Last updated: June 1, 2026
The core commitment
SermonCoach will never write your sermon. It asks questions. You answer them. The words in your draft originated in something you said — not in the AI’s training data. The sermon is yours because you built it.
SermonCoach is a Socratic coaching tool for sermon preparation. It walks you through a homiletical methodology — Lowry Loop, Robinson Big Idea, Stanley Map, or Quicke 360° — one step at a time.
At each step, the coach asks a question. You answer it. An independent evaluator reviews your response and determines whether you’ve genuinely engaged with the step before advancing. You cannot skip ahead.
After all steps are satisfied, a draft unlocks. That draft is built from the language in your answers — synthesized and organized, but not invented. Every sentence in the draft traces back to something you wrote.
You do. Your sermon responses, your draft, your voice profile — they belong to you. SermonCoach does not claim any ownership over the content you create using this tool.
You may use, publish, preach, or distribute your sermon without attribution to SermonCoach. The sermon is yours.
Your sermon responses and drafts are stored securely so you can return to them across sessions. They are not used to train AI models. They are not shared with third parties. They are not used to generate content for other users.
Your voice profile — built from your writing over time — is used solely to personalize your drafts. It is not shared or used for any other purpose.
We use Anthropic’s Claude API to power the coaching and evaluation. Your content is sent to Anthropic’s servers to generate responses. Anthropic’s privacy policy governs how they handle API data. Per their enterprise API terms, Anthropic does not use API inputs to train models.
We take seriously the concern that AI-assisted sermon preparation may compromise pastoral integrity. Here is our position:
A sermon prepared using SermonCoach is yours in every meaningful sense. You engaged with the text. You answered the methodology questions. You discovered the theological argument. The words in the draft came from your language, not from the AI’s knowledge base.
A sermon generated by an AI tool that writes for you — producing outlines, illustrations, or full manuscripts on request — is a different category. That is not what SermonCoach does, and it is exactly what SermonCoach is designed to prevent.
The distinction matters. Your congregation deserves a pastor who has wrestled with the text. So do you.
AI systems consume energy and water. We do not dismiss this. Running a coaching session on SermonCoach has a real environmental cost, as does any use of large language model APIs.
We believe the exchange is worth making. We also recognize that belief is not sufficient — it is a tradeoff we hold with appropriate humility, and we will continue to evaluate our infrastructure choices as the landscape changes.
Questions about how SermonCoach uses AI, concerns about your data, or requests to delete your account: matt@sermoncoach.app