Is the Black church about to lose its relevance in this new digital age? Is it doomed to become a relic of the past that people will go to visit on their tourist trips as it has happened with the Catholic Church in Europe? It is true that the pandemic has been a very hard blow from which the Black church has not yet been able to recover. Back in time, the Black church was the backbone of the civil rights movement. Furthermore, many black families have centered their lives around church in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s, attending weekly services for years. However, in the past 15 years, the decline in attendance by the youth is significantly rampant, but the death stroke arrived during the pandemic.

However, Jason Oliver Evans, a doctoral student in Religious Studies at University of Virginia, is optimistic in spite of the reality of the numbers in USA; “Despite this decline, African Americans are the most religious racial group in the United States”, [and Black people are the most spiritual beings around the world].

For example, during the period of slavery, churches were often the only places where enslaved African Americans could gather and freely express themselves without fear of punishment. Churches also played a critical role in the Underground Railroad, helping enslaved people escape to freedom. After the Civil War, and during the Civil Rights Movement, churches served as key meeting places for activists and leaders, providing a platform for organizing and advocacy efforts.

In short, religious institutions have been instrumental in the cultural, social, and political development of Black communities and have played a significant role in their struggle for equality and justice.

• The potential of Metaverse for religious communities

1. Providing training and support on how to tokenize assets or offerings to members, allowing them to use NFTs as a way to collect and manage contributions and offerings. How many times have we heard parishioners' complaints aboutthe “money song”? Offerings and money collection has always been a controversial issue within religious communities. What if a transparent system could be established for the collective decision of where and how the collected funds will be used? With a transparent system, the chances of increasing the collection basket for social purposes would multiply exponentially.
2. Developing a reward system for members who participate and contribute to the community, using tokens as a way to recognize their efforts and incentivize engagement. Sister Ann has been bringing food to sick brothers in the hospital who have no family to care for them for years, and Brother Carl takes the most dedicated young men every Sunday afternoon to give motivational talks to the incarcerated in the community. Why not reward them in a tangible way for their work, instead of sending them a "thank you and blessings"? Now it is possible to walk the talk.

1. Developing a Metaverse church where people from remote areas can attend church services and participate in church events through virtual reality. This can help to bring the community together and create a more immersive faith experience. After the lockdown, not only the Black church, but churches of many denominations never got their congregations back; It really did change the entire landscape of religion across the world. After people had to go in parking lots and sit and do their service that way, or do it over the internet on Zoom, they just decided not to go back. Through a virtual church we now have the ability to maintain a sense of community among members regardless of location. There are no more excuses for anyone. Can you imagine announcing in your pulpit the inauguration of a virtual church? That will give you the opportunity you were looking for to reconnect with the lagging youth to return to services. But be careful, the novelty will only work for a short period of time, if it is not accompanied by other actions that are directly linked to the improvement of the lives of the membership.
2. Creating a decentralized platform where members can share their faith-based experiences, attend online events, and participate in online discussions and forums: Religious communities are often social circles and spaces to share experiences that can edify companions who are going through difficulties. Social networks are a window to the world, however, there are certain experiences that sometimes we want to reserve for a more intimate circle, without the worry of “what people will say” or a misinterpretation of the testimony when it is exposed outside of “spiritual” circles. This will also be possible with a customized Metaverse and decentralized platform.

1. Creation of a “Church talent” marketplace where member’s hidden talents could really find a platform to be displayed, collect or auction to the best bidder. The self-esteem of the most needy within our community could be raised if, instead of forcing charity, the creativity and work of the members is promoted, being able, now yes, to mask generous gifts in the form of anonymous “support”, transactions and purchases. In our communities there are many talented people, but they believe that the only way to exploit that talent is to exercise it in the pulpit: singers, painters, sculptors, musicians,... in the Black community there is an incredible talent that could "bless" the work if they had a platform adequate to these present times. NFTs are a very ingenious way to monetize and register each and every artwork created by members.
2. Developing a fundraising platform for members to contribute and pool resources for community projects and initiatives. For the construction of large community projects, transparency is the basis for fundraising. Empowering the "investors" and giving them a say in which projects should be funded will take the religious community into previously unknown realms.
3. "Decentralized Religious Education and Outreach": A decentralized platform for religious education and outreach, empowering communities to share their teachings and beliefs with others in a secure and censorship-resistant environment. Since certain denominations in search of the true Israel have now been classified as "extremist” by the Powers that Be, the safeguarding of theological resources and revelations demands a secure platform to create, share and disseminate without censorship. Web3 also allows us to have such a space.

• Conclusions

The Metaverse will not resurrect membership’s spirituality or even truth (this depends solely and entirely on the message preached and the example given by leaders and members), but it can surely bring back the service that it used to have to the social and economic benefits of the local community in a faster and more efficient way. Are you willing to bring your community to the level it belongs? HOLD THE VISION, TRUST THE PROCESS.