Go check your transcripts right now.
I’m serious. Before you read another word, open a new tab, go to your church website, find one of your sermon transcript pages, and read the first two minutes.
If you’re using an AI transcription tool or a cheap transcription service, there’s a very good chance that what you find is going to surprise you. And not in a good way.
I’ve been transcribing sermons professionally for nearly two decades. I’ve worked with some of the most well-known voices in Christian ministry and leadership, people who are meticulous about the quality of everything they put their name on. Their books are excellent. Their websites are beautifully designed. Their social media is carefully crafted. Every detail reflects the standard they’ve set for their ministry.
And then there are the transcripts.
I’ve watched it happen more than once. A leader I’ve worked with for years makes a staffing change or a budget decision, and the transcription work gets handed off to an AI tool. The leader doesn’t read the transcripts themselves, their team doesn’t flag the errors, and so the transcripts just sit there on the website, quietly undermining everything else the leader has built.
The errors aren’t small. They’re not the kind of thing a careful reader might generously overlook. They’re the kind of errors that make a first-time visitor wonder if anyone at this ministry is paying attention.
What These Errors Actually Look Like
Here are some examples from sermon and podcast transcripts generated by AI tools. These aren’t edge cases. They’re the kind of thing that shows up in the first few minutes of a transcript, before most people would even think to start checking.
What was said: “We welcome all who are new today.”
What AI transcribed: “We welcome all who are nude today.”
What was said: “It’s all kinds of people praising the Lamb of God.”
What AI transcribed: “It’s all kind of people grazing the lamb. God.”
What was said: “We are called to serve others with humility.”
What AI transcribed: “We are called to serve otters with humility.”
Those are the errors that are easy to laugh at. The ones that concern me more are the ones that are harder to catch: a Bible reference where the chapter and verse numbers are wrong, a proper name spelled incorrectly, a sentence so mangled that the theological meaning is lost entirely. A visitor might quietly lose confidence in your ministry because something about the transcript felt off without them being able to explain why.
The Blind Spot That’s Hard to Explain
Here’s what I genuinely don’t understand, and I say this with real respect for the leaders I’ve watched make this mistake.
These are people who would never publish a book with typos. They’d never send a newsletter with grammatical errors. They’d never post a social media graphic with a misspelled word. The standard they hold for everything else they put their name on is genuinely high. That standard is part of their brand, and they know it.
But somehow, transcripts get treated differently. Maybe it’s because transcripts feel like a secondary element, something that lives below the audio or video and doesn’t really represent the ministry in the same way. Maybe it’s because the decision to switch to AI was made by someone on their team who was trying to solve a budget problem and didn’t fully think through the quality implications. Maybe it’s simply because no one on the team reads the transcripts after they’re posted.
Whatever the reason, the result is the same. A first-time visitor finds your church through a Google search, lands on a sermon page, reads the transcript, and encounters errors that would get a student failed in a high school English class. That visitor doesn’t know about your budget decisions or your staffing changes. They only know what they see. And what they see is a transcript that says your congregation was welcomed while nude and called to serve otters.
That’s what represents your ministry to a stranger on the internet.
My recommendation: Go check your transcripts. Not later. Right now, before you do anything else today. Before you forget about it. Read one from start to finish and ask yourself honestly whether what you find represents your ministry the way your sermon did. If it doesn't, now you know. And now you can fix it.
When was the last time you actually read one of your church's published sermon transcripts from start to finish?
If you find something that concerns you and want to talk through what professional transcription would look like instead, click here to send me an email. I personally respond to each one.
Multiplying the reach of every sermon,
Ginger
P.S. SermonScribe has been producing accurate, professionally formatted sermon transcripts for pastors and churches since 2008. Want to see what a finished transcript looks like? Browse sample transcripts here. →
