A person decides.
Silas proposes attendance, notes, placements and drafts. They count when someone saves them. He doesn’t send emails or messages to anyone.
How Trellis uses AI
Silas suggests. You decide.
Silas is the AI assistant in Trellis, built on Anthropic’s Claude. He reads what a leader writes and drafts the paperwork that follows. A person checks it and decides what happens.
He’s off until you turn him on.
Silas comes with any paid part of Trellis, and only an admin can turn him on. With him off, he reads none of your church’s records.
He reads only what the task needs.
He doesn’t browse your church’s records. The table below lists what each task sends him.
Your information doesn’t train AI.
It goes to Anthropic under their API terms, which don’t train on it. Anthropic keeps it briefly for abuse monitoring.
You can see what’s his.
Anything he drafted carries his seal or his name. A dashed mark shows where he’s unsure, and he lists anything he couldn’t place.
He never counsels anyone, and he never scores people.
Silas doesn’t advise anyone on the church’s behalf, and he doesn’t rate anyone’s faith, faithfulness or giving.
What Silas reads
What each task sends him.
| When | What he reads | What comes back |
|---|---|---|
| After a group meeting | The leader’s paragraph and the names on that group’s roster. | Attendance, guests, notes and prayer requests, for the leader to check. |
| Preparing a group study | The PDFs and notes the leader picks, the passage, the length, what the leader types, the group’s stage of life and kind, and your statement of faith if you’ve added one. Never the group’s name, its roster, attendance, write-ups or prayer requests. | Themes, an outline and questions, for the leader to change and keep. |
| After a serving day | The director’s write-up, with the day’s rosters and schedule. | Who served, who missed, notes, tasks and seats for next time. |
| Taking in a volunteer | What the volunteer said about themselves, and your list of serving areas. | Areas they might fit, with a reason. |
| Planning a service | The order, its songs and keys, the message’s text and big idea, and your song library. | Song ideas, first drafts for each team and notes on the flow. |
| Writing a message template | A one-line brief and your existing templates. | A draft in your church’s voice. |
| Lighthouse AI | Your calendar, head counts, and figures from the other parts you use, such as attendance, declined asks, email opens, registrations and children checked in. Figures only, never names. | Insights, suggested series and drafts for staff. |
| Lighthouse AI, if an admin allows it | The text of about the last five weeks’ prayer requests and write-ups, to tag their themes. A name written in one reaches the model for that read. Lighthouse keeps the theme counts and none of the words. This needs Groups past 25 people or Pioneer. | Themes that at least five people have named, by default. |
| Lighthouse AI, if an admin or Finance allows it | Giving figures: how many recurring gifts paused, ended or stayed active, and the last four weeks against the same weeks a year earlier. Never a name or a gift. | Insights for staff. |
Prayer requests reach Silas in two ways: when a leader mentions them in a write-up, and when an admin allows Lighthouse to read for themes. Leaders are asked to keep anything said in counseling, and any report of abuse, out of a write-up.
Ask Silas, the help chat, is separate and always on. It reads your question, the last few turns, Trellis’s help articles, and the page, roles and parts you asked from. It never reads your church’s records.
What he saves as drafts
In a service plan, his draft parts and his notes on the flow are saved, marked as his, for someone to keep or discard. In Lighthouse, he writes insights and suggestions for staff. None of it changes anything until someone uses it.
How to turn him off
Open Church settings, then Silas, and press Turn Silas off. It applies to the whole church at once. Write-ups still work, and a leader’s paragraph is kept as the meeting’s note. Turning him off also pauses what he does in Lighthouse.
Your church needs its own answer.
Whatever software you run, someone has to decide how AI gets used among your people. We wrote a policy you can adapt, free, whether or not you use Trellis.
The privacy policy and security policy have the full detail.