A Millennial, his Bible, and the Capitol Building

At the moment I'm writing this, my family and I are slowly making our way back down the eastern seaboard. Over a week ago we left our home in Yulee, Florida to make our way to Acadia National Park in Maine. One the way we stopped in a few places, but the highlight to me was stopping in Washington D.C.. We are stopping there again today, hopefully to see the White House. It was great to see our founding documents, to see the Capitol Building, Washington Monument, and numerous other monuments and memorials to our country.

The problem was that being surrounded by the monuments to all that our country stands for and the buildings that housed our government brought to the forefront of my mind a real struggle I'm having:

Humanism vs Reality in "Mobile Suit Gundam Wing"

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing was one of my favorite shows growing up. To a pre-teen boy a show that was loaded with giant robotic suits fighting each other in large battles every week was precisely the kind of show to grab and hold my attention. Even now that I'm older I still go back and watch through the series from time to time. What I failed to realize as a kid was just how deep and philosophical a show Gundam Wing actually was/is.

Being a Missional Gamer Part Five: Verbally Sharing the Gospel

It's been awhile since I added on to this series, but it has recently burdened my heart that I personally have forgotten the most important thing when it comes to being missional. I fear too that my experience is probably not unique and that many of my brothers and sisters have a similar experience. Motivated by fear and having convinced ourselves that we had it all figured out, I'm convinced many Christian gamers don't do the one paramount thing to being missional:

Actually sharing the Gospel verbally.

Getting Into the Gaming Community (Part two)

A second major factor in getting into the gaming community is an old-hat that never seems to lose it's appeal: LAN Parties.

For those who don't know, here is what a LAN party is. It consists of having a group of gamers bring multiple gaming platforms (computers, Playstations, etc.) to one place, like a home, and connecting them together either by ethernet cables or over an ad-hoc wireless network. The point is to have gamers be together to be able to watch one another play and trade appropriate trash talking in person. It usually also consists of having party style food and music as well, typically lasting deep into the night and often turns into a more macho "sleepover". 

Getting Into the Gaming Community (Part One)

I get asked a lot: "How do churches get involved in the gaming community?" It's a valid question and one that is of paramount importance if the video game community is ever going to be reached with the Gospel. There are multiple entry-level ways a church can get involved, starting with one that I think comes with a paradigm shift:

Game stores.

Game stores are very often the hub of the local gaming community. It's where gamers gather not only to buy their games, but also for special events like tournaments and midnight release parties. They're staffed with men and women who speak the language and know their gaming better than anybody. If anybody wants to get involved in a local gaming community, the local game store should be their first stop. But how does a church get involved?

It's going to vary of course and there will be varying degrees of difficulty in building a relationship, but it first starts with opening the lanes of communication with the staff. Let them know who you are ("Hi, I am the pastor at First Baptist ____") and that your church is looking to become more involved with the gaming community.

Once they've recovered (chances are they just had their mind blown), it's absolutely critical to clarify one thing: there are no strings attached. This is going to require sacrifice on the church's part and that in itself can be a major paradigm change for a church, but if your church is serious about getting involved in this community, it is going to take some sacrifice. Let them know that you are interested in being a part of the community, and that that involvement comes with no expectations: no kickbacks of any sort. No expectations of having our ten minutes with the mic or stage.

So what do we mean when we say we want to "get involved"? Well the game stores are already involved in the community like we said, the key is for the church to become a partner in that. As the pastor, ask the staff one question: "How can we help make what you're offering to the community better?" Again, this is going to come with sacrifice. You have to expect that the answer to that question is going to cost you something to provide it. Answering it, however, will speak volumes about your church's commitment to being involved and the love you have for the gaming community. They could use someone to provide Mountain Dew for their midnight release party? Done. They could use an extra television for their upcoming tournament? Done. They need a larger venue for their tournament? Done.

Yes some of those things sound expensive. You're own experience is going to vary. Each community and store will have it's own ideas and needs. Come prepared to sacrifice and to meet those needs. Don't make promises you can't keep though. Be honest about your church's abilities and resources. Partner with other churches if that's feasible and necessary.

The question may become "But how does this help spread the Gospel?" That's a valid question. The answer is that that partnership with that store is the key to building relationships with gamers. Chances are, gamers aren't busting down the door of your church (If they are? Great!), so the church has to go to them. Those very events you are helping to sponsor is a great way for church staff and members to get to know gamers in their community and those relationships are where the evangelism and discipleship come in.

It may be difficult and it for sure is going to cost you something, but building partnerships with game stores and venues is an important first step to building bridges between the church and the local gaming community.

How Can Gaming Be a Culture?

This is an excerpt from my senior thesis entitled Gamers: The Invisible People Group (What the Church is Missing and How to Reach Them).  

How Can Gaming Be A Culture?

Academics can’t agree on a single definition of what constitutes “culture”. Webster’s defines culture as “the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time.[1]” Scholars disagree over the anthropological lenses through which to define culture. What they all agree on, and what forms the root of culture is what binds a group of people together. The language, rituals, belief systems, and arts of a particular set of people is what enables them to identify with themselves and each other. To identify themselves by the moniker of the group as a whole.

            So what is gamer culture? What are the binds that hold gamers together? It begins with language. Both spoken and written language among gamers forms a sort of slang that is often referred to as “Leet”. Alphabetically this refers to the replacing of many traditional Latinate letters with other numbers or symbols. For example, replacing “Leet” itself with “1337” or “l33t”. Leet is often used both as a way to discourage non-gamer, non-computer savvy players from participating in discussions by ensuring they don’t understand the meanings and as a way of evading the censorship filters often present by spelling out swear words with numbers and symbols. Even when not written in Leet, gamer language tends to include many acronyms that have different or no meaning outside the context of gaming. Some examples include AFK (Away from Keyboard), FPS (First Person Shooter), RPG (Role Playing Game), MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online), and MARP (Message to All Recent Players).

            Spoken language is largely different from standard English by shortening or changing the definition of certain words. For example, “cap” is used as a slang term for “capture” in games that feature Capture the Flag style gameplay. “Two-piece” is used as a way to indicate two take downs or kills within a short period of time and goes upwards in numbers as well. “Tank” often refers to a style of play in Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games that refers to having a character with lots of health and area-of-effect attacks that are meant to draw attention and fire to themselves to allow teammates to take down opposing players by flanking them. These are just a few examples, and while by and large the language is still English it wouldn’t take long at all for a non-gamer to quickly lose track of a conversation when gamers begin discussing the games themselves.

            Past language, gamer culture is held together by its belief system. Gamer culture is strangely both extremely egalitarian and yet very hierarchical.  Anyone can be a gamer and anyone can be accepted as a gamer. Black, white, asian, Christian, Jew, atheist, straight, gay…most of these barriers simply don’t exist among gamers as the solid walls that they so often are in wider society. The ties that bring them together are very often stronger than the ones that would draw them apart. While it’s dangerous to attribute causation to it, it helps that games almost universally have an online “identity” system, where one is known by a nickname or screen name instead of a real name. This brings a level of anonymity to online gaming communities that’s absent in real world counterparts. However, how strictly gamers adhere to this anonymity is extremely relative, and the fact is that large communities of gamers who know each other in real life are common. The largest factors in creating the openness of gamer culture is the both the infinite variety of backgrounds represented by gamers and the artificial value systems within the games themselves. Someone’s worth to you as a partner in Left 4 Dead, for example, is not based upon their race or creed but upon how skillful they are at staying on their feet and killing zombies. This largely prevents large communities forming based on shared creeds, race, or other social lines from having the same sort of stability or gravitational pull that they would have in other contexts. Gamer culture finds value in one’s identity and self within the game rather than who you are on the street.

 However, the competitive nature of gaming itself imposes a hierarchical structure over the egalitarian veneer. Competition is rife and often fierce, and while not rigidly stratified there are definite “levels” based upon one’s particular skill set. That having superior skill at something over someone else makes you a more desirable teammate (and friend) is a core tenet of gamer culture. Even those who rebel against this and insist on playing “simply for fun” still typically have respect for those who are more skillful than they are. The law of the land in gamer culture is that the competitive nature of games means that anyone with a high level of skill instantly has the same sort of social cache that would correlate to wealthy or powerful individuals in the real world. This is both encouraged and enabled within most games by the presence of ranking systems that usually stratify players based upon their skill set and offer tangible benefits and rewards for those that climb the ranks.

            Ultimately what brings gamers together and defines the culture are the games themselves. As artistic mediums, social events, competition, sport, and lifestyle wrapped all into one; it is the games that are the lifeblood to gamer culture. It’s a unique aspect of gaming culture that so much of it is derived from a single aspect that forms it. It’s also what makes the growing community so diverse. First person shooters on consoles, massive multiplayer role playing games, Dungeons and Dragons style board games, collectible trading card games, and sports games are just a few of the communities that form the larger culture. Many of the psychological underpinnings that bring gamers together are the same attractive forces at work in other artistic communities: shared interest and understanding of a particular medium combined with the feeling of being part of an experience both that’s larger than one’s self and yet unique to one’s own perspective. Video games make this quite literal, as the largest multiplayer games often have tens to hundreds of thousands of gamers playing at once. 

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[1] Webster’s Online Dictionary, “Culture”

PAX East Journal of a Gamer Missionary: Day One

PAX East Journal of a Gamer Missionary: Day 1
Day one of PAX East started early for media access at 9 o’clock. By 10 o’clock when the doors were opened for general admission the place started to pack out. Day 1 was surprisingly heavy in traffic, and us at the GameChurch booth managed to hand out over half of our 3600 gamer bibles in one day! It was awesome to get to talk to people and tell them that Jesus loves them. A couple of observations or notes of interest:

1. It was awesome seeing so many people who were pleasantly surprised not only that Christians were in PAX, but that we weren’t there to judge or criticize. We were just there to tell them about the love of Jesus.

2. I heard my fair share of snide remarks and sniggers. I saw my fair share of skeptical or even scathing looks. What kept them from bothering me was the ever diminishing supply of bibles, and the chance to speak with person after person.

3. Gamer culture NEEDS the Gospel. Between the self absorption, immodest to downright indecent dress code, and what I heard and observed: Gamers are lost. They’re not any more lost than anyone else. But this culture needs Christians who are willing to engage it.

4. A man approached me and spoke to me awhile about his attempts to share the Gospel on his Twitch account along with his gameplay. He was feeling down because of people telling him to stop. It was great to hear of his efforts, and humbling to be able to encourage him to fight on.

What hopefully will be a restful night leads to an eventful day tomorrow: what promises to be the busiest day of the con.