Winning Souls to Christ in The World of Warcraft

I've never played a MMORPG but what it is, is an online adventure game that's inhabited by thousands (nee millions) of online users whom you meet in battle compete against or join forces with to complete all manner of medieval quests. World of Warcraft (or WOW for short) is the #1 MMORPG at the moment and it's everything you would expect: exotic lands, magical creatures, princes and princesses, sorcerors and magicians and so on. It's basically a natural progression to dungeons and dragons, I think.

Here's what fascinates me about it: the unexpected side effects of creating a real world. A few months ago, I read this mind-blowing article about how experienced WOW players were going on quests, procuring magical items like swords or wands...and selling them to other players for REAL CURRENCY. That's right, you could improve your odds in this game by, say, buying a magic axe on ebay and paying real money for it. Other gameplayer entrepreneurs wanted to open a bank in the game to store other players' money and lend money for mortgages and so forth...IN THE GAME!

It got so bad that the South Korean government (by far the most MMORPG gamers per capita, in the world) is in the process of introducing legislation that will regulate this 'exchange' of virtual goods and services, not to mention the currency and economics of online worlds, while preserving the copyrights of the companies that created them. This could include having an exchange rate for WOW currency to the US dollar or making sure no price gouging occurs. Crazy..

Anyways, a few weeks later, I read that Blizzard, the makers of WOW introduced a deadly plague into the game, which could infect players if they didn't get treatment. It was a plotline that was designed to make the game more intriguing and to throw another challenge in that would spur players to strategize around it. What they didn't anticipate is how quickly this plague spread and killed a lot of players (and also Non Player Characters, NPCs) and became a virtual epidemic. It was an unexpected twist but added to the realism of the game and created a distinct air of tension and paranoia among the inhabitants of WOW.

That was pretty crazy too. Then this article appeared and blew my mind even further. Are we eventually going to migrate to online fantasy worlds and leave this world behind (a la Matrix)? Is it a sign of people's discontent with modern life? Shouldn't this level of escapism be classified as a sort of drug?

So many questions...anyway, here's the article.


Christian game enthusiasts around the US are turning the world of Azeroth inside the new video game, "World of Warcraft" into a mission field, where virtual battles are fought and real souls are won to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Billy Houston, a Landover Baptist Senior High youth, has been sharing Jesus in the virtual gaming world for over three years. "I evangelized in Lineage 2, Everquest, Diablo, and a bunch of other games," he says, "but I haven't seen nearly as many people who are as open to hearing the Gospel message as I have inside the World of Warcraft." Billy has what gamers call, a Level 57 Undead Priest with Holy Focus. "I'm also in one of the largest Christian guilds on our server," he says. "I think the reason so many people are open to hearing about Jesus in the World of Warcraft is because the majority of people who play the game are lonely kids who don't have any friends. I doubt any of them play sports so you can pretty much guess that there are lots of gay boys and fat little pale-faced Wiccan girls on the servers who hate themselves and escape into virtual characters so they don't have to deal with their pathetic lives. When they hear that someone loves them, even if it is just the Lord Jesus Christ, they always want to hear more!"

The World of Warcraft is ripe for eager young Christian evangelists to ply their trade. "I'm studying to be a missionary at Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia," says one gamer (who prefers to remain anonymous) and sharing the Good News of Jesus in Azeroth is a great way to practice soulwinning in Arkansas, where I'm from originally. I think that when Jesus said in Mark 16:15, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, He knew that True Christians™ like me in the future, would be called into virtual worlds where we'd be witnessing to gnomes, trolls, night elves and all sorts of other creatures. I also think that verse applies to Christian astronaut missionaries in the future who will encounter and evangelize unsaved alien life forms on other planets. I believe with my whole heart that Christian gamers are sincerely answering the Great Commission of Jesus and we are able to do it without getting out of our chairs or leaving our bedrooms. I bet the Apostle Paul is so jealous!"

One prospective missionary at the Landover Baptist Christian Academy says, "Most people who are mean, liberal, nasty, lonely, unsaved losers in real life choose to play the Horde (an evil race of characters in the World of Warcraft) and people and guilds who are conservative, Republican and pretty much easier to win to Jesus Christ with are found in the Alliance. That's why the real True Christians™ pick the Horde to play as characters and start their guilds in Horde territory because they like the challenge of sharing Christ's message in a perilous, lava-soaked, environment. Sometimes you have to pester people for weeks before they listen to you. I followed some stupid gnome around for 8-hours until he finally told me that he would accept Jesus as his Personal Savior if I would just promise not to contact him anymore. Now that rocks!"

"I really like our guild leader," says young Billy Houston. "He has a strict policy against letting unsaved people join our group. I think he's from Alabama in real life. In fact, he won't even party-up with anyone who isn't a Christian. He's a level 60 Priest, and gets a lot of respect. He can climb right up to the top of the dwarf statue by the gates of Stormwind City and start street preaching to the Dark Elves and they will listen to everything he says. He's done conversion duels on multiple servers where he challenges other players to duel with him. If he wins, they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. If he loses (which he never has) he will give them 6 pieces of silver."

Christian gamers are also excited that they are able to live out their faith in the same way the early True Christians™ did, before their religion was sissified by liberalism, science, and political correctness. "It is such a rush to kill other players who refuse to accept Jesus Christ as Lord," says one gamer. "I feel like I can really practice my faith the way God intended it. It is like I'm fighting alongside Christians of old, instead of the pansies and sissies from my Sunday school class."

Young Billy explains that it is very simple to announce the message of God's love across the World of Warcraft game channels. "I have a hot-key macro that broadcasts, Jesus Loves You! Please Love Him Back or He Will Burn You in Hell! PM Me if you want to learn more! across four channels. I do it right when I log in. I usually get PM'd (Private Messaged) by a few characters who I then add to my buddy list. I follow them around the game, across snow-capped mountains, and blasted wastelands until they accept Christ or persecute me so much that I have to report them to the server administrators for making fun of my religion. I think I've been responsible for getting over thirty accounts suspended for bigotry directed at me because of my faith."

Landover Baptist Pastors originally expressed some concern over the game because it looked like it promoted occult activity. "I told Pastor Deacon Fred that every single time I find an item that looks like it has something to do with the occult, I hop on a griffin and head straight to Ironforge where I auction it off. Christian gamers shouldn't be carrying that stuff around. We don't enter places that serve alcohol in the game either. It is just not a good testimony. All the money I make from selling occult items to unsaved gamers, I auction off on E-bay for real cash, which I then put into the offering plate at our church on the last Sunday of each month."