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by Allison Brandow

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Youth Workers Recruit Video Games to Help Reach Kids

Kevin Rich (right) plays video games with some teen-age boys. He also plays with them online once or twice a week. --Kevin Rich, photo

One or two nights a week, Kevin Rich, a Multnomah senior, heads out for an evening of gaming. He and perhaps a dozen high school boys gather to play video games at a neighborhood house.

They spend about three hours together, watching the television screen, manipulating controls and occasionally chatting.

Rich plays video games as an extension of his ministry with Youth For Christ. By spending time with these boys, he builds relationships that, he said, lay the foundation for talking about spiritual things.

Ministries similar to Rich's are popular in some churches because of their cultural relevance, among other things.

"My attitude is incarnational ministry," Sunset Presbyterian Church middle school director, Kurt Brandemihl, said. "We go to where students are at. We try to include elements from their world [in our ministry]."

The most popular video game among teen-agers this year is the newly released Halo 3. According to Rich, the boys he plays with gravitate toward the game.

"Lately, all they want to play is Halo 3," Rich said. "I usually let them pick the game, and I'll play with them, even if I'm terrible at it. It still gives me the chance to talk with them and spend time with them."

Multnomah's youth ministry department chair, Dr. Rob Hildebrand, said, "What makes [games like Halo 3] fun is that you can hook up TVs and boxes and 16 of them can play together, so it's sort of like paintball, except virtual."

In Halo 3, a first-person shooter game, the player controls a character who targets other characters. The game is rated M for mature audiences. Only people 17 and older can buy it because of its violence, strong language and advanced graphics.

Because of its content and intended audience, game use in church or ministry settings has been debated. "I think there are two salient issues," Dr. Hildebrand said. "Is it moral; is the game moral? And is it above reproach? If you judge to yourself that the video game is not wrong, and the people in your church accept it, then I would say, by all means use it."

The content of some video games has led some churches to avoid using the games altogether. Other churches have limited the type of video game the church uses in ministry. Mr. Brandemihl said that his church, Sunset Presbyterian, decided to avoid shooting games.

Rich said he wondered if using Halo 3 in his ministry is appropriate.

"I've thought about if I really should be playing it with them," he said. "How I feel better about it is that their parents are the ones who buy them the game. It's not like I'm playing with them, and their parents don't want them to."

Jacob Day, who also works with Youth For Christ, said that during game nights, he often chooses to play a game other than Halo 3. He said Nintendo Wii games are more interactive and less violent, so he tries to alternate them with Halo 3.

"There are a lot of different kinds of video games," Dr. Hildebrand said. "Some are fun, but some are very dark. Some are evil in a number of ways like Grand Theft Auto or some of the first-person shooters.

"Some are very immersive, and you end up with young people who almost lose their real world and immerse themselves into this imaginative world and become lost there."

But during the evening gaming sessions, Rich said the boys he works with like to interact. They talk sometimes during the games but also during set-up and while they are switching teams.

"It's nice because we're sitting around, and I can talk to them and ask them questions," Rich said. "They [play] so much they can do it with their eyes closed.

"It's pretty fun to be able to use [gaming] to talk to them about their life or how things are going, or just to get to know them, not even necessarily to talk about something deep, but just to build that trust with them."

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