Pastor Jason Poling leads the Cornerstone Church of Yuba City in California.
But you don’t have to be in Yuba City to experience a worship service at Poling’s church.
Many people around the country have been attending Cornerstone Church on Sundays through Alt Space VR.
Attendees can also participated in the church’s life meetings on Thursdays, run by Angel VanEllison, a young software engineer who directs the church’s Altspace VR campus from Georgia.
The metaverse campus is a digital space where conversations about the Bible with people from across the country, and other parts of the world, are often probing, insightful, intimate and open.
Last year, the church held its first “VR Family Reunion.” Families from the physical church that has about 250 members offered to host the metaverse campus participants for the weekend. The church also offered transportation to and from the airport for metaverse participants.
While some experts on innovative leadership believe that church fellowship in physical buildings has largely been made irrelevant by digital technology, Poling is experimenting with using the metaverse to make disciples and bringing them back to in-person congregations.
He explained, “We have a hybrid model of church. I really want to see people matriculate back into the physical church because there are special blessings that come in the physical realm that can’t right now, ever probably, be had in the digital space.”