Inside a dimly lit virtual penthouse, ten avatars gather in a circle: a stormtrooper, a large orange cat and others. The cat, speaking in the voice of Curt Curtis, a Texas missionary in his 60s, prays aloud for opportunities to reach people who need God. The room is digital; the prayer is not.
For about three years, missionaries from the evangelical organization Cru have met every Friday in VRChat, a social platform where millions interact through avatars that range from anime characters to animals, robots and humans. Users explore thousands of virtual worlds to talk, play and socialize — and Cru’s teams are there to listen and to share their faith.
The effort grew out of questions about who was spending time in virtual spaces and how to connect with them, says Frank Kuligowski, Cru’s digital strategist who helped persuade the organization to buy VR headsets for missionaries. The group treats choosing a virtual world as an art: they aim for roughly 20 participants — enough energy to attract conversation but small enough to avoid chaos.
Once inside, missionaries split up to find small, quieter groups. They start casually — complimenting an avatar or asking how it was made — then ease into spiritual conversation: “Is faith part of your life?” or “I was reading my Bible earlier.” Kuligowski recalls talking with a woman from China who said she wished she could go to church; after inviting her to a virtual church, a fourth user who had been listening joined in. That encounter led to a virtual service and a link to a real-life campus ministry.
Cru, founded in 1951 as Campus Crusade for Christ, has long focused on young people and college outreach but has lately branched into video games and virtual reality. Scholars of digital religion say this isn’t entirely new: organized efforts to evangelize online date back to the 1990s, when groups trained Christians to start conversations in chat rooms. “Digital spaces are the new religious frontier for evangelism in many respects,” says Heidi Campbell, a professor who studies religion and technology.
Not everyone welcomes missionaries in VR. A VRChat subreddit thread questioning an “influx” of Christians drew nearly 200 comments. Some users pointed to worlds where missionaries are active — “sunset bar” and “midnight rooftop” — and raised concerns that proselytizing could bring anti-LGBTQ+ views into an environment known for diverse gender identities. Campbell notes that a common criticism is that outsiders can try to reshape a space rather than adapt to its culture.
Among the Cru volunteers are people with deep VR experience and those who use the platform mainly to evangelize. Geoffery Powell, a 28-year-old multimedia artist and computer scientist, was drawn to VRChat’s imaginative possibilities and later became Cru’s resident technical expert. After seven years in the platform he saw many users struggling with loneliness, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and sexualized behavior, and felt compelled to offer help.
Stewart Freeman describes his own turnaround in VRChat. After a difficult breakup he sank into the platform’s more destructive corners, logging thousands of hours. Then a California pastor, Jason Poling, began visiting his private VR “home world” to read Scripture with him weekly. Freeman says virtual ministry led him to embrace the gospel and eventually to leave his business and join Cru’s Jesus Film Project, moving to Orlando to reach others in virtual spaces.
Cru’s teams say their goal is to meet people where they are — even if “where” is a virtual rooftop at 3 a.m. They aim to build relationships, address real harms they see in those communities, and point people toward faith. The missionaries’ presence raises questions about how online spaces should be governed and who gets to shape their culture, but for participants like Freeman and the woman who found a virtual church, the encounters have been life-changing.
This story was produced in collaboration between NPR and Religion News Service.