Our Friends and Allies

An updated list was republished on August 27, and is available here: http://christian-gamers-guild.org/wp/blog/admin/our-friends-and-allies-2/
This article will remain at this address for the purposes of maintaining incoming links, but much of the information available here has been obviated or changed, and I encourage you to check the more recent article.

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The Christian Gamers Guild is not alone in our efforts to build faith communities among the geek sub-cultures. Numerous other organizations, ministries, and individuals are also doing valuable and powerful work among Trekkies, roleplayers, cosplayers, video gamers, and many other segments. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are a few people we think you should get to know!

Editor’s note: Where possible I’ve paraphrased what each group has to say about itself, replacing all the “we” language with “they.” I don’t know why I’m putting this in an Editor’s note, since the author and the editor are the same person, but whatever…

And some errata: Geekdom House has split off their publishing arm into Mythos & Ink in order to comply with Canadian non-profit law. GH itself is retooling a bit, and we’ll know more about what they’re becoming in a few weeks, I guess. I am also adding some other groups that I overlooked initially. They’re all at the top of the article, so if you’re just looking for the updates, start here!

Although several of these organizations produce (or are) products, the Christian Gamers Guild does not endorse any of them, in accordance with our policy to neither condemn nor endorse any particular game product. If you have any questions about the appropriateness of any product for yourself, your family, or your gaming group, it is up to you to investigate and decide.

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Gaming 2 Give unites players everywhere through gaming marathon fundraisers that provide scholarships, mentoring, internships and more to single moms and their children!

Gaming 2 Give is a 12-Hour Virtual Gaming Event that will take place on 12/7/19 at 12 pm-12 am EST.

Funds are used to focus on the economic empowerment of single mothers between the ages of 18 and 35, by lifting them from poverty to professionalism. They identify barriers that hinder single moms from success and remove them by creating practical solutions
centered around career coaching, mentoring, scholarships, financial literacy, and on-the-job training through paid internships.

ChristGames.org is a Christian game development organization on the Internet devoted to teaching you how to make family friendly video games. If you have ever wanted to make a game, but were not sure where to start, then you have come to the right place. They will teach you every part of the industry, from design, to programming, and even to marketing and distribution. They are a community of like minded people serving the risen lord wanting to help you succeed in your dreams of becoming a faithful game developer!

The Nerdy-Gritty is a podcast a weekly discussion where pastors Dez and Fox delve deep into the details of pop-culture! Comics, movies, video games… even YouTube itself! Everything is up for grabs when Dez and Fox start spewing their opinions. They have a YouTube channel, and can be found on Facebook and Twitter.

The Grave Robbers reach out to the Goth community with the love of Jesus Christ. They provide an exciting and God honoring environment to connect with other Christian Goths around the world and help our Goth brothers and sisters to grow spiritually in their walk with Christ. They are God’s Night Watch.

Gaming Rogue is providing news, tips, events, and gaming deals for the gaming community. And occasionally slipping some Scripture into the feed.

The Gaming Chaplain is a Twitch streamer playing both video games and table top RPGs, with the hope of expanding into miniatures.

The Christians Discord group is a safe place for humor, fellowship, praise, prayer and active mobile, console, and PC gaming. Not a gamer? No problem; join for the fellowship.

Camping Grounds is a game studio ministry that focuses on making fast pace visual novels of praise and worship.

Cactus Game Design publishes a variety of Christian-themed games and toys, including Solomon’s Temple and the Redemption Collectible Card Game.

The Bridge is a Facebook group for those who bridge Christianity and Fandom. It took over from where Fans for Christ left off a couple of years ago.

God Loves the Freaks is a book that points to a serious issue facing the church today – reaching out to subcultures and those who are considered the freaks of society. Stephen Weese paints a vision of a church living by grace, in unity; without the legalism that divides and causes us to shun others based on outward appearance. God looks at the heart and he loves everyone, including the freaks. If God loves the freaks, shouldn’t the church as well?

City on a Hill Gaming is a 5th edition D&D actual play podcast. They looked in vain for a family-friendly actual play and couldn’t find one, so they made their own!

Deliverance is an epic “Christian Fantasy” Boardgame Adventure that features Angels vs Demons in a cooperative tactical dungeon crawler for 1-4 players. And yes, it 100% fits within the Biblical narrative while being a fantasy game! It’s not available yet (as of 2/4/2019), but there’s a Kickstarter campaign starting up soon, and there’s a Facebook group to follow for news and playtesting opportunities.

Costumers for Christ: Mild-mannered minister by day, Scott Bayles and his family are active costumers and comic-collectors who share the message of Christ through comics and cosplay. There’s also a Facebook page and associated group and Scott has written a book entitled Holy Heroes: The Gospel According to DC and Marvel.

Dungeon Master Pastor is a blog where Pastor meets Dungeon Master, and following Jesus meets tabletop fantasy role playing. As baptized children of God, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. One of those things happens to be: Play Dungeons & Dragons like a boss. They run an annual Pastors & Dungeons Retreat where, with a mixture of gaming, learning, and Sabbath rest, ministers will explore the connections between life, ministry, and the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

Chara Games designs and publishes innovative and fun tabletop games with Christian themes. They want to help you, your family, and your friends find joy through the relationships built around the games they publish.

Geeks Under Grace wants to Educate Christians on how to safely consume pop culture, Evangelize geeks with the message of the Gospel, Equip Christians and churches to reach geeks with the Gospel, and Encourage Christians as they grow into a deeper relationship with Christ. They have articles and reviews about video games, board games, rpgs, television, movies, comics, music, anime, and Christian life.

Geekdom House exists to love and serve nerds and geeks by making a creative contribution to the culture and encouraging, fostering, and facilitating deeper community through discussion and support. They also desire to provide the space and opportunity for those seeking excellence within those sub-cultures to hone and perfect their craft and to give them the tools and encouragement needed to graft their love of geekery into all aspects of their life.

The Aetherlight is a swashbuckling steampunk action-adventure game based on the greatest story ever told! Astute players will recognise echoes with the epic story of the Bible at key points: characters, major plot shifts, life lessons, and personal encounters. The Aetherlight is a story as old as time, reimagined for a digital age.

Mighty Grace Positive Gaming reaches out to video gamers through various media, shares the message of Jesus Christ, creates a positive encouraging community, facilitates spiritual growth and wellness with people. They have a very exciting personal support and counseling service for gamers available in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese. That is in addition to convention and local game store ministry, streaming, and game reviews.

The Holy Lands RPG is an expressly Christian high-fantasy tabletop RPG.  Real Christianity is the fundamental faith of the character, not some allegorical fantasy faith in a polytheistic (multi-god) world. The character believes in, proclaims, and fights for God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the real message of eternal salvation.

The Christian Game Developers Conference is a unique event, focused around encouraging and edifying those who are interested in both making games and glorifying God. The conference is three days of talks, workshops, and fellowship, fellowship, fellowship. Come prepared to show what you are working on, and to encourage others in their projects and be inspired.

Mythos & Ink is a small press with a passion for publishing great stories and the community built around them. Keep an eye on them for their upcoming podcast The Wayfarer’s Guide to Worldbuilding.

Innroads Ministries is the umbrella organization for the Game Store Prophets and Bard and Bible podcasts. They have a number of articles about ministering through tabletop games, both roleplaying and board games, and how to bring your faith to bear on your hobby. Check out their Facebook group The Tavern to interact with them. That’s not the whole of their efforts, though! Check out their What We Do page for more information.

Saving the Game is a podcast at the intersection of faith in Christ, tabletop roleplaying games, and collaborative storytelling. They provide resources for Christian gamers, and in their own way they aim to close the gap between non-gaming Christians and non-Christian gamers. They have a Discord channel, where you can chat with them and their other listeners.

Love Thy Nerd wants to speak redemption, hope, truth, and love into the parts of nerd culture that have often been alienated, demonized, dismissed, or simply ignored by Christians. They also want to educate Christians on the value of nerd culture and how we can love our nerdy neighbors better. They minister at conventions; host articles on comics, video games, roleplaying, film, and more; and host three pocasts: Humans of Gaming, Free Play, and The Pull List. Interact with them in their Facebook community.

Geek@Arms is a podcast at the crossroads of geek culture and Christian faith. Your humble editor is one of the hosts. We discuss comics, sci-fi, fantasy, historical swordsmanship, video games, medieval reenactment, tabletop gaming, and more.

The Geekpreacher, Derek White, is a United Methodist pastor who not only serves his own church, but also ministers at several gaming conventions, including serving as the chaplain for Gary Con. He realizes that geeks need a pastor too and tries his best to share faith and spirituality in a way that complements geek culture.

On the Min/Max Podcast, two seminarians and a photographer explore the intersection of gaming, nerd culture, and theology.

Cardboard Koinonia brings people together in fellowship to foster relationships, and build community across cultural, social, and generational divides using games. They run Family Game Nights in which they invite people from all walks of life around a board game table. They have a Facebook group.

Redeemed Otaku is a podcast about anime for the Christian consumer. Reviews, discussion, recommendations on old and new and rarely covered anime from a Christian worldview.

Wild East Games makes board games and is owned and operated by the husband and wife team of Brian and Jill Bollinger. Brian is a pastor, and his personal testimony is prominent on the company web-site. Geeky polymaths, they also operate Bollinger Edgerly Scale Trains, which sells model train kits and building supplies, and tickcomics.com, a guide to collecting Tick comic books.

The purpose for Gaming and God is to bridge the gap between the pastime that is playing video games to scripture, biblical values and life lessons that we can use daily.

The podcast 1 Geek 411 is the brain child of friends Cameron Franklin and Chris Nicolay. Cameron and Chris met at Oklahoma Christian where they bonded over ultimate, video games, and Magic: The Gathering. They began discussing social norms and questioning why it’s okay to watch sports for hours a day but then geeks and nerds are questioned about playing video games or their other activities for hours. As a result 1 Geek 411 was born.

The Nerd Chapel is committed to being a bridge between the Body of Christ and nerds/geeks/gamers who are interested in exploring the Bible and Jesus. We also want to be a resource for Christian nerds of all sizes.

Gamechurch is a non-profit dedicated to bringing the message of Jesus’ love, hope, and acceptance into the culture of video games.

One Cross Radio is a podcast, and 2099 One Cross Street is a website, exploring Christianity and pop culture.

Theology of Games hosts board game news, reviews, and interviews. They also feature three boardgame podcasts: Theology of Games, That’s How I Roll, and Boardgames Daily.

Faith & Fandom is a book series of devotional essays on faith & geek culture. There are 5 volumes out now, plus a kids edition! They also do podcasts, art, panels, apparel, memes, and Comic Con life in general. They travel to roughly 28 comicons a year in the south east and also have a podcast series and a video series.

Games For All is a blog by Stephen Taylor, who wants to help you discover your character and skills for life through gaming.  And give you pointers to help your children/partners/friends do so to.  For parents in particular he hopes this blog will give you an insight into what on Earth your children are talking about when they discuss their gaming hobby, and perhaps give you some alternative games to suggest when they want one that makes you feel uncomfortable to buy them.

ScreenFish is where faith and film are intertwined, creating a place for dialogue and discussion on the latest in film, tv and movies.

Open Table Ministries puts on strategy game nights three Saturdays per month in Kettering, Ohio.

Christian Geek Central exists to equip, encourage and inspire Christian geeks of all kinds to live more and more for Christ. To this end, they’ve made it their goal to be both a gateway to, and creator of, the highest quality entertainment and resources on the web that they believe will be of special interest to Christian geeks. In addition, Christian Geek Central is an active and growing community of Christian geeks who come together to both celebrate and examine their favorite hobbies from a biblical perspective. They host a podcast network, including: Christian Geek Central, Untold, Strangers and Aliens, Theology Gaming, POS TOS, Helix Reviews, and Retro Rewind. And if that weren’t enough, they also have a forum!

The Pop Culture Coream Deo Podcast examines the artifacts of pop culture in light of God’s self-revelation.

And finally, what about us? The Christian Gamers Guild is a community of Christian gamers that has been working to explain roleplaying to Christians and Christianity to roleplayers since 1996. Joining the Guild is as simple as joining our email discussion list, which is the core of our ministry. In addition to the discussion list and the articles on this web-site, we also organize and host worship services and panels at a few gaming conventions each year, and CGG members are frequently in attendance at many other cons, regardless of whether the Guild itself has an event scheduled. We have a few branded items in our Store, if you want to show your allegiance, or you can make your own using the materials available in the publicity package.

Phew! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You can find your sisters and brothers in Christ all over the place, at conventions, in games, and on Twitter. And whoever you meet and game with, whether they’re a believer or not, remember to extend the love of Christ to everyone!