Outer Wilds: Grab a Seat by the Campfire

I’m a pastor who plays video games. Yes, there’s some of us out there (and not all of us are youth pastors). It’s kinda lonely, which may be one of the reasons I love the game Outer Wilds.

The premise of Outer Wilds is this: You are an alien in some far away solar system, an early explorer of the cosmos of a people who are still figuring out space travel.

Your people has already sent out the first explorers— their own ‘Mercury’ astronauts, but they didn’t return. The story starts with this task— find the explorers on the different world in your solar system.

Your ship is barely bolted together— actually maybe tied together with ropes as you hail from a culture that builds ships out of wood. Your controls aren’t quite fine-tuned and you crash a lot. You’re given a couple tools: a camera drone and a radio of sorts to look for different signals.

Using this radio, you slowly find your astronaut brethren, who seem in little hurry to get back. Instead, you find them sitting around campfires playing music on primitive banjos, drums, and other instruments. I bet I just lost some of you here.

Soon enough you discover other mysteries. You are not alone. Well, at least you haven’t always been. You find ancient ruins and relics left by a long lost, yet more advanced people, who worked on a mysterious project.

But I forgot a major part of the game: You have 15 minutes before your star goes super nova and destroys your solar system.

Then it happens. You wake up. The game starts over, 15 minutes earlier. This happens again and again and again. Each run you try to learn knew skills, answers to ancient mysteries, and try to solve the biggest question: how can I save my world from it’s catastrophic doom?

You solve puzzles. You learn about the ancient people. You race to accomplish tasks before your painful death.

You wake up. You rush to achieve. You die.

I truly hope you play this game, even though some of the surprise of the game I have already given away. But it was honestly the ending that brought me to tears.

On my final “run” I utilize all my skills and knowledge to complete a complex task and find myself at the end scene. Did I do it? Did I save my world? Am I the hero?

It’s nearing the supernova. I sit around a campfire with the other astronauts as they pull out their instruments. “Are you ready?” they ask? We together play the main theme song as the sun supernovas a final time.

I cried in that moment. And I’ve thought about it many times in the months since playing this game. And it was really hard to put words to why.

Here’s why I think this final scene moved me: I had strived for the wrong things. The goal of the game wasn’t to stop the disaster, but to enjoy the experience together with others.

Simple perhaps. But I think that it speaks to me for a few important reasons. You see, much like the character, I have put incredibly important expectations on my life. Missions and visions that no one gave me—not even God. A purpose to become important. To achieve success. To find wealth or fame. To save the world.

God never asked me to do those things but I all to easily take up the task anyways. And as I try to “save the world” around me, I miss my family. I ignore the joys of my children, or the rich meaningful relationships around me. I can’t sit on a Saturday and enjoy God’s goodness— I hunger and thirst for the next thing. And I miss what’s most important right in front of me.

So here’s my mission today. Play with my kids. Pick up a guitar. Perhaps have a s’more. And enjoy the journey where God has placed me.

Oh, and maybe listen to the dope soundtrack of the game for the thousandth time.

Gone Home : A Tragic Search for Love

 

Proceed at your own risk, spoilers below

 

Recently I finished “Gone Home”–a video game that has been quite the buzz of the industry since its release in 2013. Much of it’s success has been propelled by it’s unconventional subject matter and play style. There are no baddies to shoot, no races to win, no escort missions(whew) no enemies to defeat. Instead, perhaps the closest game that I can relate it to is Myst–an exploration game where you may need to solve puzzles to progress to the next room.

The game is all about the story and your experience in uncovering its secrets–so rather than being an adrenaline driven experience, the game is much more akin to reading a novel or watching a movie.

In the story you play the role of Kaitlin Greenbriar–a recent high school graduate.The year is 1995, and you have just returned home from a year-long backpacking style trip to Europe. While you were away, your family moved to a new house. But when you walk through the front door, no one is there to greet you. Rather, the house is mysteriously empty.

the siren call of fame

This week I traveled to a Catalyst One Day Conference hosted at Willow Creek Church in the Suburbs of Chicago. It was a fantastic day of worship from the North Point Band and teachings from Pastor Andy Stanley of North Point Church and Pastor Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv. I was impressed with their courage to tell us to care for our families and focus on the big pictures of our ministry rather than the mundane.

But, there’s a greater lesson that I need to learn. It’s a lesson that  I have been failing at for about as long as I can remember. What’s that lesson?

my heart is tempted by fame

Whenever I tour a multimillion dollar church, or listen to a published and world-renowned leader, my heart aches to be like them, to work with them, or to be noticed by them. When I was rounding third base on my seminary degree last year– I applied for jobs at mega churches, I tried to self promote myself via blogs and published articles, and I was magnetically attracted to anyone that seemed to have a one way ticket to stardom.

But, God clearly brought me somewhere else. He undeniably chose me to join a church in a small, midwestern town. And while I may not be here forever, I feel like I need to act like I might be.

One of the chronic diseases of my millennial generation is to take a short cut to success–to become someone who everyone recognizes and someone who everyone wants to be with. Our hearts ache to be movie stars, but God’s plan for world change looks a little different.

It looks like a simple carpenter who loved the unloveable. It looks like a God who partners with you and me to reach our friends, family, and neighbors. Guys like Andy and Craig, God bless them and may they keep doing what God has gifted them to do–because God didn’t chose them to be the pastor of my flock.