The Godmodex Gaming ministry was officially launched in March 2014. The aim of this innovative project is simple – to reach gamers worldwide sharing God’s love.
The key scriptures cited by the Godmodex team are: Mark 16:15 ‘Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation’ and Luke 10:2 ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out the workers into his harvest field’
Revealing how GodmodeX was started, its founder, Mike Scott said: “My daughter was born in November 2010 and she suffered terrible reflux which meant in the early days my wife and I had to take turns to sit up all night with her as we couldn’t lay her down to sleep.”
“As you can imagine it was hard to stay awake so one night I lifted a controller and started to game. I wasn’t really into gaming before this point. I eventually met some other Christian gamers whilst playing online and connected with what they were doing but I felt a specific call to extend the gaming to include everyone not just Christians”, added Mike.
He continued: “The name Godmodex comes from the gaming term ‘get your Godmode on.’ What this means to a gamer is that you are indestructible in a game and I added the x at the end to represent the cross.”
This ministry has grown so fast in just two years since Mike and the team started by taking two consoles and two tiny monitors into the Game stores and running FIFA competitions.
He said: “We were also at this point going round local Boys’ Brigades and we even ventured into a few pubs, set up our gaming station and invited people to come and play.”
Explaining what GodmodeX gaming ministry does at present, Mike highlighted the following areas:
- Online ministry – we regularly game with people from all over the world, build friendship and help support them through difficult times in their lives. People we have met online have come to know the Lord and others have asked us to pray for situations they are facing.
- School Programme- we set up our consoles in schools and either ourselves or CEF provide an epilogue for the children while I talk to the parents about keeping their children safe whilst gaming online. We also provide advice on the ratings on games and what they actually mean.
- Community outreach- we take the bus into a community and invite young people to come off the streets and onto the bus to game. They quite often bring their parents who can come and have a cup of tea and find out more about what we do while their children game. This is a fabulous way to not only get kids off the streets but also to connect with churches in the area.
- Godmodex Compassion- we are a non-profit organisation and we have been so blessed by donations that we continually give back into the community. We have provided a number of families with much needed resources eg oil, food, electric, beds and mattresses. We also took the bus to Belfast to provide a birthday party free of charge for a little girl whose family were waiting for a new home.
- Summer programme- we have been at a number of Summer camps and our latest Summer outreach is an all day event where we park the bus in a community/estate during the day and then connect the people who use it to a church programme running in the evening time. This has been very successful and we have seen people coming along to the church events in the evening.
- Birthday parties- as we rely on donations we provide a service and charge for birthday parties.
Mike also said: “We connected with Gamechurch who came over from America and loved what we were doing and blessed us with more up to date equipment.
The Godmodex bus was donated by Green Pastures Church and Wrights sprayed it black free of charge. We are so thankful for God’s provision to enable us to be on the road. We can now go with the bus to do community gaming events. You can find out more about the bus and a typical community gaming event here. ”
As the Godmodex gaming ministry grows, more volunteers are needed. If anyone would be interested in joining the team, there are a number of different programs you can get involved with. Contact Mike on 07888847066. No previous gaming experience is necessary.
GodmodeX relies on donations and anyone interested in supporting it financially can get in touch via: mike@godmodex.co.uk – prayerful support for the community events is also welcome.
To keep up to date with the GodmodeX gaming ministry & where the bus will be, check out their Facebook page here and they’re on Twitter here.