International (MNN) ― Teen Second Life is an online 3D virtual world. It's a universe brimming with people and possibilities. Youth For Christ's Scott Arnold agrees. "We felt, as Youth For Christ, it's our calling to be where the kids are."
Although YFC has been following the social trends through Instant Messaging, blogging, and the Social Networking phenomena, the ministry team felt the communication platforms were unwieldy and slow.
Then, about eight months ago, YFC launched an online club that grew into one of the most popular areas in that virtual community.
Today, Arnold says, there are nearly 500 kids regularly coming to Bible study that wouldn't otherwise. "The vast majority, I think, we're tracking somewhere between 75-80-percent of those teens are not Christian kids."
It's not the first foray into virtual community. Three years ago, YFC created an evangelism handbook for Christians who are already members of Second Life. It was designed to help Christians speak the"‘lingo" or understand how to talk to another avatar in a very friendly way, bringing up the things of Christ, living out life in that Second Life as a Christian.
The handbook is the Luke 10 model of how to share the Gospel. It teaches readers how to transform virtual relationships into real relationships.
However, for those who are already familiar with the protocols of Teen Second Life, there's still a lot of ground to cover. Fortunately, establishing trust doesn't seem to be holding their team back.
Meeting "face-to-face" in Teen Second Life means that the Gospel is coming into contact with young people from all walks of life. Arnold says real-time online chat in virtual reality, along with the anonymity, creates close relationships without masks.
As a result, "We've had a sizeable number of kids make first-time decisions to become followers of Jesus. We've had kids make decisions to get off of drugs, get out of gang life, get out of very difficult circumstances."
There is one problem: "We're looking at the technology side trying to figure out how to scale this and how to be able to engage more people. We've got something that's working, and the technology has become the upper limit." They're looking for believers to mentor these kids, really, becoming virtual missionaries. Click here for details if you want to help.
