An Adventist Metaverse and the Robot that Can Teach the Bible

GAiN Asia conference showcases the latest uses of technology for mission.

“How should we, at Seventh-day Adventist schools, prepare for the future?” Joo-hee Park, president of Sahmyook Health University, asked at the beginning of his presentation at the Global Adventist Internet Network (GAiN) Asia conference in Jeju Island, Korea, on September 15. “How do we make people come to our churches and schools?”

In the next few minutes, Park, an Adventist church elder who has a doctoral degree in engineering and taught medical information systems for 21 years, shared a project that as leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, he said, “we should give deep thoughts and provide answers to.”

Park explained that it’s not easy to predict the future. “But the whole world has already made decisions regarding digital technology,” he said. “World governments and global corporations have made their choices and decisions.”

He reminded his audience that this is a world where anyone can join and plug in and communicate with others and function together. “They can worship together, they can communicate with one another, they can counsel one another, and they can play together,” Park said.

Against that background, Park explained that in this world of transformation, he has been working on a metaverse platform which he defined as “the first trial in the world.” He added, “The challenge is now, How we will use this, what kind of building we will build up there, what kind of worship we will practice in this platform, and in what ways we will have evangelistic meetings?”

The rationale for this push is obvious, according to Park. “New generations of children are getting used to VR [virtual reality], and they toy with AI [artificial intelligence]. Our challenge is now how to bring those new generations into the church. And if we don’t experience it before them, we cannot introduce it to them,” he said.

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