The 3D Church of Fools, an interactive avatar church run by the Ship of Fools recently had Tony Campolo as preacher for a service.

Campolo was in the US. So, how did the web masters put Campolo and his words in the pulpit?
Terry Mattingly explains in this article for Scrippts Howard News Service.

Then Campolo froze for a moment, as an hourglass icon hovered in the Romanesque arches of the Church of Fools, the world’s first 3D, interactive, virtual church.M/p>

This kind of thing happens when traffic jams the Internet.

The computer-generated “avatar” looked like Campolo and he was delivering a Campolo sermon titled “Why Many People in the World Hate America.” But Campolo was not controlling his own computer image, since the site’s Web masters were not sure he could master the technology needed to preach online — line by line, gesture by gesture.

Mattingly ended his article with a question: Is an online church a real church?
It’s a bit like asking if god-blogging is community and church. I believe any group of believers gathered is church, but I know others may not agree.
Whether we connect by phone, by video, face to face, or online, where ever two or three are gathered (purposefully) I believe we are church.
We’ll see what Mattingly thinks in his next article.
link via The Revealer