Need a second life?

Let me begin by saying that I'm about to discuss something I only partly understand...and even what I understand still baffles me but it's certainly worth discussing and I doubt you will forget it.

There is a world that exists with close to 200,000 residents who interact, live in communities, engage in commerce, and do just about everything else you and I do. They also do things that you and I don't do like fly around from place to place (literally fly around like you and I walk around...they fly if they want to). This world is Second Life.

If you haven't heard about Second Life it is a virtual world where people do everything I described above but the entire universe lives on computers, servers actually, out in California. Business Week Magazine recently did a story about Second Life and interviewed one of the Second Life residents who's a land developer on/in Second Life. This lady's got $250,000 of real equity in the money she owns in this virtual world (and she could cash it in if she wanted). A little hard to believe but quite interesting nevertheless. Check out the Second Life entry in Wikipedia if you want to know more.

Many corporations are now rushing to Second Life to see if they can either make money or simply use it for exposure and promotional purposes so prepare to hear a lot more about Second Life over the next year. What I haven't been able to find in a short Google search was any information on a Christian perspective of Second Life. In the "anything goes, do whatever you want" world, you can imagine that Second Life has more than it's fair share of adult content. What this also means, however, is that it's a great opportunity for Christians to seize an this new world to reach people you might not reach otherwise. It's going to take a certain kind of missionary or church planter to take this and run with it, but what an opportunity here! Second Life Community Church has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Seems like a nice segue to a getting a real second life.