The Metaverse, an environment that already moves the finances of organizations around the world, appears as a consolidated future trend. Gartner, a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut, USA, estimates that in fewer than five years, more than a quarter of the companies will be in the Metaverse and 25 percent of the world population will spend at least an hour a day in the digital ecosystem.

In a January 2022 report on the Fortune website, the pastor of a virtual church called VR Church, D.J. Soto, comments on the opportunities to take the gospel to different audiences. These are people who, for different reasons, do not usually go to a physical church. The virtual congregation already has 200 people and started serving atheists and agnostics. Soto has even performed some remote baptisms.

Jeff Reed, the author of VR & the Metaverse Church, points out that "the church has the opportunity to explore strange new worlds, to seek new life and new civilizations, to go where no man has gone before.” In the book, he presents the data that churches exploring virtual reality report involvement with 80–85 percent of people classified as atheists or agnostics.

Prayer and Spiritual Counseling

Thinking about this more spiritual facet of the Metaverse, the Seventh-day Adventist Church launched the proposal to attend people for free during ten days in a different program. It will be from February 23 to March 4, always at 9 p.m. (Brasília time). The initiative, called “10 Days of Prayer,” will take place at Spatial and is totally free.

Basically, those who go there will find biblical messages of encouragement, moments of prayer, music, and the opportunity to be counseled or ask questions about matters of faith. The environment is being prepared, and the guidelines for connecting are at adv.st/metaverso.

The conductor of the spiritual program will be Pastor Jorge Rampogna, director of the Communication Department for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in South America. He says, "The church needs to take every opportunity to take its message to where people are. Many are submerging the internet into new virtual worlds. It's a challenge to conventional methods, but we need to connect."

The organizer of the event, Carlos Magalhães, director of the Digital Strategies Department for the Adventist Church, complements Rampogna’s perspective by saying, "The idea is to provide an environment of exchange about spiritual experiences and learning about the content of the Holy Bible applied to a reality of people in a hyperconnected world.”

References:

“In 4 years, 30% of organizations worldwide will have products or services in the metaverse, predicts Gartner.” https://exame.com/tecnologia/30-por-cento-das-organizacoes-terao-produtos-ou-servicos-no-metaverso_red-01/

“Religious people are increasingly attending worship services in the metaverse.” https://fortune.com/2022/01/31/virtual-worshipping-services-religion-metaverse/

Reed, Jeff. VR & the Metaverse Church: How God Is Moving in this Virtual, Yet Quite Real, Reality. https://multiplication.org/product/vr-and-the-metaverse-church/

The original version of this story was posted on the South American Division Portuguese-language news site.