TiaWood.com

"Methodism's 18th century founder, John Wesley, said: 'The world is my parish,' and 300 years later that parish includes cyberspace as well." ~ChurchOfFools.com

ChurchOfFools.com began in 2003 as a spin off of their main site Ship of Fools. Once sponsored by the Methodist Church in the UK, Church of Fools was a unique place of worship delivered in 3D. Unfortunately, the project has ended but has an interesting history behind it I wanted to share.

First launched in 1977, Ship of Fools is a Christian based magazine aimed mainly at Liberal Christians founded by Simon Jenkins and Stephen Goddard. After folding in 1983, the site relaunched on April Fools Day, 1998. Fast forward to 2004 when the Church of Fools was launched as a 3 month experiment.

"We are not replacing church, we are adding really," says Simon Jenkins, shipoffools.com editor. ~ CNN

During the three month experiment, the site received up to 8,000 visitors a day and even 41,000 at one time. There were bugs; such as the preacher disappearing during sermons or abruptly facing the wall. Then, you had the usual people who wanted to disrupt services, yelling racial slurs or curse words to the group. These things were eventually ironed out but in September 2004, the project was closed with lack of funding required to undergo a major redevelopment of the environment software.

After much demand, Church of Fools reopened its virtual environment for personal worship only which means users logging in will now find a private experience to worship in solitude.

"As before, visitors are able to choose a cartoon double, then walk around, kneel, pray, shout hallelujah, play a hymn, and even ring the church bells. However, they are not able to see, or be seen by, other visitors to the church." ~ Church of Fools

Unfortunately, the project never received funding to reopen the multi-user aspect of its online experiment. Having virtual environment experience, my guess was the Church of Fools was simply ahead of its time.

Go to ChurchOfFools.com to visit the project, view clips and even step in world. Some links may be broken.