Is church in a headset a virtual reality?
With explosive growth in the number of virtual reality gatherings it’s time to ask how church can work in the metaverse. We watched an Elim Digital Debate to find out
Where might you find a goose preaching in a tuxedo? Or Hulk Hogan worshipping? Or Tony the Tiger attending a life group? At Cornerstone Church of Yuba City’s metaverse church. Cornerstone, in California, is one of a rapidly growing number of churches hosting thriving virtual reality congregations. Behind these imaginative avatars and VR headsets are communities uniting to worship, discuss faith and experience church in the metaverse.
This world operates as the gaming community has for many years. Users don their headsets, digital glasses and other devices and enter 360° virtual church environments. Services run like their physical counterparts, with worship, preaching, communion, altar calls, baptisms and fellowship time.
Pastors and members cite many advantages, including VR church’s ability to attract people who wouldn’t or couldn’t attend physical church. “I had a heart attack and couldn’t make it back to church. It was too difficult to walk,” says Thomas McFerrin, who helps lead Cornerstone’s virtual church. “Church in the metaverse means everything to me. It gives me purpose.”
But how does church work in a headset? During an Elim Digital Debate, Jason Ham spoke to Pastor Michael Uzdavines to find out.
Church in the metaverse
Pastor Michael Uzdavines is Metaverse Pastor at Cornerstone Church of Yuba City. Known as Pastor Goose for his tuxedoed goose avatar there, he oversees two VR congregations. Here is a snapshot of his conversation with Jason.
What are you doing in the metaverse?
We’ve built a church in there so users of social apps and games can participate in church every Sunday.
What’s church like in the metaverse?
For anyone who’s done multiplayer gaming, each of us has that friend we’ve known for a long time but only by their username. Maybe we’ve talked about life and things they’ve gone through, then we think I don’t know that guy’s real name, yet I know these intimate details about him because we’ve played games together. To me, that is the metaverse – the connectivity between individuals that exists over what used to be a phoneline and is now over the internet. We’re capitalising on the ability to connect spiritually, even though we’re not geographically in the same place.
It ’s using any digital means to advance the gospel and build one another up in Christ.
I firmly believe that Paul, who used the most advanced technology available at his time – paper or parchment – would be doing this too. He would have taken every opportunity to advance the gospel, and so should we.
How Bible stories are being brought to life for eight to eleven-year-olds
Scripture Union’s Guardians of Ancora app is connecting primary school children with the Bible. Its developer Maggie Barfield explains how it’s doing it...
Scripture Union had a dilemma. Their traditional Bible-reading resources were no longer hitting the mark. How could they connect children with the Bible? Digitally, they decided.
“Children spend a lot of time in digital spaces,” says Maggie Barfield. “What if we could grab a bit of it and help them engage with the Bible?”
And so the Guardians of Ancora app was developed to bring the Bible to life for eight to eleven-year-olds. In it, players explore the biblical world of Ancora. “You might be in Capernaum, Jerusalem, Bethlehem. As you travel you come across stories to share – you’ll find where Jesus is, what he’s doing, and what he’s saying.”
The app can have a profound effect, Maggie says. At one school club, a child became a Christian through playing it and has been baptised and invited their family to church.
What’s the weekly set-up?
We have the typical church expression of a weekend service with announcements, worship and a sermon.
Our pastor, Jason, preaches two services in our physical church and preaches the same sermon two more times in the metaverse. At the end we do a Q&A. Some people show up and wait for an hour to ask their question.
Midweek, this is where mission comes in. We’ve got lots of people who love going into other worlds and talking about Jesus. We just did a sermon on gifts and as I was preparing I thought we have so many evangelists here. But it makes sense because the metaverse is such fertile ground. Some people are called to a certain app in the way some missionaries are called to a country.
It can sound bonkers when you explain that my avatar is a goose in a tuxedo, then there’s Hulk Hogan, Tony the Tiger, all these avatars doing church together. It might even sound irreverent, but when you strip away the pixels it’s about souls, and the fact we’re spending time with these brothers and sisters in Christ.
In the UK: discipleship through virtual worlds
How can digital devices and virtual worlds be harnessed as missional tools? Missional Generation is equipping churches for digital discipleship
Jesus used storytelling to bring Scripture to life, says Missional Generation’s founder Ben Jones. It was the discipleship tool of his day. Why, then, shouldn’t we use the digital tools of our day to do likewise?
The question is, how can we harness immersive digital spaces like VR headsets or augmented reality apps to ignite confidence in faith, mission and evangelism? “We train churches to use a digital discipleship approach to mission because when you recognise it as an opportunity you can start bringing the gospel into those spaces,” says Ben.
To this end, Missional Generation is empowering churches to go into schools. It is also developing immersive games and animations to introduce interact ive Bible experiences that provoke discussion.
“With our David and Goliath resource, you find five stones, flip them at Goliath, then the conversation on the back of that asks what Goliaths we have in our own lives. We use these games and animations to lead to discipleship sessions.”
This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.
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