CGDC 2017

Greetings Scholars and Warriors.

This last weekend I attended the Christian Game Developers Conference in Portland, Oregon. While there I provided 2 chapel service opportunities, hosted one of the morning prayer times, and offered and offered opportunities for prayer appointments. If you payed attention to the FB page, you might have seen me "go Live" with Patrick Lysaght from Chara Games.

The services went well although they had small attendance. There was a lot going on and there was no good timing for them. We focused on finding God's definition of success. We focused on Micah 6:8 as our directive of how to define success and and we also considered, from Paul's admittance in Philippians 3:12-14 that he is still running the race, that this race is not a finish line race like the game Formula D, but an experiential race like the game Tokaido. One where we are collecting experiences with God rather than pushing for a finish line. We also looked considered how Jesus set an example with all three of the commands from Micah 6:8.

Nobody signed up for any prayer appointments, but this was a new idea for the conference and most attendees were focused on both networking and training for their fields.

This was a good experience. I got to meet some people I had not seen face to face before and start to understand more of the experience of Christians working in the video game field. Some are creating video games for the Christian market but most are simply using video games to share a story, such as the Greenes who created "That Dragon, Cancer." Their session on Immersive Narrative was amazing as they described the experience of putting their real live story of cancer into a video game. Another great session was by Justin Fox, from Kingdom Arts/Justin Fox Media, led a session on, well, artwork for the Kingdom of God. He shared how all art done with God, instead of for yourself, will be better than your own musings.

There were only a few boardgame developers demoing at the conference. Chara Games was running demos on both Commissioned and Unauthorized.

I encourage all game developers, tabletop or video game, to consider attending this conference next year. This would also be a good opportunity for writers and voice actors.

What can you do?

Greetings Warriors and Scholars!

Happy summer! This summer is going by really fast.

Earlier this week my Mom and I continued our viewing of Stargate SG-1. One of the episodes we watched that night was "Maternal Instinct" from season 3. In this episode, they find out that Apophis is back with the army formerly committed to Sokar. He had attacked Chulack in his search for his child, a "harsesis" who has been hidden from him so he does not use the child as a new host and then gain all the knowledge of the Goa'uld. In their search for the child, the team goes to Keb, a spiritual destination for older Jaffa who are done fighting.

Here, they meet a monk and Daniel goes into a long discussion with him about many things. The monk, who never gives us a name, tries to get Daniel to use his mind to do things but is also talking about a "Oma Desala". At first Daniel thinks this is just a phrase for mother nature, but we later find that she is what would later be described as an "ascended being". Daniel realizes that his tricks of controlling small flames and moving things with his mind were not him at all. It was all Oma's doing. She then fights the army for them and takes the child away to safety.

Although there are obvious Buddhist parallels in this story as they use a similar setting and phrases by the monk are similar, there are some significant parallels for us as followers of Jesus as well. Jesus told us about a "Counselor" he would send us. This Counselor is known more commonly as the Holy Spirit. During the Old Testament He often came upon men and women God had called out for very special works but after a day we call Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon all who follow Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians 12 we find a description of what we often call the Gifts of the Spirit. These are abilities God chooses to dispense to us through the Holy Spirit and yes I do think they can be called super powers. We learn a few things here:

• The Holy Spirit gives gifts as he chooses to all who believe.
• The gifts include "miraculous" things such as healing and "mundane" things such as administration.
• All gifts are given for the common good, not for show-boating.
• There is no formula to what gift(s) you get. 

Most importantly, we understand that these gifts all come from the Holy Spirit. If you are unsure about your gifts, I recommend 2 things. First, pray about it. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you your gifts and to empower you to serve. Second, ask other believers who know you what they think your gifts are. There are some online spiritual gifts surveys out there that can be uses as tools to help you discover it, but that is not the first place I would start. 

Daniel did not light a candle with his mind or have any super powers. It was Oma Desala doing that. But in real life the Holy Spirit does make Himself and some gifts available to us as we serve Jesus. What can you do?