Virtual Church

“Can I do church without church?” is the question raised by one participant in a new virtual church created by the Methodist Church of Great Britain. With church attendance at an all-time low (some reports show British church attendance at somewhere between 4 and 7% of the population) Methodist Church leaders are hoping to increase interest by encouraging people to participate via computer. And this goes way beyond posting sermons on the net…users create a computer character (an “avatar”) and can actually attend an animated service. Participants can instruct his/her animated character to tour the church, kneel, pray, listen, or participate in any number of virtual church activities. The site also makes numerous chat rooms and virtual discussion groups available…a quick peak indicates regular usage by quite a few people. Online records seem to indicate that as many as 40,000 people may be visiting the site with some regularity (68,000 visited during the first two days of operation). A tour around the chat rooms suggests that quite a few participants are either skeptics or have been hurt by church people in the past---no surprise there.
Two good questions come to mind. One, asked by a chat room participant: “Can I do church without church?” And two, How shall we effectively transmit salt and light over the web?
Visit the site at www.churchoffools.com.