Second Life

Last night, I was asked to speak at a church about evangelism. I had twenty minutes to speak on the Biblical method of presenting the Law to sinners and then showing God’s grace in light of that Law. Sounded good to me. There was only one detail I didn’t realize. This was a “virtual” church. I was going to have to suit up in an avatar and jump into cyberspace. There was a bit of a learning curve, but after I figured out how to move around and figured out the voice features of this particular world, it was actually pretty cool.

I walked into the “church” building and spoke to about 20 people who were all attending. In meatspace (a term I just learned for the real world) people were actually all over the world, and I was actually at a Starbucks logged in and speaking to my laptop computer. Though, in cyberspace, it was a real church service. With the audio features of this technology, they had worship music, and prayer and even free Bibles to give out to anyone in attendance.

As I looked into Second Life, it turns out that there are almost two million people who regularly log in and spend time in this world. There are real stores that take real money that sell real items such as mp3 versions of songs, or even things that can get shipped to your house in meatspace. What a world.

What I did learn was that if you are creative, you can find a spot that you can make your own fishing spot, even if it only exists in electrons flying around a Starbucks. But, whatever your particular circle of influence, where is your fishing spot? Get out there (or in there) and seek and save the lost.