Lifting her molecularly perfect tea — Earl Grey, hot — from the replicator, Aaliyah accessed the congregation’s worship service via her cybernetic interface. It was so much easier to just log in to the sanctuary instead of heading up to the surface.

Chromed jet packs hung from hat hooks along the meetinghouse’s back wall. Scattered around the very real building were very corporeal human beings and very three-dimensional projections sharing small talk before the service began.

Aaliyah loved how she was able to find Xygoozi: An Unoffensive Faith Community with an Uninformative One-Word Name and that the church functioned within the time zone that correlated with her life skill duty commitments.

As the worship service began with eight-part harmony singing, an unmistakable pitch caused a smile to spread across her face. A certain soprano forgot again to align her vocal cords’ autotune implant. Or was it on purpose? Either way, it just wouldn’t be church otherwise.

Singing together reminded Aaliyah that she should try to check in with her sister and suggest they get together.

Apple was a member for eight years now of a Plain Anabaptist group known for its commitment to internal-combustion engines and tree-based paper. Tourists flocked to their farms not far from Pennsylvania’s Atlantic Coast to see their commitment to cultivating clones of 22nd-century genetically engineered crops grown in actual dirt. It wasn’t just a commitment to historic ways, it was a touching devotion to ancestors’ traditions of pumping tiny forgotten pockets of oil, refining it with antique equipment and then growing food that required still more processing and cooking.

Aaliyah couldn’t taste the difference from her handy replicator, but Apple affirmed wholeheartedly the difference was like night and day — not that such distinctions mattered among Aaliyah’s subterranean counterparts. They found artificial sun warmed just like the real thing.

Apple’s daily toil was a far cry from the life of their brother, Yuto, who seemed to spend a majority of his days surfing in the recently renamed Gulf of Cuba. But at least he still was finding time to attend First Divided Mennonite Church of New Houston. The four congregations, which couldn’t agree on theology, did agree that it was just plain easier to stay under one roof with each group drawing their own Sabbath by lot. Yuto could be depended on to show up four times a year, making him a regular attender.

Aaliyah pulled up a message field on her retinal display to send a note to her brother hoping he was doing something to celebrate 1,000 years of Anabaptism. She was about to hit “send” when her concentration was broken by the pastor’s reference to archival records of Anabaptist martyrs. The sacrifices of Dirk Willems in 16th-century Europe and Bereket Mekonnen in 23rd-century Africa — so long ago but so inspiring! — prompted an evaluation of how she was following Jesus in 2525.

Replicators feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick and even shelter the destitute.

She logged in to church. What more could she possibly do?

Tim Huber is associate editor of Anabaptist World.