Alex Lyons was touring the International Mission Board’s training center in late April, lagging behind the group, when he spied the life-sized, black-and-white Lottie Moon cutout familiar to many churches. And as Lyons is prone to do, he had an idea and acted on it.
Lyons took a picture of Moon and turned to AI. Within five minutes, he had a colorized version of her that moved and appeared to speak.
South Carolina Baptists’ Creative team developed a series of videos for *June Estes, an avatar representing a young missionary from the state serving through the International Mission Board. (Image courtesy of Alex Lyons/SCBC)
That night, he added more AI tools. The next day, South Carolina Baptists’ creative director presented a 30-second video of Moon matched with a first-person narration. She stood on a dock while explaining her call to serve Christ in China.
The video ended by adding AI-generated representations of young South Carolina Baptists who are part of the Palmetto Collective, which equips college juniors and seniors to serve in missions and “any realm of society” after graduation.
Although AI has been around awhile, 2025 was the year it entered the daily discussion. About 90 percent of people say they have heard of at least one AI tool, up from 74 percent last year. Usage of ChatGPT, the most popular platform, jumped from 40 to 61 percent while weekly usage nearly doubled, from 18 to 34 percent.
Last month, now with a few years of expertise and know-how, Lyons’ team presented a three-minute AI-generated video of Moon’s story — in partnership with the IMB and WMU — to go with South Carolina’s “When God Says Go” missional emphasis.
“Our entire creative team had a role in it, from scripting, to archiving, research, animation and working with prompts to deliver it,” said Lyons.
Early AI experience
It was his team’s use of AI to share stories from the Palmetto Collective that led to Lyons’ IMB visit in the first place. In the Collective’s five-year existence, the program has produced 97 graduates. A quarter of them are on the field with the IMB and about 15 percent are serving through the North American Mission Board. Eleven are attending seminary, with five expressing the intention to be career IMB missionaries. The program currently has 51 participants.
An avatar of Lottie Moon walks with representations of modern-day Southern Baptist missionaries in the closing seconds of an AI-generated video from the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s Creative team. (Screen grab)
In 2022, Lyons and his team created an avatar for a Collective graduate serving on the field through the IMB. The avatar was given the name “June Estes.” AI video capability was still of the early Will-Smith-eating-spaghetti quality. A video of June wouldn’t appear until January of this year at the SC Baptist annual collegiate event, CONVERGE.
It caught IMB President Paul Chitwood’s eye, which led to the invitation for Lyons and others from the state convention to visit Richmond, which led to the video depicting Moon’s calling to China.
Lyons used Runway ML on his phone for the initial Moon photo and video. He incorporated Midjourney for photo creation and Kling for camera moves in video. ChatGPT helped create prompts and manage workflow. He hasn’t given any group presentations on using AI for such projects, but it’s hard to imagine that remaining the case.
“Our creative team has done an incredible job telling the story of missionaries being sent by South Carolina Baptist churches,” said Lee Clamp, associate executive director-treasurer. “AI-assisted animation is a powerful tool to tell the true story of SC Sent Ones being launched around the world in secure areas. This next generation of missionaries stand on the pioneering shoulders of women like Lottie Moon.”
It may sound odd when discussing AI, but authenticity was important for Lyons in making the videos. All of Lottie’s words, and those of June Estes*, come from their writings. The only difference is the former’s came through letters and the latter’s through blog posts.
“We’re not putting words in June’s or Lottie’s mouth,” Lyons said. “We’re getting the script from them.”
Working with what they had
Observers may see slight “beautifications,” to put it one way, of Moon in the video. The SC Baptist creative team varied the prompts for the AI to try and create a more realistic representation of her photo.
“If I could change anything, it would be making Lottie look older at the end of the video,” said Lyons.
The reason why he couldn’t points to AI’s limits. At its essence, AI doesn’t create, but works off other available images. As those images are predominantly of beautiful people, that’s where the AI wants to go.
“All AI models are trained up on stuff, with the most recent ones producing very photogenic people. But we’re starting to see a turn to more real images,” said Lyons, who added that “highlighting the Imago Dei in everyone” has been central to his 20 years of filmmaking.
“We tried to get the AI to take away Lottie’s makeup and give her a plain hairstyle. We included adjectives explaining that she lived in extreme poverty, but it generates what it wants to.”
Connecting the past to today
A bit of literary license is taken showing Moon standing in the Forbidden City, something by all accounts she didn’t do. Lyons explained that inclusion as taking something familiar with China for viewers as the start of a sequence ending with Moon’s avatar walking alongside those representing modern-day Southern Baptist missionaries. His team created a second video that leaves out mentions of South Carolina and is available for download to others.
Such production tools save money and time, but the versions needed aren’t free. SCBaptist has had a paid ChatGPT subscription since 2022, said Lyons, with others to Veo (Google’s AI), Midjourney and Runway. A private server gives more security and accountability.
“I’m thankful for our state convention in putting in the resources for this,” he said. “We have a team of Gutenbergs who want to work with pastors to spread the gospel.
“The printing press pushed the Reformation, and AI is the new printing press. Using these tools for the kingdom is going to be paramount and for churches in general.”
— Scott Barkley is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press.