A MMORPG Ministry

Epiphany_Island_506x387.jpg

A Christian community for those who call themselves: Anglicans, Episcopalians or members of the Church of England, Episcopal Church or any of the other bodies of believers who share the Anglican heritage.
- from the Charter of the Anglican Community, SL

The Anglican Cathedral on Epiphany Island holds 5 services a week, hosts regular bible study, and engages a young Kiwi vicar, Mark Brown, who preaches on topics like "Six Steps to an Amazing Christian Walk."

It is arguably the newest Anglican Cathedral, built in May 2007 by Monty Merlin. It has been sited high on a rise of Epiphany Island, with sweeping views of mountains, valleys and the seas which surround it. Vaulted gothic ceilings are supported by granite columns punctuated by glorious windows of stained glass. Since it opened its new cathedral doors last spring, the Anglican community on Epiphany Island has grown to more than 300 individuals.

The Anglican Cathedral on Epiphany Island was built to support the Anglican Group in Second Life, which was founded in November 2006 by Bill Sowers, who is a member of St David's Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Kansas.

I urge my readers to consider these facts before deeply discounting the relevance of this MMORPG ministry : the virtual world of Second Life is an international community with millions of members, and the average age of the Second Life player is considered to be in the range of mid-20s to mid-30s. The lay and ordained leadership of The Anglican Cathedral on Epiphany Island are reaching out by logging on. I believe that their work in SL is creating an essential bridge between tradition and technology. As they build trust and deepen relationships among the SL community, they are proclaiming the gospel. For more information, visit the homepage of The Anglican Church in Second Life here.

Comments (3)

Thank you for making the important outreach activities of The Anglican Group in SL known. However, I think that SL should be recognized as a separate classification from a MMORPG, a role-playing game. It is real life, serious business for groups like the American Cancer Society in SL. As a cancer survivor and member of both the ACS in SL and the Anglican Group in SL, I am very comforted by their presence. I know that I can seek support and counseling by trained professionals on good or bad days; especially if it is after normal business hours.

Kate Robbins

I urge you to reconsider your choice of words for "Second Life player." For me and thousands, perhaps millions of other users, it is not and never has been a game or an MMPORG, and that misconception is fueling a great deal of the dismay that consumes some people who think, inaccurately, that the communities we are building there are somehow inferior to or less valid than "real world" experiences. They may indeed be different, but there is a reason a significant part of my professional job description is to develop my organization's presence in Second Life.

I know we are on the same page here, but "Second Life user" and "virtual world platform" are far less loaded. :)

Greetings. I lead the Anglican Group in Second Life and I was shocked to read an appalling lead article about our ministry on the popular website, Anglicans Online . It is sloppy and misguided. To check the article out see:

http://www.anglicansonline.org/

To see my response check out my blog at :

http://brownblog.info/

Your comments are welcome.

Add your comments
Reminder: At Episcopal Café, we hope to establish an ethic of transparency by requiring all contributors and commentators to make submissions under their real names. For more details see our Feedback Policy.

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Advertising Space