Welcome & Orientation
Our Core Belief: Technology changes fast, but human hearts do not. Beneath all the worry about Artificial Intelligence (AI), people are still dealing with the same old struggles: loneliness, grief, fear, and searching for meaning.
You do not need a brand-new theology to help people today. You just need to bring your existing pastoral wisdom into this new digital landscape. That is what this primer is for. Most of what follows will feel familiar, because it is. This is a refresher, not a reinvention: a chance to take the care you already practice and hold it up to the light of the new situations technology brings.
What this primer covers, and why these four:
One model for crisis response. ALGEE gives you the words and the steps when someone may not be safe.
One model for the ordinary visit. Hearing, Helping, Healing gives shape to the everyday pastoral conversation, which is where most care actually happens.
Two lenses for the deepest common needs. Worden’s Tasks of Grief for loss, and Recovery Coaching for habits a person has decided to change. You will use these inside your visits, not instead of them.
One applied skill. Widening the Circle, the practice of bringing more help into someone’s care without letting go of them.
How the four models fit together: Think of it as one toolkit, not four competing methods. ALGEE is for the rare moment when someone may not be safe. Hearing, Helping, Healing is how you walk with people the rest of the time. Worden’s Tasks and Recovery Coaching are special lenses you pick up inside Helping and Healing: Worden when the deep issue is loss, Recovery Coaching when the person has decided they want to change a habit. Many real situations will call for more than one model. That is normal. Choose by what the person in front of you needs right now.
And one practical note before we begin: if you are facing an emergency as you read this, go straight to Model 1. It has the words to say and the numbers to call.
The Three Foundational Models
Model 1: ALGEE (First Response in a Crisis)
What it is: A five-step action plan from Mental Health First Aid for helping someone in a mental health crisis. (This primer is an introduction, not certification. The full Mental Health First Aid training is worth taking.)
How it helps with AI: When technology is part of a situation where someone may not be safe, this model helps you respond to the person first and the technology second.
📌 When to Use This Model: Use this model when you are worried about a person’s safety. It is best for:
Deep Isolation: The person has stopped seeing real people, stopped taking care of themselves, or stopped going to work because they are always online.
Intense Fear or Distress About the Technology: The person is losing sleep, cannot be comforted, or is frightened by beliefs about the AI. You do not have to decide whether their beliefs are true. Your job is to care about their distress and their safety, not to win an argument about the technology.
Thoughts of Self-Harm: The person feels so hopeless about their future, their loss, or their job that they talk about hurting themselves, or you sense they might be thinking about it.
How to Apply It:
A - Assess for risk of harm: Find a private moment. Ask the direct question, in plain words: ”Are you thinking about hurting yourself or killing yourself?” Asking directly does not put the idea in their head. It opens a door they may not have been able to open themselves. If the answer is yes: stay with them, stay calm, and say what happens next: ”I’m glad you told me. I’m staying with you. Our next step is to call for help together.” Call or text 988 (the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) together. If there is immediate danger, call 911. Do not promise to keep it secret; safety comes before secrecy, and you can say so honestly. Follow your church’s safeguarding policy.
L - Listen without judging: Do not make fun of their fears or their attachment to a computer program. Listen to their pain.
G - Give comfort and information: Let them know they are safe with you and that help is real. Share what you actually know; do not guess.
E - Encourage professional help: Help them connect with a doctor or counselor. Make the call with them, not for them, and never just hand over a number and leave.
E - Encourage support from others: Help them reach out to people they trust and to church support. Before you leave, set a specific follow-up: who, when, and how.
🪞 For Reflection: Could you ask the direct question out loud right now? Try saying it, alone, in plain words. Most caregivers stumble the first time. Better to stumble in practice than in the moment.
Model 2: Hearing, Helping, Healing (The Three-Movement Conversation)
What it is: A three-movement guide to a pastoral visit. It comes from a framework Jewish Women International created to help clergy walk with survivors of domestic abuse. We borrow it with respect for where it comes from, because it protects the two things that matter most: the person’s own voice and the person’s own choices.
How it helps with AI: It slows the conversation down. It keeps you focused on the person’s soul instead of getting confused by technical details.
📌 When to Use This Model: Use this model for everyday pastoral conversations and general worries. It is best for:
General Screen Worry: A parent or church member is worried about how much time their family spends on phones or social media.
Workplace Questions: Someone is trying to decide if it is honest or ethical to use AI tools at their job or school.
Spiritual Disconnect: Someone feels distant from God and thinks their digital habits are the reason.
How to Apply It:
Hearing: Just listen. Do not try to fix the problem yet. Ask: ”How is this screen time affecting your peace of mind?” Then let silence do some of the work.
Helping: Explore together whether and where the technology is touching their real-life relationships or their faith. Let them name it; do not name it for them. Then agree on one small next step they choose.
Healing: Offer a prayer, a blessing, or a simple spiritual practice. Then remember that healing continues after the visit ends. Schedule the next conversation before you leave. ”May I check in on Thursday?” is a complete pastoral sentence.
These are movements, not stages. Real conversations loop back and forth among them, and that is fine.
🪞 For Reflection: Think of a recent pastoral conversation. Which movement did you skip? Most of us have a habitual one: some of us rush past Hearing to fix, some of us hear beautifully and never land on a next step, and some of us help but never schedule the follow-up.
Model 3: Worden’s Four Tasks of Grief (Active Grieving)
What it is: A model that says grieving is not just something we feel. It is active work we do to carry a loss and keep living.
How it helps with AI: Loss shows up in new ways now. A grieving person may talk daily with an AI version of someone who died. A worker may lose a career to automation. This model helps you walk with them through the work of grief, whatever shape the loss takes.
📌 When to Use This Model: Use this lens when someone has suffered a major, life-changing loss. It is best for:
AI Companions Modeled on Someone Who Died: A grieving person is using an AI program to “talk” with a loved one who died. Do not assume this is good or bad. The real question, which you explore with them, is whether the practice is helping them carry the loss or helping them avoid it.
Losing a Job or Career: A person has lost their job or business to automation and is grieving their lost identity and purpose.
Hidden Loss: The person is grieving something others do not understand or take seriously, like the loss of an online community or a digital space they loved. Grief that others dismiss is still grief.
How to Apply It: (These tasks are not steps on a staircase. People move among them in any order, and revisit them, and that is normal.)
Task 1: Accept that the loss is real. Gently make room for the truth that the loved one has died, or the job has ended. Most people already know this, even when their habits look like avoidance. Your role is to be a companion to the truth, not an enforcer of it.
Task 2: Feel the pain of grief. Create a safe space for tears, anger, and emptiness. If screens are being used to numb the pain rather than face it, notice that gently, and ask about it rather than announcing it.
Task 3: Learn to live in a changed world. Help them build new daily habits, routines, and connections in the life they have now.
Task 4: Keep a loving connection while moving forward. Grief does not ask us to let go of the person who died. It asks us to find a lasting way to hold them (memory, prayer, ritual, story) that also leaves room for new life and new relationships. If an AI companion is part of how they hold their loved one now, the question over time is whether it is becoming a photograph they visit or a room they cannot leave. Walk with them as they discover which, and as they build other ways to remember alongside it.
🪞 For Reflection: Whose grief in your congregation might be a hidden loss no one has named out loud? What would it mean for you to name it to them this month?
Putting the Models Into Practice: Widening the Circle
The models above shape how you listen and walk with people. This last section is an applied skill: what to actually say when someone needs more help than you alone can give. It draws on everything above, ALGEE’s care for safety, Hearing before Helping, and the partnership spirit of small steps chosen together.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is bring more people into someone’s care. Not because their grief is too heavy for you, and not because they are too much for the church, but because they deserve every kind of help that exists, and some of that help has training you do not have.
The picture to hold is a circle, not a handoff. Nothing is being transferred. No one is being passed along. The circle of people who love and support this person is getting wider, and you are standing in it the whole time.
Referral done badly feels like rejection. A person who has just shown you the tenderest thing they carry, and hears “you need a professional” in reply, may hear “you are too much for us.” Referral done well feels like the opposite: what you are carrying matters so much that I want more hands under it, and mine are staying.
Three Rules for Widening the Circle
Normalize the Help: Let them know that seeing a counselor is a normal, healthy step that many faithful people take. It is a sign of strength and self-respect, not weakness.
Assure Your Presence, Concretely: Tell them clearly that you are still their pastor or friend. Then prove it with a plan: a scheduled visit, a named day. A promise without a calendar is a hope. A promise with a calendar is a promise.
Make It Doable Together: Do not just hand them a phone number and walk away. Offer to look at names together, to sit with them while they call, or to go with them to a first appointment.
Before Any Script: Hear First
Every script below is the second half of a conversation. The first half cannot be scripted, because it belongs to the person. Before any turn toward referral, ask real questions and let silence work:
”Tell me about [Name]. What do you find yourself talking with the app about?”
”What is it like in the house these days?” / ”What are the days like since the job ended?”
”What does it give you? And is there anything about it that troubles you?”
Listen for their own word for the hard part (heavy, stuck, empty, can’t stop). That word, and not yours, is the one you will use later. If the trouble is real, they will name it, and their name for it will not feel like judgment when you say it back.
A quiet safety beat. Deep grief and deep loss sometimes travel with darker thoughts. Somewhere in the hearing, gently and directly: ”Grief this deep can take people to some dark places. Are you having any thoughts of hurting yourself, or of not wanting to be here?” If the answer is yes, stop here and go to Model 1 (ALGEE). Safety leads from that moment.
Script A: For Someone Deeply Attached to an AI Companion Modeled on the Person Who Died
Use when the hearing above has happened, the person has named some trouble in their own words, and there is no safety concern. The bracketed pauses are part of the script. Do not close them early.
“Thank you for trusting me with this. I can hear how much you miss [Name], and I understand why the app is a comfort when the house goes quiet.
[pause; let them respond]
You said a minute ago that it feels [their word]. I want to take that seriously, because what you are carrying is some of the hardest work a human being ever does.
Here is what I keep thinking: you deserve every kind of help there is. I am going to keep walking with you, and I also want to widen the circle around you. There are grief counselors who spend their whole working lives helping people through exactly this kind of loss, including the new kinds that technology brings. Bringing one in is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is what taking this seriously looks like.
[pause; make room for whatever comes]
And I want to say this clearly, because it matters: I am not going anywhere. I will still visit you. I will still pray with you. Widening the circle does not move me out of it.
So here is what I can offer, and you choose the pace. We could look at a couple of names together right now, and I will sit with you while you make the first call. Or I can leave the names with you, and when I see you on [named day], we can talk about how you want to do it. Or if you are not ready for either, we keep talking, you and me, and I will ask again in a couple of weeks.
What feels right to you?”
[whatever they choose, close with the plan:]
“Then that is what we will do. And either way, I will see you on [named day]. May I check in before then?”
Script B: For Someone Who Lost Their Career to AI Automation
Use when the hearing has happened and the person has told you what the loss is like in their own words. Notice the safety question is built in; job loss and hopelessness can travel together.
“Thank you for telling me what these weeks have really been like.
[pause]
You said it feels like [their word: the ground disappeared / you don’t know who you are now / you can’t see a future]. That makes sense to me. Your work was not just a paycheck. It was part of who you are, and losing it is a real grief, and grief is allowed here.
Before we go on, I want to ask you something directly, because I care about you: with everything this has taken from you, are you having any thoughts of hurting yourself, or of not wanting to be here?
[if yes: go to Model 1 now. If no, continue:]
Here is what I want for you: every kind of help there is. I will keep praying with you and looking for God with you in this valley. And I want to widen the circle. There are counselors who work with exactly this: job loss, identity, the fear about what comes next. You deserve someone with those tools in your corner, alongside me, not instead of me.
So you choose the pace. We can look at a couple of names together right now, and I will sit with you for the first call. Or I can leave them with you and we will talk about it when I see you on [named day]. Either way, I am going to check in on you Thursday. Which feels right?”
Script C, Part One: For a Lay Visitor Widening the Circle to the Pastor
Use this script if you are a lay volunteer and the person’s struggle has grown deeper than your role: heavy reliance on the AI to cope, a shrinking world, big decisions being handed to the app. There is no safety emergency. Your step is to bring your pastor into the circle, with permission.
“Thank you for trusting me with your story today. It takes courage to talk about how hard things have been.
[pause]
I want you to know what I can offer and what I want for you. As your visitor, I am here to listen, to pray, and to bring you the love of our church, and I will keep doing all of that. And what you are carrying deserves more hands than mine. I would like to invite Pastor [Name] into our circle. Not to replace me. To join us.
Would it be all right if I talk with Pastor [Name] this week, so the three of us can find a time to sit down together? I will only share what you are comfortable with me sharing. And I will still come see you on [named day], same as always.”
Script C, Part Two: For a Lay Visitor When It Is a Safety Emergency
This is not a referral script, because a safety emergency is not a referral. If the person talks about hurting themselves, describes someone exploiting them right now, or has stopped eating, sleeping, or caring for themselves or their dependents, do this instead:
Do not leave. Stay with them. Stay calm.
Ask directly: ”Are you thinking about hurting yourself or killing yourself?”
If yes, call together, now. Call or text 988 with them. Call 911 if there is immediate danger. Say: ”I’m glad you told me. I’m staying with you. We’re going to call for help together.”
Contact your pastor immediately after the person is safe, not by appointment. Follow your church’s safeguarding policy.
Be honest about secrecy. Do not promise to keep a safety concern secret. You can say: ”Because I care about your safety, this is something I can’t keep just between us. But I will be with you for every step.”
Referring upward can wait a week. Safety cannot. Know which situation you are in, and when you are not sure, treat it as safety and ask the direct question. Asking costs nothing.
The Widening the Circle Checklist
When you make a referral, use this checklist to make sure the person feels safe and supported:
Ask Permission. Ask if they are comfortable with you sharing their name and story with a counselor or pastor, and share only what they agree to. The honest exception: when safety is involved, some sharing is not optional. Tell them that truth kindly rather than making a promise you cannot keep.
Provide Options. Have two or three names of trusted counselors or local mental health clinics ready. Options preserve choice; a single name can feel like an order.
Offer to Assist, Together. Say: ”Would you like to make the call together right now?” or ”Would you like to write the email together?” With them, not for them.
Set a Follow-Up Date. Never leave without scheduling your next contact. Say: ”I am going to call you on Thursday afternoon just to check in and see how you are doing.” The referral widens the circle. The follow-up proves you are still in it.
Practicing Together
A refresher works best when it is rehearsed, not just read. If you are going through this primer with others (a staff meeting, a deacon training, a lay visitor circle), try this:
Role-play the scripts in pairs. One person reads a script slowly; the other responds as the care-seeker, however feels true. Then swap. Notice where the words feel natural in your mouth and where they need to become your own. The scripts are training wheels, not liturgy; the goal is that one day you will not need the page.
Practice the direct question out loud. In pairs or alone, say the safety question until it stops catching in your throat: ”Are you thinking about hurting yourself or killing yourself?” The moment you need it is the wrong moment to say it for the first time.
Share one reflection. Each person answers one of the 🪞 reflection questions from the models above. Formation happens in the telling, not just the reading.
Name your own circle. Every caregiver needs one too. Before the session ends, each person names their consultation route: who do you talk to, without identifying details, when a visit follows you home?
Sources: ALGEE, Mental Health First Aid USA (orientation only, not certification). Hearing / Helping / Healing, Jewish Women International clergy framework, developed for responding to survivors of domestic abuse. Worden’s Four Tasks of Mourning, J. William Worden. Recovery coaching draws on peer-support and motivational-interviewing practice. Crisis resources (U.S.): call or text 988; call 911 for immediate danger. Local safeguarding and reporting policies always take precedence.