Attending a Second Life Worship Service

Last night I attended a church service at a Second Life progressive church (as opposed to lifechurch.tv, the conservative church that opened on Easter and has spent tons of money creating a second life campus that can stream its regular service in world) called the United Church of Christ in SL. The building, built by a second year seminary student at Emory and her partner, was beautiful—individually designed cushions in the center of the floor to sit on, mats lining the walls for extra seating, large, clear glass windows making up the roof and other details made being in the space quite pleasing, although I could have lived without the large cross hanging suspended over the one entryway. (Crosses are, by their very nature, meant to be grounded in the earth, aren’t they, both because of their original use as instruments of torture and because without an earthy connection, what would Easter mean?)

Having said that, the service itself was very weak. It made me aware of the need to really think through worship from scratch if it’s going to work in world. I’m sure a little of the problem was that the service was designed and led by a seminarian without a lot of worship experience (though with a big heart and a worldview that seemed warm and hospitable). Aside from sitting on the cushion, much of the worship was structured in typical modern style, with the worship leader standing behind a pulpit talking at the congregation during the sermon or leading the congregation in prayer. While this style clearly has limitations in our ‘first’ life churches, it has even more problems in Second Life. The preacher stood behind the pulpit and typed the lines to the sermon one by one. We sat there and watched her type. There were none of the body signals or facial expressions or tones of voice that so often carry a first life sermon, just the hands moving and arms going up and down for the typing. The long pauses in between lines of text appearing made it very hard to follow, much less engage with. And the responsive prayer, which we were given ahead of time along with the lectionary passage, also didn’t work very well. Each time we were to do the ‘all’ part, we each typed in the response line, which showed up again and again on the screen. The only part of ‘traditional’ worship that seemed to work well was the sharing of joys and concerns, where individuals shared a hope or worry and then the worship leader responded to each concern with a brief prayer.

The service left me wondering about the best way to do worship in world. It’s clear that worship has to offer something other than the kinds of things that lifechurch or this UCC church have tried. Maybe there are other houses of worship in 2nd life offering more engaging worship. I’ll try to search around and check it out because if there aren’t, someone needs to puzzle through what kinds of worship would work in Second Life that would actively engage those participating in a congregation.

Second Life Church

I'm spending more and more time thinking about creating a Second Life church, since the ones that already exist on world seem to be either non-Christian (the church of Elvis, a church for vampires, etc.) or extremely conservative. My view is of a progressive, welcoming intentional community that would find a way to teach and embody the best of Jesus' radical hospitality, both on world and in everyday life.

The downsides? I've never planted a church before, I don't know how to build things or program in Second Life, and I don't have a team to work with me. I keep checking around to see if there's someone else out on the internet who might have similar interests but so far I haven't been able to find anyone. Still, I keep feeling the pull of the Spirit in this direction!

Where Are They Worshipping?

So I know the studies showing the percentage of the American population who are gay vary-- anywhere from 4% to Kinsey's better-known "1 in 10" study. I know that among my daughter's friends are several who are gay. And my younger son clearly knows many lgbt folks in their 20s from the gay clubs and bars in NYC. But where are the gay men and lesbians who are in their 40s and up? And where are any of these folks who live in the suburbs worshipping? Every once in a while someone gay or lesbian stumbles through our "welcoming" church doors, but most of the time they only come one or two Sundays and then they're gone-- this in a congregation that's touted as one of the most lgbt- friendly places to worship in Westchester!

I spent lots of time this weekend trying to figure out from websites what churches were both saying they are welcoming AND actually had some gay couples attending. I began by going through the databases that are available online for "gay-friendly" churches in this part of the country. Among the churches listed, I know from first hand experience that so many don't have a single out gay person in their congregation, much less a gay community there. Then I began to do a search of websites using regional directories of various denominations-- Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, UCC, Unitarian. Again, most of the churches say they are welcoming and they may yearn to be so but the websites of Christian congregations in this part of the country seems to reflect a very different reality.