this is a pretty cool concept O: !! i'm really intrigued by your priest character--what are they advocating for? what is their role or religion in the context of the world? ideally too i think this concept could really benefit from some kind of raising of stakes or tension emerging over the 7 days--something more urgent each day or maybe revealing more startling information. already it feels like you have a lot of space to develop! i'd love to know more.
Love these questions, and they feel like the right ones to figure out which options to pick.
I'll make some rough calls off the dome here: a lot of the design of the first version of the story was based on a "the South has risen again" dystopia; ultra-urbanized neon skylines take the place where plantations once stood. I think I'd like to stick with that, so in that vein there's a lot of the Southern Church being unified around values which validate the status quo and not rocking the boat.
Some other elements I've pictured as being important to the theme are comfortable double-standards. The priest you play as will have some simple hand-implants used to control the features of their Omnichurch during services and searching religious texts, but the mainline church doctrine on cybernetics is generally "none unless they are absolutely vital, and even then don't do anything that could mess with the brain because that's going to cause way too many ethical dilemmas about where the soul is kept and see above about Not Rocking The Boat." Conversations will let you decide what sorts of stances your version of the Preacher will have, and while you won't be able to significantly change people's minds about the church, outside perspectives will give you more options during your sermon's delivery.
The dichotomy of going out to get inspiration and staying in to pray will act as the delivery mechanism for the Preacher's status in the world. Meditations will reveal that they're a relatively young hotshot with an inspirational rhetoric style but that their past sermons have been lowballs, topics which the Church has been pretty convinced of for years. This new chance to make something of themselves in the public arena might scare them back into line and keep playing to their strengths. If you go out, however, inspiration and real communication may steel their resolve to do what's right rather than what's expected.
I like the escalating tension idea, so I think I'm going to repurpose the implant discussion as the new debate in town and that you're expected to reach a large audience with what the Church wants them to hear, but new legislation or interactions with people will give you more things to say than the party line. I think the sense of urgency is a great idea to make the narrative arc sing. Thank you so much!