Approximately 50 small groups are part of the LifeChurch.tv Internet campus; one or two meet in Second Life. As relationships develop, communication expands to other forms of media, including phone, text message and email.

“Our effort to do this is centered around a couple of general perspectives that I and the leaders of our church adhere to,” says Gruenewald. “We feel like God has put us on the earth at a pretty unique time when we see the world's population spiking like it has never spiked before. We have an extraordinary opportunity to reach people for Christ in terms of the number of people who are alive today and who need to know Him.”

Gruenewald points out that because of advances in technology and transportation, the world’s population is more connected today than ever before. “This gives us an enormous opportunity and an enormous responsibility. How do we leverage the technology to reach others for Christ? How can we leverage these tools to connect with people in a real significant way?

"We only do things because we want to see God impact people's lives,” the pastor continues. “We are passionate about seeing people become followers of Christ and so that's why we do what we do and not because it's cool or the latest thing."

One of the challenges associated with Second Life is connecting with people who are hiding behind a character. Critics sometimes ask Gruenewald if it is worthwhile to invest time in virtual evangelism. He usually responds: “It’s true that the people have these characters or avatars that aren’t their real identities. And it's true that communicating through an avatar can definitely lower a person's inhibitions a little bit in terms of things they might not otherwise say or do.”

But that works more in our favor, Gruenewald adds. He finds that people on Second Life will have a conversation about God “in much fewer sentences. We can get to that dialogue very quickly and, in many cases, the conversations we have appear to be more free-flowing and transparent than what you would find in the real life context.”

Whether we want to admit it or not, says Gruenewald, most people walk around in real life with a facade on all the time. “They aren't as transparent about what they are thinking; they want to look a certain way and they are afraid of what people will think about them.”

Occasionally, “griefers” (online troublemakers) will try to cause problems. A naked avatar showed up for one of the services, but LifeChurch’s Second Life experiment has been remarkably positive. “We've had very few of those types of incidents,” says Gruenewald. “We've had more on the other side where dialogue is rich with what someone is going through and some of the challenges that they have.”