“You don’t go to church?… why not drop into vurch” This is the welcome that you will receive at a new kind of church known as www.vurch.com Offered as a safe haven for those who are disenchanted with the local church, vurch is a new approach in doing church. At this site you can offer prayers, join in discussions, and find articles on spiritual subjects. All of those things sound quite interesting and relatively harmless until you find the numerous places in which vurch places itself not as a complement to church but as its future replacement. “Don’t go to church, go to Vurch.” Rather than being a helpful conduit back into real fellowship, vurch tries to be the new fellowship. If this level of fellowship is not quite satisfying enough for you, try www.churchoffools.com Sponsored by the Methodist Church of Great Britain the church of fools is a 3-D virtual church in which you are assigned your own cartoon character as you enter, and you are given the freedom to explore the church, sit in on a sermon, chat in the crypt, ring the bell, or just pray in your cartoon pew. The church boasted 41,000 people attending in a 24 hour period within two weeks of opening its “doors” If you go you had better be prepared to worship, however, for the church was quite prepared to deal with troublemakers;  ”Church of Fools said Wednesday it had shut to outsiders its pulpit, lectern and space round the altar to stop less than religious types giving messages definitely not from the Almighty,” reported CNN. The church also recruited a team of 12 wardens, armed with smite buttons which can be used to eject people who log in to the church simply to cause trouble.
The church was done as three month pilot program, and has since closed its doors to “full fellowship” it can now be visited only on an individual basis with the hope of returning to a full interactive service. This concept of internet “fellowship”, however, is a fascinating one and it is not something that the established church can simply ignore. Church of fools considers itself the “place” where “thousands of Internet lurkers have experienced church for the first time.” 60% of those are men. Some consider this the most effective mission field for the under 30 male.

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