REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — At a recent board meeting, pastor Darrell Smith of Trinity Fellowship put a video game controller in each member's hands. Soon the 12 men were clobbering each other on an oversized TV screen as they played Altar Egos: Rumble in the Pew, the latest church staff craze.
"I haven't felt this good about church in years," said one board member, smiling and sweating.
Video game maker Electronic Arts created Altar Egos to test the market for Christian video games. The game, which EA describes as "Grand Theft Auto without the graphic violence and sex, and set in a church building," is not yet available in stores but was sent to hundreds of churches across the U.S. where it has become an instant obsession.
"It's a guilty pleasure," says a pastor in Appleton, Wisc., who plays with his staff as weekly therapy, but keeps the game a secret from his congregation. "It keeps tempers down around here. You seek out the person you're annoyed with and whack them. They say, 'Your sermon stunk,' and they hit me with a mic stand. And I say, 'Oh yeah? Well worship was lousy,' and bonk them over the head with a family-size Bible. Then we put down the controllers, go back to work and everything's fine."
Altar Egos does have a point: to find the hidden church check book and clear the pastor's office of all other players. But most people just enjoy the rumble.
"I like ripping up the hymnals. I don't know why," says one executive pastor who asked not to be identified.
Matches often get ugly as virtual staff meetings and Sunday services go badly wrong, with people hurling folding chairs and offering plates at each other, and yelling Bible-inspired insults ("I'm gonna lay you waste, snake." Whack!). (Bob - reminiscent of some ugly business meetings I've attended).
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