Gamechurch is seizing opportunities to reach the gaming community
On a hot July afternoon, young people in bright wigs and elaborately hand-sewn costumes filled the Los Angeles Convention Center. For one weekend, Japanese anime characters came to life as 60,000 participants at the annual Anime Expo primped and posed as characters they had painstakingly recreated.
Outside the center, bright yellow signs bobbed with the messages “The Wages of Sin Is Death” and “Eternal Life in Jesus” as a Hispanic man shouted into a loudspeaker. Most people passed by without a glance, as one man wearing a T-shirt with the image of a marijuana leaf held up his own homemade sign that read “God is a LIE.” Inside, though, anime devotees crowded around a booth with a blown-up image of Jesus holding an Xbox controller.
That Gamechurch booth, sandwiched between others selling Pokemon toys and big-eyed anime posters, featured volunteers telling each passerby that Jesus loves them just...
