Written by: Johnny Mack
Photos by: Johnny Mack
While many gamers face being stigmatized by friends and persecuted by family when they share their passion for gaming, gamers who have a relationship with God can find themselves even more ridiculed by those within their church community. Ostracized and conflicted between the book of Revelations and Silent Hill (which both are creepy in their own right) gamers with a spiritual sensibility can find solace in knowing that they have an ally in the group of faith based gamers at GameChurch.com.
GameChurch.com is a non-profit organization that has dedicated themselves to brining a message of accepting gamers who follow God and also happen to follow God of War. “We are not the moral police,” said Cory (pictured to the left at Gen con 2012) who himself easily blows away the conception of what a Christian should look like as he shows off both arms covered in tattoos. “We don’t get into the issues of how violent a game is or rate anything. That’s for gamers to debate. What we do is show people that being a gamer is not evil and that it is okay to love Jesus and hold a controller in your hand. We aren’t here to sale you anything or to try and convert you. What we want to do is share of love of gaming with others no matter of if they believe in God or not.”
Like many other online gaming communities the group provides its users and readers with the latest news, reviews and videos from the industry. They even produce a monthly webseires “Gamechurch Co-op”, which takes a quick humorous look at what’s happening in the industry at that moment.
As the group moves forward in their message of Jesus’ love while being accepting of gamers and the gaming community; Cory also pointed out how their work to change perceptions of one another from both the church and gaming communities is far from over. “It’s hard to get people in to church to stop vilifying gaming. We have to make people in the church understand that being a gamer and enjoying a good game doesn’t make you evil. We strive to change perceptions on both sides of the fence and while gamers all over the country are warming up and accepting of us…that’s not always the case with people within the church. We have a long road ahead of us in that respect but it’s a challenge we accept gladly.”
With GameChurch.com gamers no longer have to hide their love of God or gaming as the message is loud and clear; If Jesus was here today…he’d be gaming.
