What are you to do if you’re anime fan, gamer, or Dungeon and Dragons player who wants to find your place in church but has never felt comfortable in church culture? What if at best, you’ve always felt a little left out—and at worst, have been bullied or even witnessed your passions called out from the pulpit? While not all churches offer a welcoming environment for nerds, many have finally come around to the need for congregations to love this group better. And a few brave churches and leaders have gone even a step further.
Checkpoint Church is a community fully in the digital space with a mission of ministering to “all people – especially nerds, geeks, and gamers.” It’s led by Rev. Nathan Webb, an ordained provisional elder in the United Methodist Church in the Western North Carolina Conference—and notably, a huge manga fan.
I chatted with Nathan about his ministry and his passion for manga. Here’s the discussion in its entirety:
Twwk: Pastor Nate, thank you for setting some time aside to join me for this interview!
Nathan: Thank you for having me—I’m always glad to be able to speak to this part of myself.
Twwk: I think I first became aware of you through Checkpoint Church, which you pastor. It’s a community specifically developed for “nerds, geeks, and gamers.” Can you tell us the story of how Checkpoint Church came into being?
Nathan: Sure. Checkpoint was a vision that I had as I wrapped my time in seminary. As a pastor’s kid, I grew up in the church. I wasn’t one of the rebellious PKs; I absolutely loved going to church. As I got older, I began to notice there was a disparity between my friend groups inside and outside of church. I was developing good friendships at church. I was developing even better friendships with my friends who played video games, watched anime, and loved geeking out. I always felt like it was some localized phenomenon, like I was the only one who couldn’t get my nerdy friends into a church or vice versa. In college, I ‘left’ my home church and went out into the big adult world. I made fast friends but discovered that the phenomenon wasn’t localized at all… nerds simply never felt welcome in the church.
Due to this, I spent my time in seminary focused on how best to reach the nerds, geeks, and gamers. I approached my denominational leaders in my final semester. I pitched the idea to them, expecting them to say we could try it after I got some experience under my belt. To my surprise, they were all on board, and we started immediately. Due to it being right amid a pandemic, we had to pivot to a digital-first church before our conception, but we pivoted well, and it’s been history since then.
Twwk: That’s awesome how that all came together! How does Checkpoint serve the nerd audience that you’ve developed this heart for? What does it do differently than other churches, and what have you learned from being the pastor of a “digital church”?
Nathan: We were unapologetically seeking to build a church from Day One. Many of my peers have been focused on building communities. That’s incredible work and needs to be done. But we wanted to put our attention to a true vision of the church online. We began with evangelism, as any new church start must, and chose Twitch as the platform by which we would reach new people. This could be done by an instance of ministry online.
Our next step was essential for our formation as a church—we began to craft our digital church building. We use Discord, but we use it differently than a usual server. Our server is active 24/7, with spaces emulating and innovating upon a physical church building. Think of any room at your local church—we tried to create that. We have a space for worship, a space for prayer, a space of community, a space for casual conversations…we tried to do everything in our capacity to create an authentic experience of church online. We had to make many differences and adaptations along the way to authentically do this in a way that made sense to our building congregation. For instance, we don’t have a familiar-looking worship service. We have multiple chances to experience things that feel that way, however. Our sermons are posted asynchronously and in a video essay format on YouTube. We observe the sacrament of communion via a subscription box (it’s free—we aren’t trying to recreate THAT era of the church 😉 ) and Discord gatherings to celebrate them. We host a myriad of streams throughout the week just to be together. We have a prayer-request channel where I feel more in tune with the church than I’ve served before. The toughest part of this is balancing what is *needed* for church and what *makes sense* for our expression of it.
Twwk: That’s fascinating how you’ve crafted your church environment. And of course, the people make the community that fills it. As a nerd yourself, you’re posited perfectly into the role of a pastor to them. But I was surprised to discover from our mutual friend Bubba Stallcup of Love Thy Nerd—and which you go into detail more on the NCMU podcast—that perhaps your biggest nerd passion is manga! How did you get into obsession?
Nathan: I’ll never forget it—I mentioned earlier I wasn’t a rebellious Pastor’s Kid, but that isn’t exactly true. My rebellious streak would occur in watching shows I wasn’t supposed to watch. And I’m not talking about South Park… I would wait until my parents went to bed, tune into Adult Swim, and watch seinen anime. My most memorable first anime was Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), and I recall being traumatized for weeks by the episode where Lust’s significant other’s village turns to wood-people or something. I was scarred. But I was *hooked*. I would eat up everything that I could anime-wise.
One day, while getting groceries with my mom, I discovered the subscription magazine Shonen Jump in the magazine section. I begged my mom to let me buy it and then begged again for the subscription. I would continue absorbing as much of that as possible every waking moment. I would use all of my birthday money on manga at Barnes & Noble. I would re-read Shonen Jump volumes. I would play the games—even though some were so awful. I just craved the stories, art, and characters. I’m still subbed to Viz Media and Shonen Jump digitally, but my heart will forever be broken from when the paper subscription wrapped up.
Twwk: I have subscriptions, too, but you’re right—nothing quite like the paper copies in your hands! What were some of the most formative manga series for you, whether out of Shonen Jump or elsewhere?
Nathan: Any of the Shonen Jump roster was hugely influential to me growing up. Yu Yu Hakusho, Dragon Ball Z, Shaman King, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Naruto are the mainstays from my era. Obviously, Fullmetal Alchemist was mentioned above, but the manga remains superior to me. Black Cat was one of the sleeper manga I collected fully. Fun fact: I wrote a trilogy of books as a kid (they are terrible, but the word count is very impressive), and most of the themes and fights are straight rip-offs of whatever manga I particularly enjoyed at the time.
Twwk: That’s awesome! I feel the achievement. All I wrote was relatively short fan fic pieces, so good for you! And returning to your experience growing up on manga, what would you tell someone who is wondering if it’s okay as a Christian to read it or watch anime? How about a parent who is concerned about their child reading manga?
Nathan: A video on our Checkpoint Church YouTube Channel called “Can Christians Watch Anime?” covers much of what I will say in greater detail. I am of the persuasion that people of faith have gotten a bit lazy on the art of holy discernment. We’ve lost our ability to tell and consume stories properly. At my core, I affirm the Imago Dei—we are all image bearers of God. And I believe that we see time and again a Creator God. By extension, it is a part of our Imago Dei that we are also creators. We are creative beings echoing the story of the greatest Creator. This shouldn’t be controversial.
I take it a step further than most because I believe the act itself is divine—whether by intention or not. Manga, anime, whatever—if it’s art, it is divine. It can be corrupted, sure. But it is lazy for Christians to assume that something is NOT divine just by hearsay. I have been compelled deeper into my relationship with God mostly through anime, video games, comic books, and manga. Their stories are the echoes of the gospel that drive my intimate connection with God.
All that being said, I feel a similar way about parenting. As a parent, I celebrate the fact that I can connect with my children through media more than ever before. It is simply beyond easy to find a review online of some trending anime, manga, or game. A simple Google search lets me know if it’s appropriate. I can also consume it for myself first, but I acknowledge that kind of time can be a privilege. However, a few minutes of research is not a privilege, and it would behoove any parent to devote a bit of time to research instead of throwing something out entirely without proper discernment. As a kid who read and watched things above my pay grade, I have been made better by them and the conversations I had around them. I can only imagine my faith being further strengthened if my parent had engaged them alongside me.
Twwk: Amen! We’re right with you. There’s so much to be gained by participating in that creative part of our being, imbued in us by God, and as parents help our children participate in it, too, using our wisdom and discernment in helping them explore ways to grow through media. Speaking of relationships, I want to turn back toward your personal community. What are some of the things you like best about being a digital community? What challenges have you faced?
Nathan: It’s hard to really describe the value of being seen. Since Checkpoint began forming, there is a sense of being known—really known—that I have trouble putting into words. I spent years trying to find people who cared about what I loved. I had trouble even finding folks who spoke the same colloquial language. I saw the camaraderie of the convention experience and realized that there was something there. Checkpoint is my best attempt at recreating the close nature of the convention scene, but then made 24/7. I often note that Checkpoint is a neo-monastic community. What I mean by this is that they are active around the clock and live together for all intents and purposes. It’s the most connected I’ve ever felt to a church, and that’s really saying something for my fellow Pastor Kids, who know how much time we had to spend in the building growing up.
The biggest challenge has been from the outside forces consistently judging us—and I’m referring to the Church here. Christians have consistently come after our congregation for not meeting their expectations of what church is supposed to be. I’ll never get accustomed to how many Christians try to eat their own. It is also challenging to get past the “consumer” mindset, which is pretty well seated into the Internet culture. People come to us expecting MrBeast and are surprised that we aren’t an influencer culture. Trying to do something intentionally different is risky and defies the culture the Internet wants to create, but it’s all the more vital because of that.
Twwk: That definitely speaks to me, too, for what we do here on Beneath the Tangles—both the joys and challenges. Leaning into the former a bit, though, let’s end on a joyous final note! What’s a manga you’ve enjoyed recently and what are three manga you would recommend to our readers?
Nathan: I am currently enjoying Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. Three recommendations: 1) Tokyo Revengers is one of my newest favorites. 2) Erased is a timeless classic I recommend to anyone. 3) Goodbye, Eri is another new one and is honestly better than Chainsaw Man (from the same mangaka).
Twwk: Solid picks! Thanks for the time and for sharing your hear with us, Pastor Nathan!
Go check out what Pastor Nathan is doing through Checkpoint Church and all the platforms through which the church dooes ministry and life, and also the many things he’s working on through his personal accounts as well.
