Much of the press surrounding Facebook’s Meta announcement last week described it as a “rebrand.” But calling it a rebrand hardly does it justice—it’s more of a revolution; a reconceiving of what digital capitalism can be. I have to admit, I was disturbed watching Mark Zuckerberg describe his vision for our metaverse future. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the flesh-and-blood, warts-and-all real world to a virtual world of self-made simulacrum.

What is the metaverse? Basically it’s next level consumerism in a Web 3.0 world. It’s about creating a no-limits virtual ecosystem where, as the bonkers introduction video proclaimed, “we are represented the way we want to be.” Fallen humans are always tempted to dream of this sort of godlike power—to exist in a world where reality itself bends to our will. It’s our story since Eden. And what was a science-fiction fantasy mere decades ago (see Ready Player One and The Matrix) is now our looming technological future. The metaverse is coming. Is the church ready?

For TGC this week, Ian Harber and Patrick Miller did a great service by writing a primer on the metaverse and offering some extremely helpful thoughts on how Christians might already start thinking about it theologically and pastorally. I don’t play the “must-read” card often, but I will gladly play it here. This article is a must-read. It’s hard to imagine the future Harber and Miller are writing about (which is still decades away from full realization), but imagine it we must. The next generation of church leaders needs to start preparing for the unprecedented discipleship challenges ahead.