Intro

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=240ad5b9b413aa7346a1

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=0415dada82e08bc09e9f

1. Godtube as a Christian network (st. pixels etc)

2. Christian vs. Christ Follower

[14:24] Ignatius Baroque: I see you've done some nice Christmas decorating... are you going to spend part of the holiday in SL?
[14:24] Sonic Rang: i'm on everyday
[14:25] Ignatius Baroque: really, I noticed that you were really dedicated, but I didn't realized that you were here everyday
[14:25] Ignatius Baroque: are you going to have a SL Chrismas?
[14:26] Sonic Rang: dont know what you mean
[14:26] Ignatius Baroque: are you going to do like a special event
[14:27] Sonic Rang: we will have some type of christmas party i'm sure
[14:27] Sonic Rang: prob
[14:27] Ignatius Baroque: I very well may be here
[14:27] Sonic Rang: i have a lot going on, i take it one day at a time
[14:27] Sonic Rang: lol
[14:28] Ignatius Baroque: yeah, it seems like this place is happening, I saw that you were the number one trafficed site when "Chrsitian" was typed in as a keyword on a search
[14:28] Sonic Rang: well, both properties are in the top 3
[14:29] Ignatius Baroque: yeah I guess it fluxuates
[14:29] Sonic Rang: what is your idea?
[14:29] Sonic Rang: very much
[14:29] Ignatius Baroque: my idea?
[14:29] Sonic Rang: you said you wanted to talk about a virtual world community?
[14:30] Ignatius Baroque: well, I'm not planning on creating one myself... I am presenting on successful community builders in virtual worlds
[14:31] Sonic Rang: oh ok
[14:31] Ignatius Baroque: I want to know what your strategy was for creating Club Eternal and the Sky Garden etc...
[14:32] Ignatius Baroque: They are very inviting places, do you think it is the design aspect, more the openess/friendliness, both, whatever
[14:33] Sonic Rang: well, really
[14:33] Sonic Rang: it was just an idea for what God put in my heart, to use SL for His work.
[14:33] Sonic Rang: there were already so many churches, i wanted a place that people could come
[14:34] Sonic Rang: and NOT be a church, but find good clean fun and fellowship
[14:34] Ignatius Baroque: like an everyday place
[14:34] Sonic Rang: right
[14:34] Sonic Rang: and i love the beach, so the theme just kept growing
[14:34] Ignatius Baroque: like the church experience is a bit exhausting, it's great once a week, but I couldn't go everyday personally, but this place it could be
[14:35] Sonic Rang: the sky park was just an idea to build up there, and it grew and grew
[14:35] Ignatius Baroque: so it started with the beach from and grew from there?
[14:35] Ignatius Baroque: wow
[14:36] Sonic Rang: yeah, and really, it was the people that made it happen, i had little to do with it but the vision, my builder and my core of friends really made it happen, and they are all Christian and had the same desires as me
[14:36] Sonic Rang: Well, i spent the money for all the land too
[14:36] Ignatius Baroque: are you guys friends in RL, or did you meet on SL?
[14:36] Sonic Rang: at one time I had 2 sims
[14:36] Sonic Rang: all SL friends
[14:36] Ignatius Baroque: where did you meet?
[14:36] Sonic Rang: at a land called Kane
[14:37] Sonic Rang: brb
[14:37] Sonic Rang: one sec
[14:37] Ignatius Baroque: ok

God's Playgroud

Conclusion: My point or Raison de Research

Funny, a few days before I have to take a crack at presenting this mumbo-jumbo I finally figured out a reasonable point for it. Using the e-vangelist model for community building in virtual spaces gives an example of an effective approach at engaging young people to join a community that young people have grown up trying to engage their elders in.

Building online communities and the Christian e-vangelical strategy share the common goal of simple engagement. Unlike enfranchisment into most groups or societies, all that is wanted is you participation, however slight it might be, is all that it takes to strenghten the network. Like getting people to sign a voters petition, all that you need is the idea of enfranchisement, rather than actual participation. A small conglomarate of moderators gain power based on the number of people that they can get to join their community. Communities thrive based on the sheer number of participants and the odds that, with such a large number, there will be enough participation to make their community thrive.

Where do I go from here?

Christmas in Second Life

Attempt to talk to more community builders

Attempt an evangelism

Forced Love

There is something powerful about belonging and recruiting. They give participants and recruiters a sense of having affected. Christian sites, often aren't explicitly Christian. They just advocate the power of communication, giving men or women or certain vague categories of people a place to "talk."

I've found that participants use virtual worlds to experiment with things that would be to consequential in RL. You can get a tattoo, see how it looks as you walk around, but then take it off if you don't like it. You can buy a shirt for 20LD and stuff it in the back of your inventory if it doesn't suit you. You can check out a community and join it, and never return if you don't like it.

Community builders such as "Sonic Rang," understand the power of evangelism as a force. He claims to have invested thousands into his Sim and is not looking to make any money back at all. For him it is a dream come true to be able to share the gospel with so many people and save so many people from less righteous lives. (revisit the bdsm girl).

Peoples stories and visions of people have affect on those who bear witness.

Sometimes, there is force in just hearing someones stories. Suggest

Take http://ied.gospelcom.net/evangelists14.php

Networking Faiths

A place in the network has equipped Christian communities with a new place and powerful new recruitment tool. Most all networks actively recruit, and the few that don't, (as to keep exclusivity) still gain prominence through the network. A group already dedicated to recruitment, gains a new frontier in the network society.

Real Life recruitment techniques have softened. Campus Crusade for Christ (the behemoth of evangelical organizations), had segment in their 2007 conference called "Connected Movements," regarding the web 2.0 frontier and discipleship and a "facebook tutorial" designed to teach participants how to use this social network as a community online.

Being a member of a community gives you a connection with others within the community, and the broad world wide community of "Christians" maybe be the worlds largest. New Christianity favors unification under the reduction of the faith to the simple principle of faith in Christ and the three forms of god.

One could imagine a Christian flash mob protesting affronts to their faith in a moments notice.

Rusty Wight as a model of Network Engagement: http://ied.gospelcom.net/article3.php

Second life E-vangelism: http://ied.gospelcom.net/secondlife-evangelism.php