Join us at Koinonia Church in Second Life on September 21 & 22 for two evenings of generative conversation.

If you are new to Second Life and need a tour let me know and I can show you around.

A small news item blipped on my radar this week about a federal court ruling that a religious nonprofit organization that primarily conducts worship services via the Internet and radio does not meet the Internal Revenue Service definition of a church (that has 14 criteria), according to a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling reported on by The National Law Journal.

Those criteria include that it has a recognized creed and form of worship; a formal code of doctrine and discipline; a membership not associated with any other church or denomination; ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed studies; and holds regular religious services.

The organization in question with this ruling is The Foundation of Human Understanding – The Federal Circuit panel deemed the associational test the most important. It agreed with the lower court that the foundation’s “electronic ministry” did not satisfy the test.

As the pastor serving an online congregation that does likely meet the “associational test” I was at first taken aback at a the line of demarcation from our feds. Now don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t need Rome to validate our little gathering of disciples. Call me old school, but the notion of federal criteria for declaring a fellowship church or not church seems a little hinky to me.

Take a look and see what you think – does your church meet these? How about my emergent sisters and brothers? And what social movements or celebrity fan clubs can you think of that might meet these criteria?

According to the IRS there are 14 criteria that determine whether or not a group is a church:

*Distinct legal existence
*Recognized creed and form of worship
*Definite and distinct ecclesiastical government
*Formal code of doctrine and discipline
*Distinct religious history
*Membership not associated with any other church or denomination
*Organization of ordained ministers
*Ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed courses of study
*Literature of its own
*Established places of worship
*Regular congregations
*Regular religious services
*Sunday schools for the religious instruction of the young
*Schools for the preparation of its members

The IRS generally uses a combination of these characteristics, together with other facts and circumstances, to determine whether an organization is considered a church for federal tax purposes.

Just thinkin’ out loud and would love to hear your thoughts. What criteria would you make for whether not a bevy of believers were actually a church?

via cartoon: how targets are made.

U.S. Orthodox rabbis urge community to accept gays and lesbians.

“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.”
– Dorothy Day

I have the best job in the world because I get to meet that long loneliness with a new kind of community.

I am the Circuit Rider for The Beatitudes Society, but my tools are quite different than the well-worn saddle and leather-bound Bibles of my forebears. My tools are the currency of the online world – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Second Life. I enlist online resources that help clergy learn and act on pressing social issues and give them online places to meet and talk with other progressive faith leaders.

How does a seminary graduate end up as an online Circuit Rider? Answer: I genuinely believe in online community. Community is the common thread to all my work. I see it in practice at The Beatitudes Society. I also see it in practice as the pastor of an online church, Koinonia Congregational Church of Second Life.

Let me tell you about my church. Imagine a new town emerging on the outskirts of your city, a planned village filled with all manner of retail, rolling golf courses, night clubs, and civic arrangements necessary to organizing a small city. You’d also expect to find houses of worship where the new town’s citizens can connect with God and with each other. So it is with the new metropolis of the internet: churches are springing up every day online, and I am one of the ministers.

At our church this past Easter morning, for instance, folks wandered in, picked up their bulletins and settled into their seats. They chatted quietly about their lovely dresses and crisp Sunday suits while the music welcoming the Risen Lord floated lightly overhead. This group has been worshipping together for two years, and the joy was palpable. When it came time for the passing of the peace, people greeted one another from Germany, England, California, Mississippi, Georgia, and Toronto. They hadn’t traveled from those places; they were still at home in all those places, but making church online – worshipping, studying, praying, crying and laughing together from all corners of the globe.

Avatars and Atonement
Koinonia Church is an actual congregation meeting in online space — a virtual reality world derived from the revolutionary software program called Second Life, which allows users to socialize and use voice and text chat. Koinonia uses Second Life to create a safe environment where people can learn about the Christian faith and experience a loving Christian community.

Each week we meet for worship in the 3D-rendered sanctuary where as avatars we gather for fellowship, prayer, music, and the preached Word. Opening its doors and heart to people of various theologies, sexual orientations, and faith experiences, Koinonia practices God’s extravagant welcome to all. Koinonia Christians celebrate the abundance of life and diversity of God’s people. The worldwide reach of Second Life gives Koinonia unlimited potential to connect with people who would never walk through the doors of a brick-and-mortar church. It provides a safe place for those who have been hurt or rejected by previous, earthbound communities of faith. (To see a YouTube video of Koinonia Church, visit our web site, www.koinonia-church.org. For further information about Second Life, see www.secondlife.com)

As minister, I spend time at the church daily, meeting with folks who need prayer or an encouraging word. Visitors curious about Koinonia pop by daily and explore the grounds, where they can slip a prayer request in a dedicated mail box, light a prayer candle or sit in meditation in the gardens that surround the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired building. If you are ever “in-world” (the phrase Second Life citizens use to designate being logged into Second Life), stop by and I can give you a tour of the parsonage. Our church is not the only congregation in Second Life. You can wander into the neighboring cathedral of the Anglican church of New Zealand. You can visit a Presbyterian fellowship and find evangelical churches all around the cyber-landscape. The Unitarian Universalist worship space (www.fuucsl.org/cms) is one of the loveliest sacred sites in Second Life. You can also find mosques, synagogues, and Zen meditation gardens, support groups like Alcohol Anonymous, and hundreds of such fellowships offering real community online.

Soul and Circuitry
How did all this come to be, these myriad manifestations of faith communities online? What might seem like a dizzying techno-revolution, a break with the past, can actually be placed in the long history of evangelism. I see it in the tradition of the n nineteenth century revivals and in the lineage of twentieth century preachers who, taking the Great Commission seriously, enlivened the radio and TV airwaves. But where we at Koinonia break with traditional evangelical practice and theology is with their drive to “produce” confessing converts who have made their “decision for Christ.” Instead of endeavoring to increase the rolls and move on to the next task or program, our focus is to gather as the visible Body of Christ and extend God’s radical hospitality to all who seek connection. What makes the internet fundamentally different from previous electronic evangelism is its potential for direct, one-on-one interaction between individuals, its potential for community – for Koinonia.

In his book Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “It is the curse and promise (of Christendom) that God’s people must dwell in far countries among unbelievers, but it will be the seed of the kingdom of God in all the world. It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visible in this world to share God’s word and sacrament. Not all Christians receive this blessing. The imprisoned, the sick, the scattered and lonely, the proclaimers of the Gospel in heathen [sic] lands, stand alone.” Bonhoeffer is right: isolated people long for community, whether they are locked away behind concrete and steel, or closeted and imprisoned by hostile social prejudice, shut in and away from a loved ones. Preachers who find themselves self-censoring for fear of creating congregational conflict can be the most isolated of all. Today we have new tools to break through the isolation: the blessing of community is available online.

Twitter, Facebook, Second Life – I know, it seems overwhelming, and maybe even distasteful. Just when you might have recovered from your technology allergy and started using email with enthusiasm, now we get all these new “social networking” tools and you hardly know where to begin. But these are the tools in my “saddle-bag” along with my brand new iPhone. We call this “Web 2.0,” where relationship trumps one-way, passive transmission of online information. Web 2.0 refers to the evolution of web-based communities, including social-networking sites, wikis, video-sharing sites, and blogs. People are seeking “connectedness,” and these Web 2.0 tools make that possible.

Although we are still learning what exactly it means to be church online we are blessed with the capability now to create a participatory space for Christians and seekers, for the un-churched and de-churched to worship and to extend God’s gracious welcome to all who come near. And what may appear to be play-acting is for many in fact a very serious and faithful act of worship and community.

Referring to Christian scholar Phyllis Tickle’s remarks about the internet, host Krista Tippet said recently on her PBS show Speaking of Faith: “She said every time one of these kids logs on, they step through the back of the closet into Narnia. And they live with ideas of different levels of reality. There’s virtual reality and this reality, and that they all have some substance, and that they don’t have cognitive dissidence about taking all of that seriously.”

I have found this to be absolutely true, but with one caveat: The folks participating in online church are by no means exclusively kids, youth or twenty-somethings. The people who call Koinonia Congregational Church their spiritual home are young, old, black, and white, American and European, gay and straight, and representing a spectrum of differently-abled bodies. One parishioner who has worshipped at Koinonia for nearly two years is a grandmother who lives alone and has experienced more than forty surgical procedures. Though home-bound, she finds solace in a living Christian community that daily prays with her, visits with her, and worries about her when she is not around. One young woman, a lesbian living in a small southern community, came to Koinonia with deep wounds inflicted by her home congregation. Finding a church in her hometown was hard. In our church, she has found love and acceptance. Here she has found a deep connection with God and peace with herself.

In the earliest days of this church’s formation, a nineteen-year-old woman found the community she needed when she was dislocated from her family of origin. She had relocated across the country with her fiancé who was now stationed in Iraq, and at Koinonia she made a new family. The space was virtual, but the community was real. As a community, we prayed and waited for the safe return of her beloved. When news of his return reached Koinonia, we cried. I cried real tears of joy for her joy.

I know Koinonia online sounds weird – I hear it all the time. People tell me that it’s not real church if it’s not real brick and mortar. But my hunch is most Christians would agree that a building is not the church either. The community of believers is the real temple, the real church (2 Corinthians 3:16, Ephesians 2:21). Biblically speaking, the Christian holy place is as omnipresent as the ascended Lord. Church happens in spirit and reality inside God’s people, for that is where God lives.

Sure, big questions about online spirituality persist: Does this sort of community privilege mind over body? What about the digital divide – are we creating a new system of exclusion? Another big one – what about the sacraments? Without bread and wine and water, are we church? Or is online church a new “outward and visible sign” for an inward and invisible truth?

There are no ready answers – yet. But over time and through the constant cycle of action and reflection, the church has a new and extraordinary opportunity to grapple with what it means to live a sacramental life in cyberspace. Funny thing is, this grappling is nothing new to people of faith: many of these same questions about the nature of sacramental life perennially confront us in our local “traditional” communities.

In his study of base communities of Latin America, Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communities Reinvent the Church (Orbis, 1986), Leonardo Boff wrote, “Grace and salvation are always expressed in sacramental form. They do not come like a bolt from the blue. They find their path to the hearts of human beings through all manner of mediations. The mediations can change, but grace and faith cannot.”

Whether it’s a face-to-face encounter with a witnessing Christian, a life in a well-established and traditional church, or via the airwaves of radio and TV, or in a Sabbath gathering of 3D avatars in Second Life, the belief that the Holy Spirit can work in and through any vehicle is what compels me to create, participate in, and sustain online Christian community.

Kimberly Knight received her Master of Divinity from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. She also has a B.A. in religious studies from Georgia State University. Before entering seminary she worked nearly five years as a public school activist in Atlanta and served as the technology specialist for The Neighborhood Charter School. She, her partner, and their two children are active members of Kirkwood United Church of Christ in Atlanta.

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Last night we gathered around the fire outside Koinonia church and began our evening with Luke 13:18-21 – the parables of “Mischievous Mustard and Lasting Leaven” as Barbara E. Reid has called them in Parables for Preachers (Year C)
We had a lovely little discussion about the subversive nature of these parables and about the in-breaking of the Reign of God.

We then ventured to a site called Rachelville, which is a touching exhibit built by some friends of mine in Second Life as a tribute, a memorial garden for their daughter Rachel.

We returned to the fire ring and told stories then I offered them the link to a fantastic sim hosting the Stories Without Borders Project

All in all, a perfect start to Koinonia StoryQuest. I hope you will join us next week as we continue to explore how our stories intertwine with God’s story.

Parables and Our Story

Tonight, Wednesday July 7th begins Koinonia’s summer StoryQuest – come explore The Parables, take a SL field trip and relax under the story telling tree where folks are invited to share their own personal stories. BEGINS AT 9:30 PM EST

I hope you will join us!

via Is Homosexuality an “Abomination”?.

Preparing for worship this week, I was again confronted with this “reality” as folks popped into Koinonia before worship to chat and exchange ideas and test out the space.

Much like first life, this conversation started simply enough with introductions and pleasantries, but soon turned into an exploration of belief and practices of the gathered community. UNLIKE first life, the questions and responses flowed quickly and with depth and introspection that as a pastor, I do not often see among first time participants.

One of the surprising blessings of second life is this random encounter with the holy through “unmasked” discussions. Think how often we “mind our words” in public settings when faith, religion or belief is brought up.  Sharing our inner ideas, theologies and understandings with total strangers, is something most of us are reluctant to do. So in a curious why, second life offers us a “mask” or more appropriately a screen to set our words before others, and test the waters of dialogue more readily.

At first some of the newer folks were hesitant to share their opinions- based on their assumptions of first life discourse- where “proving their worthiness” (knowledge and authority) are a given. Once they recognized that they too could share their insights without first having to show competency or capacity- they stepped boldly into a lively discussion on faith, making this random encounter a holy moment.

Holy moments occur when people recognize the work, spirit and action of God creating, moving and being in that time and space. It transcends the medium and practice- it simply is just another way for God to be experienced, expressed and evidenced to those who will see, hear and claim the possibility and potentiality of GOD to be present, vital and honored anywhere and everywhere.

Summer Breeze Concert Series: Friday’s 5-7 pm @ Beloved Beach Lighthouse Point. Good vibrations abound as sizzling songs and cool tunes set the tone for our summer music series @ Beloved.  Kick Off Concert July 2 5pm featuring the one and only Mr. Psychedelic! Music sure to get your feet tapping and your body moving!

To tune into these new option go to: http://m1.secondstreaming.com:9628/ or join us in Second Life.

Please note, live programing will only be available during the following times;

• 9am pdt- Monday Meditations  weekly every Monday beginning June 28
  
• 5-7pm pdt- Summer Breeze concerts on the Beach  weekly every Friday beginning July 2

We hope to have extended programing throughout the week in the near future.  For now we are trying this simple schedule out, and getting used to the flow of it.

Your input on how to expand and develop these live programs is gratefully appreciated and requested!

This presents us with an expanded capacity to reach out with others, beyond the realm of SL and the Koinonia/Beloved Community there. Something we are excited about, and working together to extend God’s grace and care to more people in ever increasing ways. God calls us to go in to all the world, and so we are heeding this call, and hoping to have some fun and grace-filled moments along the way.