Oh Usher, There's a Cheetah in My Seat

Along the way in my discipleship journey I've come across lots of innovative things for ministry. This one boggles my mind.

Second Life is an online virtual world, where users can create digital versions of themselves and explore, participate, and basically live in a online universe.

As with many online worlds, some of the interaction can be, well, adult oriented, let's say, but some churches are making outreaches into this world as well.

LifeChurch.tv is a progressive church that connects many locations through satellite hookup, and hosts online church activities and worship experiences.

They're also entering the Second Life world with an virtual version of their church. People can attend the same worship that's being broadcast in the "real" world in Second Life.

Imagine being in a worship experience where the worshiper next to you is a Cheetah (see above).

According to the LifeChurch.tv website,

We developed "Experience Island" as an effort to share God's truth and love with the rapidly growing number of Second Life users. We desire to engage people right where they are (physically or virtually), and Second Life represents a new frontier in that effort. Because the Second Life environment uses avatars, people are able to remain relatively anonymous. We find that this creates a less-threating environment where people are much more willing to explore and discuss spiritual things.

I have to admit I'm both completely fascinated with this idea, and somewhat unsure about what this means for worship, especially in terms of human contact. This MSNBC article and video covers that angle as well.

I do think that we need to continually examine how we as Christians adapt to new cultures and new technologies. I'm still thinking I need at least some "real" church though.

I found an example of the Second Life church experience on YouTube, see for yourself:



By the way, a nod to TechnoPraxis for the original article that led me to some additional reading and surfing.