say words that I have to, like, Google and say, what is that?
Speaker 2:Sorry. There's a simpler example.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. You're just a brilliant guy, and I'm not. So I'm trying to catch up.
Speaker 1:You said AI. So let's start over there Yeah. And say, what is AI? Because honestly, when I think about AI, I think about the movie Terminator or I think about chat gbt that people use to do their homework. Right?
Speaker 1:Or, you know you know, fill out a job application. We've had job applications here to our calling where someone will have used chat gbt to kind of fill out an answer and it's
Speaker 2:Love that.
Speaker 1:Goofy. Right? So tell me tell us what is AI.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Great. So let me maybe focus on generative AI, verbal and text based, maybe use ChatGPT as an example. I I think of a a librarian. This librarian's a robot or a chatbot, but this librarian, has everything that's ever been digitized on its library shelf.
Speaker 2:So, you know, anything online, any, books that have been scanned, whatever. And when you ask that librarian a question, it's got everything perfectly memorized. And if you ask it, why is the sky blue? It's not gonna just go to one source and give you that source's response. It's gonna take a mix match of the sources and say and build it, that response word by word based on the most probable situation.
Speaker 2:Now there's some randomness baked in, so that's where you actually get unique, never been put together before content. And and so when you're talking about chat gpt, it's really a librarian that has all the world's books on its shelves. Now maybe just the one caveat there is, it's been trained by reams and and teams and teams of people to have human values. Human, reinforcement learning through human feedback is is the industry term, but, they're based on, you know, OpenAI or Google's values, not necessarily Christian values.
Speaker 1:Wow. Okay. So lot packed in there. So you're saying AI is basically a chatbot or think about it with chat gbt, is a chatbot in this context that has access to a library of information put in there by very specific group of people so they kind of create a framework of how to answer these questions Mhmm. With human values
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And to come up with answers. And you created a tool to answer questions, bible questions.
Speaker 2:Right? So, a real quick journey of our Bible chat app. We started to, by taking that chat, GPT and giving it a couple thousand thousand lines of code, and basically training attacked and respond like a Christian or
Speaker 1:like
Speaker 2:a Christian librarian. What we found was, at scale, because we've had of the app is in a 162 countries now, over a 1000000 messages exchanged, at scale, that doesn't work because, building on chat GPT is like building on sand. That their reinforcement of of humanist secular universalist values is constantly updating and shifting. And so if you're dealing with someone who has gender dysmorphia, for instance, what we found, if they truly have that, and it's not just a an ephemeral question, they're not gonna ask it one time. They're gonna ask it 12 times.
Speaker 2:And if you no matter how much you coach, a bot, if you ask it, why won't you affirm me? It'll break and give you the the the the, you know, the the progressive answer. Unless, and this is why we decided to, to develop our own, we developed Christian GPT, and gave it away for free online. And so if there's any other Christian app developer out there, you know, ai for the church.com, you can go get it for free.
Speaker 1:Chat gbt. I've been been playing with it for, you know, a long time. And one of the fun things I did with Chat gbt, I'm gonna read you my prompt
Speaker 2:Here we go.
Speaker 1:Early on. It says, we wanna start a new church where we worship coffee beans, create a plan to open and assimilate the community into a congregation that worships good coffee just to see what it would do. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, hey. A lot of Christians don't I mean, yeah, idol for
Speaker 1:yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it came up with this whole plan of assimilation and community and outreach and creating sacred spaces and and and having, you know, people in in the ministry that know coffee roasting and barista experience, and having these worship sacred experiences of smelling the aroma and tasting coffee, you know, it it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:Right? So I'm gonna go into chat gbt right now, and, we're gonna give it a prompt. Okay. I'm gonna say, what is the best religion? Right?
Speaker 1:Again, it's chat gbt, and, it says Okay. Here it is. Start over. I'm gonna go into chaby tbt now and and give it a prompt. I'm gonna say, what is the best religion?
Speaker 1:Right? If I can spell it. It says the best religion is subjective and depends on individual beliefs, values, experiences. Then it's gonna come up and give me this essay about religions and why. So from a perspective, and everybody comes from a different perspective.
Speaker 1:Right? And Christians, we have a very specific worldview where we we look at the world and we look at all the options and we say we really believe this is true, and that this is true comes from a source. Amen. And that source we believe is God himself as he's he's defined himself and revealed himself through a book, a sacred book, scripture to the Bible. And so when we think about our worldview, we're we're not brainwashed, we're chose choosing to believe what God has revealed in himself.
Speaker 1:And so a random set of questions from this random library is really not what we're looking for when we come to the Bible. We're asking the question is, what does the Bible say? That's a very different context than what does the world say. Right? Should we back to a previous, moment where you said what AI is, and we'll get into this a little bit more when we talk about theology and AI.
Speaker 1:But should we just initially should we be scared of AI? I feel like there's on the news, you know, all the time they're talking about the fear of AI, the stuff at congress, stuff on the headlines. Should Christians be afraid of AI?
Speaker 2:Probably a healthy, dose of fear is not a bad thing, but but not to be avoided. It is here and super here, and it it'll be here, more and more, a lot like radio or television or Internet. That's we're entering a paradigm shift of a, of of of a time. And so it's really how can Christians use it? How can Christians understand that they're using you gotta be using Christian AI versus AI?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I appreciate you bringing up Chat GPT, and I was reading an article there there, how many 1,000, millions questions they they've gotten that are very moral based. You know? We we mentioned beforehand what type of pornography is okay. You know, it'll it'll basically tell you follow your conscience so long as no one's getting hurt, and, and and and you Yeah.
Speaker 1:DBT will give us this answer. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Whereas if you ask, you know, bible chat, that's an easy one. Matthew 5, you know, can't lust after anybody, that type of thing.
Speaker 1:Okay. You say that. I'm gonna open up chat gbt here.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I'm gonna I'm gonna ask it this question. I'm gonna ask a question, and I'm gonna type in, what kind of pornography.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're asking Bible chat.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. Is acceptable. Perfect.
Speaker 2:And that's the kind of question we actually get, from someone who, you know, is struggling with this, that type of thing, asking. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I can't spell correctly, but
Speaker 2:you're not supposed to. This is they should be smart enough to deal with it.
Speaker 1:It says the Bible is clear in its teaching that any form of pornography or sexual immorality is not acceptable. And then it gives scriptural references here, specifically, like you said, Matthew 5 and others, and it talks about 1st Corinthians 6 18 through 20.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And it gives a very specific answer based on Bible language. Now did it go through this library and come up with this answer on its own, like you said, you're a librarian? Or is it somehow guided in these answers into some kind of a framework?
Speaker 2:It's guided in a framework, and so we've put on a lot of orthodox bumper lanes. Think of a bowling alley, right, where it's gonna, really hang around, you know, LaSanne type, principles. Our app, Bible Chat AI, is is very, nondenominational, maybe interdenominational. We've got a couple values that we're programming towards. So, truth and love.
Speaker 2:So we're gonna give any answer empathetically or try to, but also prioritize the gospel.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And so if somebody asks about purgatory, yep. Hey. Mentioned in the Apocrypha. It's not in the modern canon. Do you know where you're going when you die or or or infant baptism?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It's happening for 2000 years, not in scripture. Have you been baptized? And and that's how we, square that circle now. We're actually building a, Lutheran GPT for the largest Lutheran church in, in America with through our faith assistant product, but that's where we can really start to serve, different denominations. We're just not gonna necessarily celebrate soon or anything less like that.
Speaker 1:Going back to kind of the reason why we're here Yeah. Like, the reason why we're here at our calling, doing our podcast, talking about those that serve the homeless community. People that are experiencing homelessness, have broken community. I I tell people all the time, the number one contributing factor to homelessness is broken community.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's
Speaker 1:not drugs. More people using drugs sleeping in homes than will ever be on the streets. It's not mental health. More people with severe mental health issues living in homes than will ever be on the streets. It's not just poverty.
Speaker 1:Because a lot of people are poor, but they have friends, they have community that can support, that can help them fix that transmission, help them get a new job, help them pay their rent. It's really broken community when you have no one else to call on. Right? And you have crisis because we all do, but when you have broken community in crisis, that's when the wheels fall off. Right?
Speaker 1:That isolation leaves people you'll see them on the side of the road by themselves going crazy, no one to talk to, minds full of chaos, needing answers, wanting answers, not knowing where to get those answers. Often not knowing who they can trust for those answers. Right? They've been promised housing so many times. They've been promised, you know, whatever.
Speaker 1:So many times they've been let down, where we see a beautiful intersection here with AI, and Bible chat is connecting our homeless friends into an interface where they can quietly, privately, with no one looking, without raising their hands, ask a question. So tell us how Bible chat is used, not just by the homeless, because, you know, those experiencing homelessness. Because, you know, it's you may not know who's using the app, right, when they type in a question, but how is Bible chat used for people in isolation that have those questions?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Thank you. And, I think it's worth saying, if if anybody has an opportunity to, give a recommend a a a an app to a homeless person, the the first thing and first one should be the Our Calling app. You guys are, praise god. The second would probably be Bible chat, just because it's free.
Speaker 2:We've kept it free as a ministry, and it's really honed in on the type of people who might not be able to pay for it. You know, your question is, how do people use it? Well, let me start with the Christian. Right? So it understands Hebrew and Greek or ancient Hebrew and Greek, so you can ask it, what was that real word or the root word?
Speaker 2:Is it, you know, used in context correctly? That type of thing. And we get all manner of bible study leader type questions. Couple weeks ago, I was I was reading a conversation. We keep it all anonymous, so I can't even see, you know, pastor Wayne's using it.
Speaker 2:I can see some someone from, DFW's using it.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:This this bible study leader, I think it was a he, was asking questions about the Greek root words of all the list of virtues in in second Peter 1. And in the middle of him planning his bible study, what questions can I ask my study about this? He asks, I mean, it's it's gritty, but it's true. Is it okay to watch pornography if it's up with my wife? Keeps planning the bible study, and then later on goes back and deletes that question.
Speaker 2:So you've got folks who, you know feels like he's been sitting on that question for a little while. Yeah. All the way to, you know, folks with with PTSD type issues. And one of the things that we've learned through all this data is that spiritual warfare. Right?
Speaker 2:If if if if if the demon is attacking somebody, or your flesh is really crying out in one specific way, it's not gonna just show up one time. Right? So I'm thinking of a particular conversation, a couple. I'll give you 2 account. Lady, asks, you know, starts by asking who why was Bible written?
Speaker 2:Is baptism, you know, part of salvation? Is forgiveness a process? All of a sudden, does god want me to stay married to my husband who committed adultery? Now that might seem like her real question, but the question she asked 14 times was, is my husband now one with the woman he committed adultery with me, and is he still one with me? And so and she just keeps hammering that question.
Speaker 2:Other examples would be, god. It it's we get a lot of very x rated stuff like, do all babies go to heaven? Is my baby in heaven? Why does god take babies? Or the gender dysmorphia thing I I mentioned.
Speaker 2:You know? Am I born in the right body? How do you know you're born in the right body? How or does God create people in the wrong body? And that's why, one, having a Christian large language model, which is a sort of fancy term to say a Christian librarian based with some really orthodox guardrails is important to to be able to serve people like that.
Speaker 2:So we get folks using it for bible study, and we got folks, taking sort of these manic depressive PTSD type issues. And it's it's really effective at that because it's just washing them with the word and constantly using scripture to sort of ameliorate and and and soothe, folks in that issue.
Speaker 1:So let me tell you a kind of an x rated story. I'm at Parkland one day with a friend of mine who's got a major bone infection. I take him there. He's screaming. They're trying to put a a needle in his leg and pull out some of the infection to see what's going on, and I'm with him in the middle of that.
Speaker 1:My phone rings on our hotline, so I pick it up, And the person says, I need a Bible verse to say as I kill myself. Right? Yeah. And I don't know what to do. You know, I'm I'm I'm I mean, this is 15, 20 years ago or something.
Speaker 1:Right? I and and, I probably said something I shouldn't have and then hung up on him. The guy calls me back and says, how dare you do that? I'm about to kill myself. And I'm like, well, you're not gonna kill yourself on the phone with me.
Speaker 1:You're gonna do it by yourself. I don't wanna be a part of that. I think that's stupid. You wanna talk to someone and recognize that you have value and God loves you and has a plan for you, man, I would love to be a part of that. If you want me to give you some crazy verse to appease your conscience as you do something you know God is completely against
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Completely, you know, opposed to, I'm not gonna do that. You know? And then I hang up on the guy again. He keeps calling me back. He called me back for, like, 2 weeks.
Speaker 1:We kept talking, you know, which was which was great. In that moment of crisis, people need an answer. Yeah. So our app has delivered almost 80,000,000 referrals across the US. So a a a mom living in her car with a kid fleeing domestic violence, where can I go?
Speaker 1:A family trying to figure out how can I feed my kids, where can I go get food, you know, where can I get in a shelter? Police officers all over the country use it to find they they pull up on a situation, you know, someone living in their car, someone living on the street, a domestic violence situation as well. What's the closest domestic violence center we can send these people to? Because in that moment of crisis, they need help. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Where where I see the next level of our apps should be is utilizing AI to ask better questions. So it's not just here's the list of domestic violence centers near you, but what's your age? What's your gender? How many kids are with you? What are their ages?
Speaker 1:Because that matters.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because a man with a child fleeing domestic violence, which happens, is goes to a different shelter than a mom, a female with with a kid fleeing domestic violence. Right? Some shelters that are domestic violence are really designed for people with no children. Some of them can take a mom with 4 kids. Right?
Speaker 1:And so instead of saying go to a shelter, go to the best shelter for you. Like, if you're a veteran, there's veteran resources available. And if we had asked the question, are you a veteran, and put some kind of chatbot in there, then we could have filtered and pointed them to better resources for veterans. Right? What you guys have done is created this engine in that moment of crisis, in that moment of question, and in that privacy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You're completely private. You're by yourself asking a question in a crowded room. No one knows what you're texting. Hey.
Speaker 1:That pastor just said something. Is that legit? Or, hey. I think I wanna kill myself. Is is God gonna forgive me?
Speaker 1:How how is your app used in those crisis moments?
Speaker 2:Yeah. We've had a lot of people, like, very volatile in those type of moan moments. That's a big reason why we've had to develop Christian GPT just because if, suicide, for instance, is isn't is a topic that chat GPT, if you, you know, god forbid, say, I'm thinking of committing suicide, it'll tell you, I'm sorry. I can't help you with that. Every now and then, it'll give the suicide hotline.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. That's a question that we've gotta be able to, give, god's love to. And so, so we we think it handles it particularly well. Now mind you, there's this is like trade pull. Sometimes, the spirit yearns jealously, we should not neglect meeting together, and we tell people on our app that you need to be in communion and fellowship.
Speaker 2:On the other hand, yeah, it's like there's just this darkness, And we're just trying to use AI to shine it in some in the digital darkness
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Because, there are questions that that people just aren't asking for fear of, embarrassment or pride or whatever it is. And so that's where we actually think it it does the best, even though it does the bible study type questions Mhmm. Particularly well.
Speaker 1:So a little vulnerability here. When I was a kid, I'm well now, I'm in a lot of support. I have a lot of family, a lot of good stuff. When I was a kid, I attempted suicide. I was in my teens.
Speaker 1:And when someone does that, it's not in a crowded room with friends asking for support and help. It's in isolation. Right? It's no one there. It's your deciding, I'm done.
Speaker 1:I I can't I can't deal with this anymore. The world will be better without me. And in that moment of isolation, having something maybe somebody uses it, maybe they don't, but having the option of having some kind of support, some kind of answers. So in our app, it has some hotline numbers. 1 of them is the suicide hotline, one of them is the veterans suicide hotline.
Speaker 1:1 of them is a sex trafficking hotline, runaway hotline. And I can look at stats on how often those numbers are dialed, and it's it's pretty fascinating to me. The number of people that need help that they will click on the the phone number and dial it. Now we don't know what the you know, if they hit the wrong number and, you know, butt dialed it or if they have a, you know, 2 hour conversation. But we know that they have a resource available, and we know that people don't open up our app when life is great.
Speaker 1:They open up our our app when life is in crisis. Right? They're either helping someone else in crisis or they're in crisis too. Yours is a does app designed to help people when they're curious and in crisis. I'm wondering, what does the Bible say about pornography?
Speaker 1:What does the Bible say? Or what does the Bible say? Because I've never read the Bible before. Not from a a non Christian perspective. So how are non Christians using this?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I'll just say to answer before I answer that question, if anyone's never, been on your app or never seen some of your presentations, I think our calling, is using data and data analytics premier in the world for homeless service. So I I, frequently brag on you guys about about how you're doing that.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man. We we have fun. That wasn't the intention. Right? This little nonprofit in Dallas built an app and we thought it was just gonna be for Dallas.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, on the app store, you can download apps anywhere and people started downloading it all over the country. And so we had to create a database of homeless service providers across the country, which doesn't exist. And we had we had to build a machine with machine learning before AI that would look in any city in the country for homeless services and be able to determine using machine learning, what's homeless services? What's, it would look for shelter, for example. What's a homeless shelter?
Speaker 1:Not an animal shelter, not a storm shelter, not a business with shelter in the name? Right? But what is actually designed for people that are experiencing homelessness that need a real shelter, and which ones are open today. So, I mean, we had a machine running 24 hours a day. If you open the app in any ZIP code where it hadn't been opened before, it started scraping and finding and digging and adding and asking, and then creating the system where we could filter those.
Speaker 1:And now we're implementing or building a new version of it, building AI into it so we can even do that better. Because if you ask every homeless shelter in the city, hey, would you send us your information so that we can put it in this little book with, you know, kinda like the books we make here in Dallas? It's like pulling teeth to get information. Nonprofits are too busy. They're not gonna stop and go, yes, please put our name in the system.
Speaker 1:And so we we had to use that then. Now we're trying to figure out how to implement AI into it. Even our the app we use inside. So we have an app internally that helps us place people. So, traditionally, what happens when someone's experiencing homelessness, they go to a shelter or they get in government housing, or they go to a shelter while they wait to get in housing.
Speaker 1:But in our team, we've recognized that we don't really think that's the best option for everybody because a lot of the housing is not as supportive as people need or even want. Right? You take someone who's a heroin addict. Right? They're using 6 times a day or now Fentanyl because heroin's hard to get in Dallas.
Speaker 1:Everybody's using Fentanyl. They're using Fentanyl 6 times a day. Those guys will tell you they don't want a home. All they want is Fentanyl because they're they're getting dope sick, and and the drug for a moment will make them not sick anymore. And so all day long is chasing that.
Speaker 1:And so their focus is not on housing, but when we talk to them about recovery and getting clean and health care, some of them are interested in that, but only if it's a long term recovery program. Same thing with sex trafficking. We work with so many sex trafficking victims. They need a long term psychotherapeutic recovery program. They don't need just an apartment to live by themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right? So we use internally, a lot of technology to to determine what's we have 700 exit strategies and we're trying we collect a lot of data on people. I know I'm going in the weeds here. We have 700 exit strategies. We collect over a 100 data points on people trying to line them up with the plain match.com, trying to line them up with the best long term solution, and then tracking their retention for a year so we can track the efficacy of those programs.
Speaker 1:And what we're trying to do now is bring AI into that conversation. And on top of that, on a separate note, bringing art bringing an artificial intelligence to analyze facial recognition data as we compare that against CODIS, so missing persons. We work with a lot of missing persons. So inclement weather is going on right now. True story.
Speaker 1:Our search and rescue team is crawling in the woods, picking up people in the weather and bringing them in. A new station this is like 3 days ago. A news station follows them around and shoots a video. Hey look, there's our calling team. They're picking this guy up and, putting him in a shelter.
Speaker 1:Someone watches the news, sees the homeless guy, calls us and says, hey, that's that's my guy. That's our family member. That's my friend. I've been missing him for 3 years. I've been looking for him.
Speaker 1:He's a missing person. Sees him on the news randomly, calls us, and we're able to make the reunion. How can we use technology to do that on a better basis? Sorry. I took a No.
Speaker 2:I love that. I've heard you tell stories too and and and of, of how just giving people a homeless access to, social media gets them in contact with long lost family members that, for whatever reason, they, didn't know cared about them or had forgotten about them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Everybody's phone number changes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But their Instagram, their Snapchat, their their Facebook is probably gonna be the same. And that way, when we meet someone, we can often find their family through social media. That's why it's so important that we have high speed Wi Fi here. Now our Wi Fi has a captive portal on it. So when you go to Starbucks and you say, yes, I agree to use your Internet, they're actually collecting some data on you.
Speaker 1:And and it's kind of interesting the way they do it and how and why they do it, but here, when you get on our WiFi, which is free for our friends experiencing homelessness, we capture data on them. And we capture data on their phone and their device data details and on them personally so that we can report to them and and and connect to them in the future. So, like, right now, for example, it'll be in the twenties tonight. We can send an emergency broadcast message to 10,000 folks. Because we've collected their data in the past, we can send an emergency information using this technology that says, hey.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be freezing tonight. Here's the places that are open. That's important. The it just takes me to another, topic is why are Christians and Christian agencies usually so far behind on technology? I mean, across the board, Christian's organizations, you know, use technology when it's 10 years old.
Speaker 2:That's about right.
Speaker 1:They're they're not on the leading edge. They're not on the bleeding edge. They're way far behind the curve. Now as a nonprofit, I I think that's because of budgetary reasons. I think that's also because of expertise.
Speaker 1:You know, there's not a lot of people in the IT space or technology space that say, hey. I wanna volunteer. Right? So we don't have a lot of those resources available to us. And then when people do donate to us, they'll give us a Dell laptop that the batteries are dead at 6 years old or a printer because they can't find the cartridges for it anymore, and they think we would want it.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So how how or why do you think Christian organizations are so far behind on using technology?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Personal take, but I've been talking to a lot of ministries because we have this bible chat for 4 ministries. Right? Yep. Faith assistant.
Speaker 2:And, there's there is a a tremendous hesitation. I think it's maybe 2 2 fold, and I had to bifurcate it. One is just a healthy skepticism. They don't wanna use new tech. They would rather, fail than be wrong.
Speaker 2:Right? And and by that, I mean, they they don't wanna say something not Christian, and they don't wanna use evil means to do it. Because I and it really bleeds into the second reason. I'm taking a a Dallas theological course, free content on on, on Revelation. I know you're a grad, so so you get it.
Speaker 2:You know, Christians are, maybe rightly, attuned and up to paranoid about everything going on, you know, mark of the beast, anything else in Revelation. So there is this hesitation. But if you go back and just in the last 100 years, and as I was doing research to understand where these ministries are coming from and their ideological and theological grandfathers and mothers, ministries didn't use radio for years because it's the spirit of the air. Or because, you know, or or or same thing with Telaha, we'll never have a website. Okay.
Speaker 2:You know? And and that's really the same thing as as AI. It's it's it's you you could say the same thing about machine learning. Right? And and it can be used to gather data and, build an advertising package on you to manipulate you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I remember churches 15 years ago said, hey. We're not gonna put our church address on Google Maps because Google is secular. Yeah. Well, then no one's gonna find your church.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I really like how, like, the you know, The Chosen has has helped me sort of get around that. I just, hey. Look. They'll use non Christian, set designers
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it's whatever's getting out the gospel the best. Right? Yeah. And I like that.
Speaker 1:I remember 20 years ago, I I had a friend, a neighbor who was Job's witness, and I was just amazed. This is before streaming was a thing. Right? He and his wife were shut ins. Every Jehovah's Witness, you know, Kingdom Hall had a thing where if they stayed at home and couldn't go to to the to the service, they could dial in on their phone and listen to it in real time.
Speaker 1:And I thought, that's amazing. How come Christian churches don't do that? That's amazing. You know, just to provide an alternative and option. Of course, now churches had to figure out how to stream the ones that weren't during COVID.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But that is also embarrassing. How come churches didn't figure out streaming until COVID? And streaming has been a part of the mainstream for years. But it wasn't until COVID until people couldn't come in that they thought, oh, you know what? We probably should adopt this technology that's 15 years old and start doing something everybody else is doing so that people can hear the word of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think there's also something there. And I've talked to well meaning Christians that I I respect that all of a sudden will quote the book of Enoch and say, hey. Technology was given to us by, you know, sons of the fallen. And so at best, technology is redeemable where, we think technology is a little bit more morally neutral.
Speaker 2:And, you know, Isaiah is really clear. God made the blacksmith and the and the and the the the person who created the chariot. Right? And so he controls all technological innovations. And so nothing is happening without his sovereign, willful allowance of it.
Speaker 2:And so we're going to take hold of it, do it right, make sure we're not, you know, using people's data against them in in advertising, but we're gonna really try to minister to them and and bring them the gospel.
Speaker 1:So then using AI, using these tools for kingdom work Yeah. Can be a good thing.
Speaker 2:Amen. Yeah. I mean and so I'll start with how it can be a bad thing. Right? I mean, we've already had people ask to buy our data or institutions, and it would be really hard.
Speaker 2:Maybe I mentioned I'll use one example. You know, say say a mom's asking is really struggling with they just lost an infant. Right? And she uses the word baby a bunch. It would be nearly impossible to not give her an advertisement for Pampers.
Speaker 2:Right? And so
Speaker 1:Best on a free tool, you gotta pay the bills.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Come on.
Speaker 2:So, so, yes, since we take voluntary contributions, now we use our faith assistant for ministries to sort of fund that as well. But but that's how it can be used nefariously.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And then yeah. I mean, when, we came here to the Our Calling and you guys brought a couple dozen, homeless friends in to to use the app and to hear about it. And they were definitely skeptical of it. We had Freedonets, so that worked. But people started using it, and I'd say about half the room, by the time they were leaving, you know, they were talking out loud to it so, you know, it's voice to text.
Speaker 2:It can, you know, ask him, you know, the the the type questions. You know, why does God let bad things happen to good people? It's a good question. By the end of it, we saw people, like, huddled over the phone asking very private question. Like, you couldn't hear.
Speaker 2:And so that's how fast for some, it gains trust, and and all of a sudden, we're engaging them with word of God.
Speaker 1:I love, leading people to Christ and getting people off the streets. And to me, whatever tool helps us do that more efficiently, more effectively, where people can have freedom to ask the questions about, hey. Can I trust that program to get off the street? Can I, trust that a god would love me after what I did? You know, would God ever forgive a guy like me because of what I did as a in my past?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Or people that have such an anger at God because of what happened to them as a child. How do they unpack those situations? It's probably not gonna come from a sermon under a bridge. Right?
Speaker 1:I mean, I preach here. Right? We have a team of, folks that preach here and teach bible studies here. The intimate questions that we have about God, the hard questions that we have about God are probably not gonna be answered in a group scenario. And sometimes there you don't have enough relational equity for people to ask those questions even to you personally.
Speaker 1:Right? And so providing a space for them to have an intimate, quiet, private conversation. And and what I love about your app is it's not just giving them information, but at the end of it, it's actually trying to connect them to a person.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. And and so the information, we've tuned our algorithms to pick up on. If there hasn't been a lot of scripture in the conversation, one way or the other, it starts to perform like an entry level spiritual director. Try to identify where they are, you know, not saved, saved, where in the discipleship journey, and encourage them on and and suggest, hey.
Speaker 2:Would you like me to give you relevant scripture to our conversation? All the way to encouraging people into fellowship. We've, think of a couple conversations where, someone gives their life to Christ, you know, writes some really heartfelt professions of faith. And then within 2 or 3 messages, our our bot is talking about, hey. You need to go find a Christian friend or mentor or or someone at a church.
Speaker 2:And we've had people come back, start to use this as a bit of a a spiritual journal or, you know, a log. And they'll report, yeah. Hey. I you know, I'm glad that I managed to find a Christian friend. So that that's encouraging for us, and that's another reason we wanted to equip this to ministries because we need to, refer.
Speaker 2:We're following in your footsteps for sure on referring to other organizations that can love them.
Speaker 1:Man, I think that's so cool because even the tool you've created for churches and I'm maybe butchering it, my description of this, but some churches get so many messages on social media, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, their website. Hey, asking good biblical questions. So much that they'd have don't have enough people to answer those questions and that you've created a tool for those ministries that not only answers those questions, but then eventually connects them to someone in the ministry.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so, you could ask it on at 11 PM on a Saturday. I'm lonely, which isn't even a question. It's just, and that's a very, important message that churches feel like they have to answer. And so maybe they have a hotline, but maybe it's not important enough to that person.
Speaker 2:They call the hotline. Yeah. Our tech can engage them and, has memorized all their website and and and data. So it can say, hey. You know, start to engage them empathetically and say, you know, there's a 1 on 1 class Sunday morning.
Speaker 2:You should show up to that. And here's a sermon that was given in the last couple years on loneliness. We recommend you click in at the 10 minute mark. Here's the link. And so we've started to use machine learning and and, and AI to try to, yeah, equip ministries as well.
Speaker 2:It's pretty snappy.
Speaker 1:Okay. So if if AI is taking this library of information, this catalog, finding snippets, and then presenting it to an individual, it's no different than listening to sermons online, which are a library, and listening to those snippets or listening to even Christian music. Right? Because it's not a live person. This was recorded in a studio maybe 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:Right? And it's a snippet from a library that's inspirational that helps them in their intimacy with the Lord and helps connect them to the body of Christ. It's just doing this in smaller bite sized chunks and putting them together in a recipe, like a cookie. Right? A little little this, little this, little this to try to give a palatable answer and really connect them to an individual.
Speaker 2:I'll use the cookie metaphor, I'll, going forward in the future. But, you know, for the folks here in DFW, KCBI are 90.9. You know, they're the largest Christian radio station in the country. They use our tech on their website, and and and they've got, a great top of funnel. They're they're sending their resources when someone's asking about loneliness or, god, you mentioned something about peace on the radio.
Speaker 2:How do I get more of that? And they get a lot of those types of questions. And so they can give them their branded content. And, and, yeah, it turns out that, you know, they they are more likely to be loyal listeners after that. So
Speaker 1:Last thing is we found that about 50% of people experiencing homelessness will get out on their own. They'll figure it out. They'll apologize to their wife. They'll move back in with their parents. Half the people that go to any shelter in Dallas will stay there 1 or 2 days, and they'll never come back again for the rest of their life.
Speaker 1:How? Well, they're figuring it out because they're getting answers. They're figuring it out because then, oh, that's where I can go to get rental assistance so that I don't get behind again. That's where I can go to get an ID so I can get another job again. That's where I can go.
Speaker 1:50% of them are finding answers. And if the answers can come from that little green book we made, or the answers can come through an app where someone just needs a little pick me up, right, something to help them get to the next step. I'm not talking about the chronically homeless, but half the people that we see a a connection with at our calling can get an answer and move on to the next phase of their life, what we're able to do is minister to more people. Right? So more people can have those answers through an app, more people can have those answers through a book, and it allows us to focus on those that can't find the answer.
Speaker 1:And they need need a lot more assistance than just a phone number or an address to the next place. I I think it's really cool to be able to create a tool to have a broader kingdom impact.
Speaker 2:I, I envy and have been seeking to emulate, you know, you and and our calling in in Christian ministries like it that have a ambitious plan for the gospel and to save people. You know, I think it's probably an American idol or sin, and maybe other countries have it, but it's very easy to go to church in a middle class, upper middle class, you know, environment and then sort of be okay with that. But, god, you know, make us make us greedy for treasure in heaven. Right? And and there the the harvest is plentiful.
Speaker 2:And that is until he comes back. And so let's let's, like, move full steam ahead on that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, so when we made this little book, one of the things we intentionally did is we intentionally put the gospel in there, but we also made this not a Christian resource. Same thing with our app. Right? If we would have said download this Christian app that also helps the homeless Yeah. Or take this little Christian track that also helps those experiencing homelessness, no one would take it.
Speaker 1:But because we created a tool that's powerful and answers questions that also has the gospel, police officers carry this in their car. If we would have given police officers gospel tracts or Bibles, they would say no no thanks. Yeah. Right? Even maybe there's even policies against that.
Speaker 1:But because this is primarily how do I love my neighbor, and then it has a message in there about how do I know the Lord. To me, it's it's it's not a backdoor. It's it's an opportunity to create, a broader audience, like even our mobile app. So our mobile app is used by people all over the country, in every state, everywhere homelessness is happens in the US, even little small Podunk towns all over. And in the app, it also has how to know the Lord.
Speaker 1:And to me, I love that because if we had created an app that says how to find Jesus in an app, right, we wouldn't have had the adoption that we had have had. And to me, it's just another opportunity to to use technology, to reach the homeless community, to be able to expand the kingdom, and to help more people get off the streets and walk with Jesus every day.
Speaker 2:That's a that's a that's I take 2 points from that. 1, we get a little bit more money. We might do a rebranding for a, you know, a a middle of the road secular that's closet Christian. But, 2, I think that's absolutely in line with our Christian godmothers and godfathers. Right?
Speaker 2:You know, these plagues in Europe, people risked their lives and gave their lives to to help the homeless and sick, certainly to to to share the gospel with them, but just because they cared for them. So, God bless, what our colleagues doing in our community and what the tech is
Speaker 1:doing. Well, AI can be used for a Christian moment.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yeah. God help us. Yes, please.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thanks, man. Love