Suddenly Seminary Expands to Topia

A little update on Suddenly Seminary. Congrats to those who christened their avatars last week under our holy sprinkler. For new students, or those of you over the past 18 years who would like to re-enroll and brush up your metaverse skills and discuss ministry in the virtual world, you will be excited to hear…

Read More

My Avatar is Turning 18 years old

My avatar at Habbo turns 18 years old next week. I come of age. YIPPEE!!!!!!!! I now wear a tweed suit and have glasses and some grey hair. I might be one of the oldest avatars in the Metaverse. The feature image is of me, TallSkinnyKiwi, Chancellor of Suddenly Seminary (2004) checking out the new…

Read More

Why do metaverse churches look so boring and creepy?

“For 2,000 years, the Christian church has used the tech of the time to transform reality and sell itself better. But their first attempts at virtual reality have been soulless and creepy.” Captain Cassidy Many of those virtual churches really DO look boring. And creepy. It’s a good question. I have a few answers.  Another…

Read More

Metaverse Church and the Parallel Universe

Avatars do not need to look like us. The best avatar to create for a metaverse church experience (this is from the Q&A session after my message on Sunday) is an elderly grandmother because grandmothers rule the church. They can turn around on the pew to shush the young people giggling during the sermon, they…

Read More

Church in the Metaverse

I would like to do a short blog series on the topic of the Metaverse and church, ministry and mission that happen in it and are affected by it. Maybe next week. The Metaverse did not suddenly fall from the sky and land on our foreheads. Online virtual spaces have helped us launch religious environments…

Read More

Transcoding Church: Intro

And just like that, the global church was thrust into the biggest house church experiment ever seen in human history. Not quite the same as previous house church movements, most of our new aggregations of media-connected believers came about suddenly due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the necessity of isolation. But we find ourselves at…

Read More

Did the online church start in 1985?

SimChurch author Douglas Estes, who participated in our Cyberchurch Symposium earlier this year, suggested the 1985 date for the origin of virtual online church. I asked him about it recently and he responded: “Andrew, Thanks for blogging about SimChurch and taking part in the blog tour. Your question was, “Can you elaborate on the date…

Read More

SimChurch

Douglas Estes releases his book SimChurch which deals with virtual communities and cyberchurch. Douglas came over to London for our Cyberchurch Symposium earlier in the year. Its a good book and a helpful addition to the literature, of which there isn’t a whole lot. A blog tour is connected to the book. Start with Cynthia.…

Read More

Criticism of Virtual Community and Cyber churches

Is the cyber-church a REAL church? I was studying and writing last weekend on virtual communities for a number of articles and also for speaking in Las Angeles next September at the Christian Web Conference. There are lots of arguments against virtual communities being “real” but there one quote that is probably the most comprehensive…

Read More

Is the Virtual Church a REAL Church?

Douglas Estes, one of the participants of yesterday’s Cyberchurch Symposium, and who managed to get lost in London twice during our walk [must be a curious fellow] is releasing a book on the Cyberchurch in a few months. He interviewed me for the book and a few questions I just dug up from an old…

Read More

Cyberchurch Symposium Today in London

Ok – Here I am in London for the Cyberchurch and Online Community Symposium. This is an intimate and somewhat casual meeting (the word “symposium” means literally “to drink together”) for some really interesting and qualified people, divided up somewhat equally among thinkers, practitioners and supporters. Here’s the group: – Douglas Estes (PhD) is flying…

Read More

How To Gate-crash a Cyberchurch Service and Take Over the Pulpit.

This Saturday, leaders of online faith communities come together for a Symposium in London. I am hosting the event, actually, In preparation, I thought I would upload a video of my time at Church of Fools, a cyberchurch experience which would later would lead to St Pixels Church. It was 2004, opening day, and I…

Read More

Virtual Church in the 1940’s

I haven’t had much time to blog or chat in the last week but I did listen in to one chat – the interesting conversation that Shane Hipps ignited during the week about virtual communities through his video. Especially relevant to me because we are less than one month away from the Cyberchurch Symposium in…

Read More

Cyberchurch and Online-Church Symposium

Invitations go out tomorrow for an informal meeting with creators of cyberchurch and online church communities. So far, we have verbal commitments from Church of Fools/St Pixels, I-Church and Bobby Gruenwald from the Lifechurch.tv online community in Second Life, as well as a few published experts on the topic. Should be a really good time.…

Read More

Mega-Churches in Cyberspace?

Wanna help? I am writing an article on missions and post-modernities, in particular the idea of transcoding mission in a world of new media communications. It will be published [unless they think it unworthy] close to the Edinburgh 2010 events. It would be a help to me if you could read an old blog post…

Read More

Love Your Uni : Virtual University

On Saturday morning at 11:30 I am speaking in Oxford at the Fusion Weekend event. My talk is called “Love Your Uni: Virtual University Part 1” and I was there last year also. Fusion is an exciting ministry in the universities of UK. Their vision for 2008 is to start another 1000 student cells and…

Read More