Become a Deer Listener today!

It’s finally happening Deer Listeners! We’re selling shirts to help raise funds for the podcast to continue in 2017. Not only can you rock a Deer Listener shirt, or hoodie, but you can also help us keep the podcast going in 2017.

Let me explain what The Reformed Gamers is all about for just a moment. Nearly two years ago, I looked around at the Christian culture and how it interacted with video games. Article after article I read about the crossroads where Christianity and gaming intersected, they all said the same thing: video games are not fit for the Christian lifestyle. This made no sense to me because how were these authors separating video games from the rest of entertainment (movies, tv, books, etc)? There has to be a better way for Christians to interact with video games but I did not see anyone providing that avenue.

Thus, The Reformed Gamers was born. Jonathan and I started this podcast after some prayer and discussion. We wanted to discuss games in a manner that glorified God but also went beyond the typical, “Bro, I just 360-no-scoped that guy”. If we are truly called to “capture every thought for Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5) and “redeem our time on this planet” (Ephesians 5:16), we wanted to discover how that can be done even while playing a video game. If movies, tv, and books have worldviews that can affect youth and adults alike, then video games are no different. We’ve seen video games tackle heavy subject matter in titles such as Gone Home, The Last of Us, Uncharted 4, and That Dragon, Cancer. Video games have become a powerful mode of story-telling but are the stories that are being told compatible with Scripture? That’s what we seek to do on The Reformed Gamers.

Since we’ve started, we’ve looked closely at games such as The Legend of Zelda, Uncharted 4, Life is Strange, Persona 4 Golden, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. We have an episode in the works where we will take a look at the themes and story of Rise of the Tomb Raider. And there’s more games we want to dive into: Bioshock, Mass Effect, Bully, Batman: The Arkham Series, and more.

We have even had the opportunity to have guests such as: Bill Gardner, Creative Director of The Deep End Games, and Marcus Pittman and Austin Jensen of Apologia’s new video-game web-series, Post-Bit. We have more interviews lined up for 2017 with some voice actors in the gaming industry and Geoff Keighly.

With over 70 reviews on iTunes, we see the fruit of the work that the Lord started in this podcast. We’ve received countless messages, emails, and tweets saying that we’ve been able to be part of what God is doing in others’ lives as they see how they can game to the glory of God. It’s been a tremendous and humbling experience.

We need your help to keep the show running in 2017. Adam and I both are at a point where we’ve dried up our personal budgets in keeping the show running. If we end the fundraiser without appropriate funds to keep the show going, then unfortunately, our two-year anniversary episode, launching in January, will be our last.

We need to sell at least 25 t-shirts/hoodies by November 14th. Once we hit our goal, we’ll be able to keep the show running in 2017. If we somehow wind up with more than our projected goal, then we will funnel that back into the podcast in some fashion (equipment upgrades, giveaways, etc).

Consider partnering with us as we bring a fresh and Biblical perspective about video games to the Christian culture. You can purchase a t-shirt or hoodie via this link.