Washington Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president

I just finished reading Harvard Business Review’s cover article for August about the “The AI-Powered Organization.” The article detailed the quickly changing business world and how some companies are adopting artificial intelligence quickly and others are moving at a much slower pace. It also detailed some of the challenges businesses face in adopting artificial intelligence. There are the challenges of moving faster than the employees or consumer wants as well as how to anticipate the barriers to change.

Our fast-changing world is filled with artificial intelligence. We have farmers whose decisions on crop harvest are made by artificial intelligence. There are bank loans decisions that are managed by artificial intelligence and many customer services are totally artificial. There have been times that I have been on the phone and fully completed the business that I needed to conduct without ever talking to an individual. That is sometimes a good thing and many times it is a very frustrating thing.

What was interesting was that in the same issue of HBR was an article about customer service called “How Necessary is the Human Touch?” The research reported in that article was that “adding access to human contact bolsters customer's confidence in their own decision making and in turn elevates their trust in the firm.”

This is what Christianity is all about: Adding the human touch to those making decisions for Jesus. Jesus said that the rocks could cry out and witness for Him. But He chose us to be that human contact for a world that changes quickly, is artificial in so many ways and is filled with people that need assurance that as they choose Jesus they are making the right decision.

Acts 2:46,47 describes the church in an era of its fastest growth: “Every day they continued to meet together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Human contact still needed in a world filled with artificial contact. As we continue to become totally involved with Jesus, we will also become totally involved in sharing Him with a wonderful human touch to a world that is increasingly lonely and isolated. Join me in praying for those positive human interactions that you can have this week that will make a difference for Jesus.