Arizona Conference

Level Up Ministry

ABOVE: Pastor Soto along with a team of creators build a virtual Noah's Ark, which includes an embedded museum underneath the ark. S ince the early days of Atari, Commodore 64, and Sega, the gaming world has changed to become more interactive, engaging, and creative. “Gamer” is now a common way to describe someone who plays games either on a system or online. Games have moved steadily from a self-contained hardware-based system to an online community brought together by programming that encourages cooperative action. While this change has created challenges for churches and schools, a group of innovative church members are turning to online gaming as a way to reach their community.

“The church is not reaching the gamers, the

Members of One Accord: The Guild collaborate to build virtual worlds and societies.

Team members place Bible texts throughout the virtual worlds.

gaming community,” said Pastor Mike Soto. “I had been thinking about that for a while.”

Then, during the throes of a worldwide pandemic, as the world locked itself down in the spring of 2020, a group of lay people and pastors gathered online for a seminar on how to use digital evangelism.

“While we were in the Zoom meeting, I created a Facebook group for Adventist gamers and invited others to join the group,” said Soto. And from that sprung a group of individuals who are now focused on using online gaming platforms for ministry outreach.

Along with Soto, a handful of other gamers formed the core of what is now called “One Accord: The Guild.” They began to reach out and invite others in their various regional areas to join their group. A YouTube video was created and broadcast, which drew more people, and then the General Conference social media team posted their information. Just recently the group had their 300th member join their group.

“Minecraft was the easiest to do at the beginning,” explained Soto. “But we have been looking into options like Animal Crossing, Super Smash, and other virtual board games.”

On Saturday nights, one of the leaders of the group serves as a moderator for Jackbox games. The leader serves as a facilitator for the games as well as a monitor for the activity in the rooms. The group has a list of criteria and guidelines for online behavior on their Discord group site.

“Our goal is to bring the gospel to the digital community and speak the language of gamers and creators,” said Soto. “We are not into traditional church service but are trying something different. This is not a traditional Adventist culture, and we speak a

Even during pandemic lockdowns and social distancing, members can interact and socialize online. language that a non-Adventist can understand.”

The community has built worlds online that contain Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel, Bethlehem, and the Garden of Eden. Whenever possible, the group has used biblical and historical specifications to create their worlds. The Tower of Babel was made according to Babylonian architecture and the Garden of Eden has identifiable elements like the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Wherever possible, Bible verses are posted around items that relate to a specific biblical reference. A virtual museum is located under Noah’s Ark, with information and links to Creation and Noah’s Flood websites.

“There are so many stories that we are working on, making it as biblically accurate as possible,” said Soto. “We are talking and hanging out, and that gives us an opportunity to chat about biblical principles as the community builds the world. To kick off 2022, One Accord: The Guild hosted a Content Creators Summit in Casa Grande, Arizona, at the beginning of February. It was a hybrid event with attendees both in person and online. It was targeted to anyone who wants to upload YouTube videos or create online content—and, of course, to gamers who want to participate in creating biblical worlds. Geared towards gamers and creators ages 15-35, the summit included a panel of Millennial and Gen Z creators who discussed topics and issues pertinent to the gaming community. The culmination of the summit was the Saturday night networking/gaming event, with Filibertos take-out and, of course, online gaming.

____________________ By Jeff Rogers

Website

https://oneaccordtheguild.com/

YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/OneAccordTheGuild