Suddenly Seminary – update 4.2

we did it!!!!!!!!! How much fun was that?
final1
This picture was the final scene- us looking stunned as habbohotel suddenly shut down (crashed????) and we were frozen in time
Was that a SUDDEN STOP to Suddenly Seminary or what???? Unfortunately, at 9pm we were hoping to send off Brad – maybe we could do it another time?
what happened at the end? Habbohotel, with 8500 people in it, somehow crashed. Oh well! At least it did it at 9pm.
Thanks everyone for coming and making it a great experience. here are some more photos . . .

247prayer
The 24-7 prayer room was great. Thanks to whoever it was that donated the bench and plant. Jonah from Spain hosted it first and then Carlos from Mexcio.

bible shower
The Bible Shower in the Sapphire Office was good. People read from the Bible. Thanks to Dutchtraveller for creating and hosting this room from Netherlands. Thanks to his Alpha group who let him leave early.

storyboard
The “Enter the StoryBoard” experience was also great. Thanks to Maggie Diep for your room and for leading this. Thats my 11 year old daughter in the middle of the room. She is on dishes for a week after dancing in the room.

Below are the instructions- i will leave them here for reasons of posterity. Speaking of posterity (and i am not talking about my wife’s backside), if you were there tonight, leave your name below and we will have a record of your time with us.

thanks to my son samuel (13) who ran multiple browers and oversaw (bouncer) a few rooms as skip flash and junkemailer. and to elizabeth (11) who hosted some of the rooms.

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Tonight we will have Suddenly Seminary from 6pm – 9pm GMT (my time in london). Details following . . . .
Be around for 9pm – a commissioning service for futuristguy at suddenly seminary – We will send him off in his british telephone to bless the cyberworld.

PASSWORD – if you need it is “tree”
Quite possibly, we will not use it tonight, since there are many experiences in many rooms.

Here is the outline;
Go to habbohotel.co.uk
check in and dress yourself.
on the navigator that pops up, chose “Guest Room” and type “Suddenly Seminary” in the search engine. When it appears, hit “Go’
Didnt work? Try typing “tallskinnykiwi” in the search engine and then choose “suddenly seminary”

Here is the learning pilgrimage trail that will happen tonight. You may want to print this off.

1. come straight to Suddenly Seminary. This is the reception room. Its going to be a crazy hectic room and we cant do much about that. Except shuffle you off to quieter rooms where the actual teaching will go on. You will find 4 teleporters in suddenly seminary

– a blue portapot- use it to escape the chaos and go to the boaz lounge
– another portapot – use it to go to Jacobs Well, for the “Enter the StoryBoard” experience
– a narnia wardrobe on the left leading to the Sapphire lounge – There are 3 spaces in here to explore.
– another narnia wardrobe on the right – you can access “the off on room” from here or from the
– a red british public telephone. dont go in it yet. we want to commission and send Brad Sargent (futuristguy) as a cybercounselor into his new unfurnished space. Once we have prayed for him and sent him (around 9pm), you can follow him into his room and help furnish it for him. (Buy some credits before you get there)

so here is the learning trail:

1. Suddenly Seminary – reception, orientation, finding your feet. I will be there for some of the time under the name “TallSkinnyKiwi”. SkipFlash2 will also be there to help you. Introduce yourself, if you can. who you are and where you are from. It will probably be too crazy in here for deep discussion. When you are ready, go to the portapot that takes you to boaz lounge.

2. Boaz lounge – SkipFlash will be waiting for you in this room. Hang out here, escape the crowd, make a team of 4-5 people and introduce yourselves to each other. If you like, appoint a leader. Make sure everyone learns how to talk- you will probably need to switch to “shout” mode in every room you enter. The biggest problem will be not hearing each other (words come out jumbled) – so you need to go to “shout”
Now find the narnia wardrobe that leads to 24-7 prayer room.

3. 24-7 Prayer Lounge. jonahb is there. he will be your host. He is one of the International Leaders of 24-7 prayer ministry and he lives in Spain. This is a room to be with God, write a prayer on the stickies, light a candle, dance around, etc. When you or your team is ready, take the narnia wardrobe back to boaz lounge.

4. Bible Shower. From Boaz lounge, take the narnia wardrobe to sapphire lounge, and from there go to sapphire chill, and then the portapot to sapphire office. Dutch Traveller will be there. He is a church planting trainer from Netherlands. This is a room for bible reading. Stand in line and read out your favourite verses.
Whats popular tonight? Ephesians 4:20 – 5:1. Read them over and over in a loop if you like.
When you are ready, take the other narnia wardrobe in the room to the off on room.

5. the off on room. Enter and read the blue note for directions. You should have your bible with you for this one. when you have put off something, and put on something, take the other narnia wardrobe back to Suddenly Seminary.

6. By this time, i will probably be overwhelmed with young satanists and militants who will be verbally bashing me. So, say a prayer for me, and the other brave souls who are there, and just leave us to it.

[update:
7. From Boaz lounge, take the British phone booth teleporter ]

to Jacobs Well, to an experience called “entering the storyboard”. If you cant find it, go out into the hotel view and type in “jacobs well” in the search engine. kilmeny will be there to talk to you, ask you questions,and help you write something. She is a published author, loves God, and lives in London. From Jacobs Well, you can also access “Turtle Cave” where you are welcome to hang out.

Congrats. You have completed our first trail of learning and experiencing God. time to chill out. There are other rooms to enter and chill out:

The Cloister (budapeststeve)
Breathe (Clinoniousss)
Awakeland

What to do before it starts?

get your bible
check in and get dressed
learn how to walk and talk,
learn how to use the navigator to go places
learn how to add friends, and message them
ask me to be your friend- then i will be more accessible
buy some credits – then you can leave furniture, gifts (we would like to help out futuristguy tonight)

Stickies:
blue notes- they are administrative/guidlines for the rooms
yellow- blank – write on them and then turn them pink
pink – used notes awaiting response
green- we turn them green when we respond to you

Timetable;

6pm – 7pm – orientation, registration, learning to walk and talk.
7pm – 8pm – learning experiences
8pm – 9pm – chill out and chat
9pm – after seminary parties at various rooms.

A word about crowd control. The rooms will hold 25 people but we dont want to go about 10. 7 is better. We had an informal chat on sunday night, which for some unknown reason, grew to about 11 people. Then it hit the “popular” list and we had a massive stream of people coming in, like a swarm of bees. we then spent the rest of our time trying to keep people out. We have since added a security barrier which gives us some more control. but one of the things we will try to do is to keep the numbers in each room at 7 or below. You will thus be placed in small groups and guided through various rooms for most of your learning experience.
I f you see that one of the rooms is crowded, please go somewhere else for a while. hopefully password protecting the rooms will keep the numbers down.

More guidelines:
1. Please dont expect it to be like an old world seminary. No one is going to talk at you for an hour while you take notes. This is an interactive environment where words will play a minor role. There will be multiple rooms and you will need to create and do things,

2. You must be at least 11 years old to come. We will not accept anyone under 11. Sorry. Hate to discriminate because of age, but those are the rules. If you are much older, you are also welcome, but please remember this is an environment made for kids and many people in the room with you will be very young.
Some of you have already met SkipFlash, who is in charge of the Boaz lounge, and oversees security in the Suddenly Seminary reception. In real life, he is 13 years old. but he will still kick you out if you cause trouble

3. Please do not use big theological words or church-speak. Yes, some people in the room will have theological degrees, and other will have never gone to church. Many of the teens in the room have no idea what you are talking about and we will not have time to explain what “soteriology” means to a 12 year old who couldnt give a rip anyway. the challenge for you (older folk) is to maintain a deep level of conversation without resorting to a heavy vocabulary.

4. oh btw. ppl tlk like ths. its a diffnt way of spkg but it makes sense. dnt b expecting capitals. u will figure it out.

5. Someone asked about longevity. Answer is probably not. But lets give it a whirl.

6. what is “bobba”/
when it thinks its a swear word, it types bobba. lots of words come out as bobba

7. can i come in as two people?
yes – open up two seperate browsers – either mozilla, explorer, safari and go in and out between them. (not for the fainthearted)

Andrew

Andrew Jones launched his first internet space in 1997 and has been teaching on related issues for the past 20 years. He travels all the time but lives between Wellington, San Francisco and a hobbit home in Prague.

10 Comments

  • Scott says:

    i’ll be popping in and out after 7pm gmt. please feel free to use “The Cloister” as overflow space if things get too crowded.

  • darren says:

    apologies from australia, i’d be there if not for this cold ive got and my body refusing to let me do lots atm.

  • scotty says:

    Doh! I just realized I’ll be at work during this.
    Might be back in time chill at one of the seminary parties afterward.
    enjoy

  • brad says:

    hah! we were “frozen in time”! I guess I don’t have to turn 49 then …
    another time perhaps for the commissioning. what’s a cybercounselor anyway?
    cool experiences. as writer, i enjoyed the writing exercise at kilmerny’s “jacob’s well.”
    good to meet and connect with people from all over. a sense of family … very extended … but still family!

  • Toby says:

    I was there and greatly enjoyed it. Loved meeting people. It was a different type of experience. Thanks to all.
    freedom1st

  • jonathan says:

    Man, was a great experience in those habbohotel rooms, and met some great people, and hey….there I am! We’ll my habbo ‘person’: 2nd picture down, I’m in the middle of the room with my back to the bench, dressed in blue top, shorts and sporting a ‘skin-head’ hair cut!
    Cant wait for next gathering! Ciao

  • Hi everybody, really nice to meet you in the Habbo Hotel. I had a lot of fun yesterday. Too bad though that the Hotel crashed when we were chilling out. The highlight for me was when everybody said ‘amen’ after the bible shower and then lined up to kiss the cross. Unfortunately kneeling was not an option 😉

  • jonnyjpg says:

    Nice to be able to drop by, i missed the first bit unfortunately. but glad i made it along at all.

  • brad says:

    Here are a few more details to add to Dutchtraveller’s highlight moment of people kissing the cross. I got there late to that room (okay, so is it a cybersin to hang around too long during “fellowship time” in the off/on room and talk with my new friend, freedom1st?) (I trust not … I still think it’s possible to be Spirit-led in cyberland!)
    Anyway, I teleported from the previous room in our “trail” of the day, and I noticed there were people milling around outside the doorway on the right-hand side of this new lounge room. The entrance was blocked to them, but you could see them peeking in to see what was happening.
    Meanwhile, participants inside the room were sitting in a “J” shaped line of chairs, finishing up the Bible Shower Scripture readings and then all said “Amen” one after another. Then I think it was Dutchtraveller as facilitator who said something like, “And now we’re going to do something that probably is a first in Habbo Hotel. We’re going to kiss the cross.”
    Since there were no crosses available for purchase in the Habbo Hotel furniture store, one had been “made” out of lines of post-it sticky notes on the wall. People walked up one at a time, and stood for a few moments in the square by the wall, directly in front of the cross. Some said their “amen” there. Some said nothing. Some made brief comments of thanksgiving. Some made their character smile when they turned around (by using 🙂 in their comment bubbles.
    And when people went up to kiss the cross, that was when all hell broke loose – literally. Several people who were milling around the doorway started shouting horrible curses at God (and even a few milder curses at us!). The Hotel has a program in place that replaces forbidden words with the word “bobba” to show a person has said something that is probably bad. But people who want to swear, or make rude or lewd comments, have already found ways around that, and it was very very clear what their opinions of God and us were … who would have thought, we experienced spiritual warfare in cyberspace?!
    Because the doorway was on the right side of the room, the comment bubbles from those cursing were on the other side of the room as well. So it wasn’t that difficult to concentrate on the blessings that were taking place on the left side of the room. And despite the chaos others were trying to create, I don’t think it really disturbed the moment … just made it more real. Reality in a virtual environment – that seems like an oxymoron. But perhaps this all just proves that we take who we are with us, even into a digital domain. We can adopt a “liquid identity” that isn’t who we really are, but sooner or later, the truth – the real – oozes out in bits and bytes.
    It was a cool experience, made so in part by a growing sense of connection with those who participated as we went through the various rooms together and had side conversations to get to know each other better.
    Thanks to all who hosted and helped!

  • Kneeding says:

    Suddenly Seminary at HabboHotel

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