Metaverse: An Opportunity and Challenge for Christian Ministry in the Digital Era

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-160-9_20How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Christian Ministry; Church; Digital Era; Metaverse; Priests

Abstract

Metaverse technology is one form of the rapid development of digital technology. The development of technology that can combine physical reality with virtual digital is responded to by pros & cons by the church. The developing metaverse technology can provide opportunities and challenges for human life, including for the church and its priests in Christian ministry. Church & priests must continue to carry out the task of Christian ministry in every generation amid today's developments and technological advances. This article analyzes the opportunity and challenge between the priest's ministry in the metaverse and on-site church worship services comparatively. This study uses a qualitative method through a literature review approach with descriptive comparative analysis. The results of the study show that through metaverse, the opportunities for the reach of Christian services are wider even though there are challenges in their implementation. There are similarities and differences between services on-site and in the metaverse. Worship services in the metaverse can be carried out as long as they adhere to the concept of the essence of the church and ministry; therefore, the church and its priests need to prepare themselves and their generations to face the development of the evolving metaverse technology. This research contributes to the knowledge of church leaders and Christian academics in preparing Christian ministry strategies to welcome and deal with the development of metaverse technology in today's digital era.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Edi Sugianto
AU  - Yuni Karlina Panjaitan
AU  - Setio Dharma Kusuma
AU  - Sion Saputra
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/12/14
TI  - Metaverse: An Opportunity and Challenge for Christian Ministry in the Digital Era
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Theology, Humanities and Christian Education 2022 (ICONTHCE 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 171
EP  - 179
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-160-9_20
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-160-9_20
ID  - Sugianto2023
ER  -