Justin R. Lester explains how gamification can revitalize churches by applying video-game design elements like rewards and badges. He outlines a three-year implementation plan grounded in his Sustainable Black Church Vibrancy framework, with worksheets and case studies to help congregations adapt after COVID.
Chapters
Foreign. Justin, thank you so very much for taking time to purchase my book or to learn more about let's Play church Gamifying Church Vitalization for Sustainable Success Can I give you a little bit of background on why I wrote this book and why I believe it's so important and I'd love to talk to you further about it. Love to get your responses and thoughts on this work as well. Years ago, when I was a kid, I used to play church. My parents were pastors and so I would play church. I get a box out in our backyard, that little box we get, and I get up on there and I act like I'm a pastor. My sister would act like she's a part of the church. We literally would play church, make fun of kids for it today. And I was made fun of before it, even as a kid, because why are we out here playing church, making fun of what God wants to do with God's church. As I got older and I got into Madden, got into Xbox, N64, I got into Dreamcast, I got into all these different types of gaming consoles, I began to realize that maybe a way to revitalize churches. I saw stagnant churches as I grew up was to take the tenets of gaming and bringing into the local church. And there's actually a field of research on that called gamification. It's literally human focused design. It's taking a different model and approach to sustainable church revitalization and doing so by using video games, taking video games and using the simple things of X, Y, B and A or square, circle and triangle to gamify and revitalize churches. And then took some time to write a book about it. And in this work and in this book you'll find information on taking gamification. I take some time to first of all look at why we need to engage in church like this. Looking at Covid and looking at pivoting, the four tenets of pivoting as well. Then I end up giving a framework for what I suggest, Sustainable black church vibrancy. As a black pastor, I only speak from my contact. You can apply to whatever context you are in. Then I get into and suggest the church hashtag being a shorthand version of being able to search for anything online. And so I use this hashtag, church as a way for us to really think about the quickness of church, the sustainability of church, and always the ability to search for church. Then give pillars for black church vibrancy. Why gamification is a good response. And in gamification we look at the myriad of manipulation rewards and badges and the structure of a game, how to engage with the game, and also the bad sides of gamification. There are bad games where manipulation becomes a tool. There are bad games where the game becomes a manipulative tool instead of an engaging tool. And then lastly, I give a three year plan for suggestions, design and implementation of playing church in your church that I've done before and two contexts, my first contacts as well as this context. I took the tenets of maddening, I took the tenets of gaming and applied it to the church I was pastoring and saw God give a lot of increased sustainability and growth. I'm not here. This is not a social media plan. This is not a two year plan to make your church a better marketing tool. Because the issue with marketing in terms of churches is that sometimes we market churches that don't exist. So we market this amazing, amazing church that does not exist when a member person shows up. And so this book in and of itself is an opportunity to look at a plan to revitalize your culture of your church and then give endgame and what I like to do also in here is talk to leaders, talk to you across the screen about actual struggle parts of implementing difficult games in your church, how it means to lead hard change. And I talked about a paradigm called essential dismissal, what it means to dismiss some things from your church in order for you to revitalize it the way that God wants you to revitalize it. I believe this book let's Play Church is a, is a, is a handy dandy book if you will. I believe it'll do wonders for you, your church and your ministry to have a chance to look at church differently, to look at revitalization differently, to look at growth differently. And prayerfully you'll see that it's fun to play church. I've been playing church for years. I love the local church. I believe that this is God's dream for God's people. And I believe done well, the local church can be the most vibrant space in our world right now. We have too many stagnant churches. I believe God is calling this generation of leaders and us to revitalize this church that he'll be glorified devil be horrified. The people will know who God is. Go ahead, take a read of it. I'd love to hear from you about it. Feel free to look further. My website I have worksheets, leadership, personal vision, goals and plans, things like that that go along with the gaming that you'll be able to use as next steps. I pray this is a helpful tool for you to bloom and blossom. Become all that God needs you to be. And for your local church, God bless you today.
