Solving Problems With AI Innovation| Don Barger
What does a hotel key card have to do with 400,000 people hearing the gospel? Don Barger, Director of Innovation and Artificial Intelligence at the International Mission Board (IMB), shares the unexpected story of how one small, tangible idea helped one of the world's largest missions organizations go from AI skepticism to full-scale adoption — in just a few years.
Key Takeaways
Easy wins change everything. The IMB's first AI pilots were deliberately small — translation of internal communications, a digital responder, and donor processing — and those quick wins gave skeptics something real to believe in before any large-scale rollout began.
A few hundred NFC cards sparked 25,000 chatbot conversations. Don distributed programmed NFC cards at a single event, and within days, 25,000 people had tapped in and engaged with the IMB's AI chatbot — a result that came from one simple, low-cost idea.
FaithBot was built for triage — and became a global evangelism tool. Originally designed to protect digital responders from high-volume, low-quality traffic, FaithBot now has over 400,000 users worldwide across multiple languages, spreading largely through organic, word-of-mouth sharing.
Leadership sponsorship is the non-negotiable. Don invested significant time early on helping the IMB's President and EVP understand AI deeply enough to champion it. The entire senior leadership team completed an MIT Sloan course on AI business applications — and their buy-in made everything else possible.
Your AI belief statement must come before your AI tools. The IMB established clear ethical guardrails before building anything, including a firm line: AI will not provide soul care. Defining what you won't do with AI is just as important as knowing what you will.
Yesterday's skeptics make tomorrow's best advocates. Some of the IMB's loudest AI champions today were among the most resistant voices a year ago. Making innovation accessible and irresistible is what turns doubters into champions.
Ready to Move from "Should We?" to "Here's How We Start?"
If your ministry is still stuck in the "should we?" conversation around AI, this episode will help you move to "here's how we start." Don's framework is practical, proven, and deeply mission-focused — and it's exactly the kind of real-world perspective ministry leaders need right now. Listen to the full episode and then ask yourself: what's your hotel key card moment?
Resources
Don Barger — Director of Innovation and Artificial Intelligence, International Mission Board (IMB)
FaithBot — AI evangelism chatbot: https://chat.faithbot.io/
Don Barger's Substack — AI, Innovation, and Faith: donbarger.com
International Mission Board (IMB): imb.org
Digital Ministry Conference 2026: digitalministryconference.com
Launch AI by Five Q — Ready to move from AI experimentation to measurable ministry impact? Learn more at fiveq.com/launch