The First Virtual Children’s Church in the World

The Virtual Children’s Church is an interactive service provided by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and is destined to acquaint children from 6 to 12 years with the essentials of Christian faith. Opened in January 2009, the service now counts more than 22 000 registered users and has over 2500 daily visitors.
You can light a candle and just quiet down or participate in a prayer. You can read or listen to biblical stories – or even send your own pictures to animate them. The loft invites you to play the organ, or just sit down to listen to the other musicians. The bell-tower lets you experience the different sound and harmonies of the bells, and in the graveyard you can put a flower or a candle on a grave.

The crypt contains a collection of games, coloration tasks and puzzles related to Christian symbols. A jukebox holds a collection of children’s songs accompanied by a band, and a video screen presents music videos and puppet shows.

In the Children’s Church you move about with your virtual personality, whose clothing and appearance you can freely customize. You can use smileys or you can pick up precomposed sentences to communicate with others. Use your imagination and suggest to others, for example, joining you to play hide-and-seek, tag or follow-the-leader.

The Children’s Church follows the liturgical year just like any other Finnish Lutheran church building: the amount of candles and the liturgical colours vary according to the season. During the time of Advent 2009, the most popular service was a virtual Advent calendar: each day you could open a window and find a game, a task, or a video. The calendar was opened over 70 000 times during the month of December.
This Easter will be a milestone: the Children’s Church is planning to celebrate the first real-time worship in its history. A virtual Sunday school is also under construction.

The Children’s Church offers also pages destined for adults: they gather resources and material for religious education in nurseries/preschools and primary schools.

You can find us at www.lastenkirkko.fi. You will be prompted to register and to create your virtual personality to enter the Children’s Church. You may also visit the service with a temporary user account:

• käyttäjätunnus (username): ecce
• salasana (password): children
• Then just click the button ”Astu kirkkoon” (”Enter the Church”)