Here you can find summaries and presentations of Tell Your Story Sessions.
17:00 Session 1
Room 1 (B4) conference main room
- Swish for a Wish. How one of the city´s official Christmas trees becomes a crucial tool for the church’s diaconal mission in the city of Helsingborg. (Linda Gustafsson Josefine Sjöqvist Johan Sundqvist Church of Sweden – Helsingborg )
Did you know that you walk around with a remote control in your pocket? When it became clear what this remote control was capable of, the thinking began for an assignment that the communications unit of the Church of Sweden in Helsingborg had received from the vicar. The assignment was to create visibility for a diaconal collection for families who are struggling financially. The result was a flashing Christmas tree that both talks and spreads Christmas joy for the citizens of Helsingborg. They have generously contributed to a fantastic fundraising result, which now benefit children in Helsingborg
Video: Swish for a Wish med Helsingborgs Gosskör
Video: Swish for a Wish diakoner
AI Summary: Swish for a Wish (Linda Gustafsson, Josefine Sjöqvist, Johan Sundqvist) The communications team from the Church of Sweden in Helsingborg shared how they transformed a 19-meter official city Christmas tree into an interactive fundraising tool. To support local families struggling financially, they connected the tree’s lighting system to “Swish,” Sweden’s popular mobile payment app. When people donate via the app, the tree instantly reacts with pre-programmed light shows, and in recent years, an enthusiastic voice recording. Over four years, the project has raised tens of thousands of euros to provide Christmas presents, glasses, leisure activities, and support for a local women’s shelter and Ukrainian families. The team also adapted the technology for a summer light festival, projecting lights onto a church wall with each donation.
17:30
- What even is online worship? (Arto Vallivirta)
Download presentation: A story of videography as a medium in a local parish
Ai Summary: Arto Vallivirta explored his journey producing digital services for a local Finnish parish, starting from broadcasting to empty churches during the 2020 pandemic. He argued that hybrid services—catering to both physically present and online viewers—often compromise the experience for both groups because they represent fundamentally different types of encounters. Moving beyond traditional “window-like” camera work, he experimented with video as its own distinct medium, creating fragmented, deconstructed liturgical videos and outdoor “trail running” style devotions that place the body in motion. His session raised deep theological questions about how digital formats alter our experience of shared community, authentic presence, and the chronological flow of liturgy, especially when viewers can pause or skip the service.
Room 2 (B1)
- How to Translate Christian Values into Conversational AI (Ralf Peter Reimann)
Challenges in designing a chatbot for a church website
AI Summary: This session explored the practical and ethical challenges of designing a chatbot for a church website, focusing on how to ensure the AI’s responses reflect Christian values.
17:30
- Simple game coding with AI – Case story Lastenkirkko (Children´s church) (Juha Kinanen)
Coding with AI is relatively simple task. You are able to create simple but interesting games for your church websites and activities. Just have an idea, discuss with AI and let it make a code for the html5 game. Content is the here also. Try to find something, which your children group likes. Coding with kids is even better option. Let them make their own games.
Download examples
AI Summary: Juha Kinanen shared how AI can be used as a simple tool to code HTML5 games for children’s ministries and websites. He emphasized that by discussing ideas with the AI, creators can generate engaging content without needing deep programming knowledge, and suggested that having kids use AI to code their own games is a highly effective group activity.
18:00 Session 2
Room 1 (B4) conference main room
- The Use of AI in programming webservices for parishes (Lutz Neumeier)
Selfhosted webservices are better than American services which collect you data. With AI it’s a matter of minutes or just a few hours at the most to program fully working services. These include services similar to doodle, Instagram, Shortlink-services, check-in for meetings like confirmation-classes and more. All upload-ready programmed with a special agent in AI. Examples: https://ownyoursocial.online / https://neumedier.tools
AI Summary: Lutz Neumeier demonstrated how he uses AI (specifically ChatGPT/Codex) to code custom, self-hosted web applications for his merged parish of ten villages, despite noting he could rely entirely on the AI instead of coding himself. To circumvent strict German privacy laws and avoid data-harvesting US services, he prompted the AI to build secure, independent tools from scratch. His AI-generated applications include a GDPR-compliant meeting scheduler, a short-link generator, a custom social media blog platform to bypass Meta, and an attendance-tracking app for 70 confirmation candidates. For the attendance app, the AI generated a system where students log in and scan a newly generated QR code at each church service, automatically updating an Excel database.
18:30 - Reclaiming truth in the age of AI (Naveen Qayyum)
This presentation centres on a 10-minute screening of the video Just Peace, offering authentic testimonies for just peace from Ukraine and across Europe. It highlights CEC’s work on dialogue, including its 2025 Helsinki conference on the “Russian World” ideology, and reflects on communicating truth and credible voices in the age of AI.
Pathways to Just Peace
AI Summary: This session focused on the ethical use of media and the importance of authentic voices amid psychological warfare and disinformation. Naveen screened the short film Just Peace, produced by the Conference of European Churches (CEC), which highlights the testimonies of Ukrainians discussing freedom, dignity, and their perspective on the Russian invasion. She addressed the struggle of promoting truthful, faith-based peace narratives online, noting that such content is often buried by social media algorithms that favor controversial or fake news, making it difficult to reach secular audiences and often attracting negative, heavily moderated engagement.
Room 2 (B1)
- AI, community, spirituality. The human question. (Andrea Tomasi)
As artificial intelligence reshapes how we communicate, gather, and pray, what makes us irreducibly human? Drawing on Magnifica Humanitas (Pope Leo XIV, 2026), this presentation offers a brief reflection on what faith communities must protect and discern in the age of intelligent machines.
AI Summary: Drawing upon the (fictional 2026) encyclical Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV, this presentation reflected on what makes us irreducibly human. Tomasi explored what faith communities must protect and discern in an era where intelligent machines are reshaping how people gather, communicate, and pray.
18:30 - AI as a speaker (Sami Kallioinen)
AI Summary: A session dedicated to exploring the concept and implications of utilizing Artificial Intelligence as a speaker or presenter.