AI Ministry Strategist — Candidate
Jake Thornhill
Called to Serve.
Equipped to Build.
Helping churches use AI to serve deeper, move faster, and multiply their mission.
Meet the Candidate
Before you read on —
a word from me.
Before you dig into the details, I wanted to put a face to the name. My heart for ministry is hard to capture on a page — but hopefully a little easier to hear. This is me, in my own words, sharing why this role means so much.
Why This Role
Raised in the church. Built for this moment.
Ministry Background
Jake grew up the son of a senior pastor who led the same church for 26 years. He studied Biblical Studies at Liberty University, returned to plant a church out of his home church, and served as Youth Pastor before stepping aside to make room for new leadership. Ministry isn’t a career direction for Jake — it’s his origin. He’s never stopped thinking in terms of mission.
Technical Capability
Since ChatGPT launched in 2022, Jake has immersed himself in AI — building Fast Church Websites and Ministry Automation, two ventures built specifically to serve churches. He works in these tools daily: building agents in Mind Studio, deploying research workflows in Claude and Manus, and shipping real products entirely with AI tooling. This isn’t a resume line. It’s his operating model.
Capabilities
What I Bring to Lakepointe
AI Implementation & Automation
Jake has built and shipped AI-powered systems across multiple live businesses with real church clients. From AI-generated websites to custom ministry automation agents, he is in these tools every single day — building, testing, and iterating. Not theoretically. Actively.
Ministry Context & Culture
With a Biblical Studies degree, hands-on experience as a church planter and youth pastor, and a wife currently serving as Director of Church Experience at a 5,000-member church, Jake understands church culture from the inside — not as an outside consultant, but as someone who grew up in it. He knows what keeps pastors up at night — and he knows which of those things AI can solve.
Training & Change Management
Jake’s deployment philosophy: the best AI is invisible. His goal is never to make staff AI-aware — it’s to make them faster, less burdened, and more present with their people. He starts with willing adopters, builds systems designed to last a year, and documents everything so the work scales beyond him.
Experience
Career History
Founder & AI Systems Builder
2023 — PRESENT
- Founded Fast Church Websites, delivering professional church websites in 48 hours using AI — eliminating the $5,000–10,000 barrier small churches typically face
- Built Ministry Automation, a membership platform deploying custom AI agents for churches and pastors to reduce administrative hours and scale communication
- Manages all AI tooling, client delivery, and product development across both businesses simultaneously
Founder — Affiliate Marketing & AI Systems
2021 — 2023
- Built and scaled an affiliate marketing business before pivoting fully into AI-powered ventures, using the business as a testing ground for every major AI tool as it emerged
- Developed deep hands-on expertise across Claude, Manus, Mind Studio, Make.com, Zapier, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI APIs — self-teaching each through AI-assisted learning
- Built and sold 20+ AI-generated websites as revenue-generating digital assets, with individual properties reaching 5,000–6,000 monthly organic visitors
Youth Pastor
2019 — 2021
- Stepped into the Youth Pastor role when his own former youth pastor — his mentor — passed the mantle to him directly, personally asking if Jake felt called to the position before he left
- Served a 2,000-member church through a significant pastoral transition, maintaining stability and continuity during leadership change
- Stepped out voluntarily and gracefully when the new senior pastor came in — a decision rooted in integrity, not circumstance
Church Planter
2017 — 2019
- Helped plant Mosaic Community Church out of Life Community Church, serving on the core launch team from the ground up
- Contributed to building community, culture, and systems for a new congregation from its earliest days
- This season of planting deepened his understanding of what it takes to build something from nothing — a skill that directly informs how he builds with AI today
B.S., Biblical Studies
2012 — 2016
- Graduated with a foundation in theology, ministry, and church leadership
- Returned to home church post-graduation to serve in ministry and contribute to church planting efforts
Proof of Work
Ministry Automation:
AI Agents Built for the Church
The average pastor spends hours every week on tasks that have nothing to do with ministry. Guest follow-up that falls through the cracks. New member processes that are inconsistent. Administrative email that piles up. These aren't ministry problems — they're stewardship problems.
Ministry Automation was built to solve exactly that. Using Mind Studio as the agent architecture, Jake designed custom AI workflows that plug into a church's existing systems — handling follow-up sequences, automating routine communications, and surfacing the right information to the right staff member at the right time.
Every hour recovered from administration is an hour a pastor gets to spend with people. That's not efficiency for its own sake. That's faithfulness.
Visit MinistryAutomation.com →8+
AI Agents Built for Churches
48 hrs
Average Turnaround on Deliverables
2
Active AI Businesses Serving Churches
Proof of Work
Fast Church Websites:
Professional Church Sites, Built with AI
Most small churches can't afford a professional website. A quality custom site runs $5,000–10,000 through a traditional agency — money that most congregations simply don't have. So they end up with outdated DIY sites that don't represent who they are or help them grow.
Fast Church Websites was built to close that gap. Using AI-powered workflows Jake developed and refined, the business delivers professional, fully built church websites in 48 hours — at a fraction of the traditional cost.
It's a direct application of the stewardship principle: how do we help churches get more from the resources God has entrusted to them? Better tools, less waste, more mission.
Visit FastChurchWebsites.com →48 hrs
Website Turnaround
$97
Starting Price for Churches
90-Day Vision
How I'd approach
the first 90 days.
Most people start a new role by building things. I'd start by listening — because Lakepointe has the potential to become one of the most influential churches in the world in how AI is applied to ministry. That kind of impact requires getting it right, not just getting it fast.
DAYS 1–30
Learn from churches already doing it
Visit 5–10 churches that have already built AI into their operations. Sit with their teams. Ask what worked, what failed, and what they'd do differently. Lakepointe shouldn't start from scratch when others have already paid the tuition.
DAYS 30–60
Build systems designed to last
Audit current workflows. Identify the biggest time and budget drains. Then ask one question before building anything: will this still work for years from now? AI tools change weekly. The systems we build can't.
DAYS 60–90
Deploy high-impact wins, then scale
Target two things: the largest budget items AI can reduce, and the biggest time-wasters for staff. Launch 2–3 focused automations. Document everything. Prove ROI. Then build the roadmap for year one.
Personal Note
Why I want to be at Lakepointe specifically.
Jake didn’t find this job posting while browsing. He saw it and couldn’t not apply. But his connection to Lakepointe started before the application — it started with Josh Howerton’s podcast.
He first encountered Josh’s teaching last year and has since watched five to ten full episodes and consumed his short-form content regularly. What sets Josh apart is something Jake deeply respects: he doesn’t water down Scripture to talk about culture, and he doesn’t talk about culture in place of Scripture. He holds both without sacrificing either. His teaching has shaped real conversations in Jake’s home — about family, cultural engagement, how to think through holidays, how to love a church community well.
Jake and his wife had jokingly talked about visiting Lakepointe someday. His wife serves as Director of Church Experience at Two Cities Church in Winston-Salem — a 10-year-old church of 5,000 people — overseeing baptism, new members, and operations. Church isn’t background noise in their home. It’s the center of it.
When Jake saw this posting, the joke stopped being a joke. This role — deploying AI with spiritual intentionality inside a church that will shape how ministry is done at scale — is the exact convergence of everything he’s spent six years building toward. He’s not pivoting into ministry. He’s returning to it. With tools the church has never had before.
Let’s connect.
I’d love to talk about how AI can serve Lakepointe’s mission.