Have You Taken Your First Steps with AI?

I recently listened to the two AI seminars from Cru25. I’m glad I did. You expect me to follow AI, but you should too. Speaker Pat Gelsinger encouraged us to get on board. He pointed out we’re in a Gutenberg moment with AI. Martin Luther embraced the new technology of his time, the printing press, and changed the world.

We don’t have to go back that far. Do you remember your life before smartphones? How has your life and ministry changed?

Take a little time to experiment with AI. Google Gemini is available for Cru staff in our suite of Google tools.  Gemini within Cru’s space is a safe place to begin your first sortie with AI.

Some of this post applies specifically to Cru staff, but others will also find plenty of takeaways. As always, please refer to the NOTES at the end of the post for additional information.

How to Use AI

AI tools are research assistants, productivity tools, and creative partners. AI results are more robust than those from Google search.

Here are some general ideas for using AI:

• Brainstorming
• Writing
• Researching
• Planning
• Organizing
• Creating

Ask Specific Prompts

Prompts are detailed questions. The more information you provide, the better Gemini’s response will be.

Here are some sample prompts:

• “Compose a sensitive email to alert a donor to a missing donation.”
• “I cannot use NSAIDs because of my heart. What can I use as an alternative to Voltaren as an ointment for easing inflammation? What are the pros and cons of the different products?”
• “Create a 5-day budget-friendly itinerary for an October trip to Greece. Focus on food and culture.”
• “Give me five ideas for a Bible Study on the woman at the well in John 4.”
• “Generate a full party plan from a menu to a shopping list.” (Provide details about the number of guests, budget, and theme.)

Try one or two of these in Gemini to see what you get.

If the answer is not quite right, get back on your feet and try again. Rephrase the prompt or provide more specific details.

Don’t assume you’re receiving 100% accurate information. Verify information as necessary.

Using Gemini with Other Google Products

Gemini will integrate with Google Workspace. Log in to Google, then click on the nine dots in the upper right corner. Click on the star-like Gemini icon in the dropdown.

• In Gemini itself, start typing “@Calendar.” “Google Calendar” will appear in the window. Click on that and ask your question or create a calendar event.
  • Use “@Google Workspace” for Google Maps. Experiment with routes and trip planning.
  • Try a similar prompt, such as, “@Gmail find the confirmation email for my flight on October 14.” (To Greece, of course.)
  • I tried a prompt looking for data in “@Google Keep.” I was pleased with the search results.

Find documents within Drive with Gemini.

Summarize emails within Gmail with Gemini.

The icon is in the upper right for these two places.

You will also see an AI option to the right of a regular Google search.

I downloaded Gemini to my Android phone. The first thing I tried was taking a photo of my one orchid that isn’t doing well. I used my voice to ask Gemini what was wrong and what I should do. It took a little time, but I received a lengthy report with 20 footnotes. I could save it or email it, but I chose the audio summary.  The summary sounded like a podcast and was six minutes long. It was a general response, so I decided to edit the prompt specifically for advice about a Dendrobium orchid. (My Phaleaenopsis orchids are doing fine.) The results for a specific prompt about Dendrobium orchids were a manageable two pages long.

What I Learned from the Previous Post

For this blog post and the previous one, I prompted Gemini for the specific blog topics. I used Gemini’s answers as loose templates for both posts. Some of my detailed blog posts can take an entire day to complete. Using Gemini cuts research time significantly.  I’m spending three hours on this post, which includes research, writing, editing, and creating an image. Hooray for more time freed up for other things!

I don’t recommend pasting the output into your blog’s editor. You’ll end up with all kinds of extra HTML (see NOTES). You don’t see that code, but it appears like cluttered code in the background. You may have links you didn’t want, and who knows what else is hiding behind the scenes.

If an online article would be more useful to you in a table, try a version of this AI prompt: “Create a table about the drugs in this article [link]. Include the drug name, drug type, symptoms, and the fall risk for the drug.” I used AI to generate the medications table for the September 17, 2025, post.

I use Grammarly Pro for the last polish on my post. Grammarly uses AI to analyze my writing. I like the box in the upper right: “Check for AI Text & plagiarism.” There are none today, but last time, a few sites came up, so I went to check them to confirm I had not plagiarized. I didn’t see anything at the time. I could have found a link or two to reference some websites.

I’ve used Gemini for creativity. I used prompts to create images for some social media posts. These images were an exact fit for what I wanted to communicate. I wouldn’t have found anything like them on Unsplash.

I created the park bench image for the last post and the robot and child for this one. I wasn’t looking for a cartoon, but I decided to keep it. I kept asking Gemini to make the image rectangular instead of square. It repeatedly said it did, but it didn’t. And then I noticed, after one of the new prompts, that the boy had three arms! Whoa! That is called an AI hallucination. Gemini fabricated information outside of its training data. Again, don’t assume you’re receiving 100% accurate information. Always check things over before publishing.

Have fun playing with AI! Let me know what you build.

NOTES:

• The AI seminars are only available to Cru staff and are under “Super Seminars” and “Non-MPD Seminars.”
• If you aren’t writing blog posts, you may want to learn about fall risk to help you with an elderly parent. See my previous post, or start your own prompt. Paste the following into Gemini: “Write a report about fall risk. What makes a person more at risk? How can we minimize someone’s risk? What supplements can be helpful to minimize risk?” Gemini will return an article. You can dive into the links or save the results in Google Drive for later use.
• HTML is HyperText Markup Language. It provides structure for a web page (beginning of a paragraph, appearance of a heading, which font, etc.)