October - 2021

Nerd Pastor Nate

Oct 29, 2021
8 min

Can Christians Celebrate Halloween?

Bit of a different one since today is the spookiest day of spooky season. Rather than focusing on a show, graphic novel or video game… I want to talk about Halloween in general. Can Christians celebrate Halloween? It’s a season that has become culturally synonymous with cosplay, horror flicks, and warning people about folks hiding the Legend of Zelda water temple in the candy they are giving out that night. But what do we actually believe about the holiday and how should we c

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Checkpoint Church

Oct 29, 2021
1 min

Featured: Path1's Bright Spot

Checkpoint Church was featured in the first ever Path1 Bright Spot newsletter. Support from the ministries of the United Methodist Church are incredibly important for our community. We are so thankful for our connection!

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Nerds of Pray: InnRoads Ministries, Bard & Bible TTRPG Pastor Mike Perna (1.5)

Checkpoint Church

Oct 28, 2021
52 min

Nerds of Pray: InnRoads Ministries, Bard & Bible TTRPG Pastor Mike Perna (1.5)

Nerds of Pray is the podcast where Nerd Pastor Nathan Webb of Checkpoint Church sits down with some of the leading people in the realm of Nerd/Pop Culture Ministry. He asks them questions about their specific venture into the ministry, as well as what first led them to the intersection of faith and fandom. In this episode, Nathan sits down with Mike Perna, the founder of InnRoads Ministries and host of Bard & Bible, a podcast devotional from a mythical tavern. Support Mike Pe

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Nerd Pastor Nate

Oct 27, 2021
2 min

Absolutely Nothing

In the immortal words of Uncle Ben: with great power comes great responsibility. Given the boom of growth we've seen in Checkpoint in the past few weeks, I would suggest that this iconic phrase could also be interpreted as: with great attention comes great expectation. Most new folks are either A) curious and want to join in on the fun or B) inspired and want to learn how to do this in their own communities. I'm flattered, honored, and inspired by both of these groups. There

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Featured: Digital Church Roundtable on WNCC's Means of Grace

Checkpoint Church

Oct 26, 2021
1 min

Featured: Digital Church Roundtable on WNCC's Means of Grace

Nerd Pastor Nate was invited to be a guest on the Means of Grace podcast from the Western North Carolina Conference. The podcast features a roundtable discussion led by Director of Church Development Rob Hutchinson and two other innovative digital ministry thinkers. Listen Here: Highlights of the conversation include some examples of a digital discipleship pathway for online churches and members of these communities that have been directly impacted. Enjoy the podcast and supp

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Featured: More Midnight Mass Musing for Rethink Church

Checkpoint Church

Oct 25, 2021
1 min

Featured: More Midnight Mass Musing for Rethink Church

Nerd Pastor Nate is a featured writer for Rethink Church writing on gaming, anime, and other pop culture topics. In this post, he discusses the hit new horror series Midnight Mass. Here's a highlight: "Is Monsignor Pruitt wrong? As a theologian, I disagree with his actions. Mixing any other blood with Jesus’ blood in the sacrament is pretty atrocious. But he has discovered the gift of eternal life. As a shepherd to his congregation, he then brings that gift back to his people

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Is Midnight Mass an Accurate Representation of the Church?

Nerd Pastor Nate

Oct 24, 2021
7 min

Is Midnight Mass an Accurate Representation of the Church?

Tv shows, movies, comics, games - pretty much every form of media leans towards the same two main antagonists. Either it’s the big wig mysterious military government OR it’s the church. As a pastor, it’s hard to not squirm in my seats every time the church is the villain in a show, but Midnight Mass is a bit different. To be honest - it’s a genuinely good interpretation of the church. But how do the themes of the church in Midnight Mass and the true church of Jesus Christ in

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Nerd Pastor Nate

Oct 20, 2021
2 min

The Next Right Step

Before we get too far, I want to welcome all of the new subscribers to our newsletter and members to our Discord, Twitch, and YouTube family. We have been featured in quite a few random places (notably by the UM News service). This new wave will no doubt enter with questions about where to get started in this community. It gives me great joy to inform the first-timers that, while it's far from mandatory, we now have a path for you to take to get plugged in here at Checkpoint.

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Checkpoint Church

Oct 18, 2021
1 min

Featured: Checkpoint on UM News

Checkpoint Church was recently featured in an article written by Aaron Cross on the United Methodist News website. Read the full article below or on their website.

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Why Jesus Achieves What The Squid Game Can't

Nerd Pastor Nate

Oct 17, 2021
10 min

Why Jesus Achieves What The Squid Game Can't

Watch this Nerdy Devotional Here: Squid Game seems to be taking the world by storm this past month and that’s great. I’m thrilled to see all of these new folks being brought into the fold of the death game genre - which is my personal bread and butter. But I have two issues with this show - number one: these stupid cookies are impossible to make. This was attempt #3. And second - couldn’t we have had a regular Christian to show the other end of the spectrum and how even WE wo

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Nerd Pastor Nate

Oct 13, 2021
2 min

The Point of Growth

Just in case you didn't hear me shouting from the rooftops last week - Checkpoint Church officially reaching 100 members in our Discord community. For our mission, we define Discord as being our digital church building. If Twitch is the coffee shop where we meet new people, Discord is where we invite those people to get to know us better. If we were a chartered church utilizing traditional terminology, they would be our 'membership.' There are Discord servers out there with u

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Nerd Pastor Nate

Oct 12, 2021
3 min

Nerd of Mouth: Issue 5

What does it mean to do nerd ministry? This is the question I am almost constantly asking. It is being more and more widely done nowadays. Some do it better. Others do it worse. Almost everyone does it pretty differently. I personally find myself trying to whittle down my focus as often as possible for maximum reach - Twitch, Discord, YouTube. But that is far from the end - creation is king and it always helps to be in pursuit of other avenues. We will have highlighted 25 ner

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Nerd Pastor Nate

Oct 10, 2021
10 min

Is Kris in Control in Deltarune?

Watch this Nerdy Devotional Here: You don’t need to be in a room with me for long to learn that I am *that* Undertale fan - I will rant and rave about the game to literally anyone who will listen (and most who won’t.) After dropping Deltarune Chapter 1 outta nowhere in 2018, game dev Toby Fox did it again with Deltarune Chapter 2 on September 15th. In some ways, this entry into the Undertale universe is more warm and welcoming… but in other ways it’s even more haunting than t

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Nerds of Pray: Hoot & Howl, Geeky Christian Twitter, Thy Geekdom Come Blogger Shaneen Thompson (1.4)

Checkpoint Church

Oct 7, 2021
28 min

Nerds of Pray: Hoot & Howl, Geeky Christian Twitter, Thy Geekdom Come Blogger Shaneen Thompson (1.4)

Watch Episode 4: Or Subscribe to Our Podcast: RAW TRANSCRIPT (From Scribie): 0:00:00.2 S1: And I was feeling a little bit lost. I wanted to get back to that writing, I guess... Just find a purpose for my life, and I was like, I should start a blog. And then I thought about it for a second, I was like, I could start a blog. 0:00:15.2 S2: Welcome to the nerds to pray. We are bridging the gap between faith and fandom by introducing you to the leading folks on the front lines of

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Nerd Pastor Nate

Oct 6, 2021
2 min

The Bot Heard Round The World

ICYMI the world fell in upon itself this past Monday when Facebook suddenly crashed around 2:00 PM EST and the servers remained offline for hours on end. Some of us flocked to Twitter to scratch our social media itch to be heard. Others experienced a few hours without that addiction. Still more were lamenting their 'walls' not filling with birthday wishes or Messenger groups feeling abandoned. We are a connected world and connection is a good thing. It's not always a great th

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