My mind perversely gravitated toward this kind of image because I was reading this entry about "second life" that was posted a few months ago.  I hadn't heard of "second life" and wondered if it was still a force.  So far, it still seems to be viable.  At least, Reuters is taking it serioiusly.  It makes me wonder if we're going to see a debate soon as to whether an avatar simulating the rite of the Lord's Supper can count as communion.

This might be a good opportunity to distinguish building community from escaping it.  Arguably, these 3d worlds do both, but communication is more easily and quickly done by sending and receiving messages.  Doing this in a fake, flawless body  in a fake, flawless environment seems to promote escapism more than community.

Compare this to something like Highrise, which is a Web 2.0 contact management system.  With Highrise, it is a lot easier to see that, whatever the attraction of a snazzy new Web 2.0 app, it fundamentally exists in order to help people with what they need to do.  I notice that Christian Computing Magazine last year reviewed a contact manager program designed for church outreach (pdf download), so maybe we'll see someone design a system that works online like Highrise does.

But my point is simply that Connect Our People is designed to serve and build communities rather than distract from them.  It tries to make communication easy and pleasant, so that people will get together in real reality more often, with knowledge of one another's needs and gifts.