Gaming isn’t a distraction from ministry. For Jate Earhart, it is the ministry.
In EP258 of The Church Digital Podcast, host Jeff Reed and co-host Mark Lutz sit down with Jate — a content creator and digital missionary who spends his days livestreaming on Twitch as JateLIVE. Playing video games, praying out loud, planting seeds. Reaching people who will never set foot in a church building. This is what digital missions looks like in the wild.
And it’s working.
Gaming as a Mission Field (Not a Guilty Pleasure)
Let’s kill the assumption right now: gaming is not a lesser calling. Twitch alone has over 140 million unique monthly visitors. Discord servers host millions of conversations every single day. These aren’t people waiting to be reached by a Sunday morning service — they’re people who’ve already decided church isn’t for them.
That’s exactly who Jate is after.
His focus is laser-sharp: the unchurched and those far from God. Not the already-convinced crowd. Not the people who grew up memorizing Bible verses. The ones who think Christians are judgmental, irrelevant, or just plain weird. Jate meets them in their native habitat — mid-game, in chat, on stream — and he shows them something different.
What Digital Missionary Work Actually Looks Like
Here’s the part that surprises people: Jate isn’t running altar calls between rounds of Call of Duty. He’s not slapping Bible verses in the chat every five minutes. He’s being a Christian in a space where Christians rarely show up authentically.
That looks like:
- Praying on stream — out loud, naturally, without making it a performance
- Responding to trolls with grace instead of matching their energy
- Having real conversations in Discord when someone reaches out after watching
- Playing games well and being genuinely fun to watch (credibility matters)
- Planting seeds consistently — not harvesting on demand
This is the long game. Digital missions rarely has a dramatic altar-call moment on a Tuesday night stream. It’s more like what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 3:6 — “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” Jate plants. He trusts God with the harvest.
Why Presence Is the Strategy
A lot of Christians ask how to reach digital natives. The answer Jate’s life demonstrates is almost frustratingly simple: show up and stay.
Consistency builds trust on the internet faster than almost anything else. When your community sees you stream week after week, handle hard moments with integrity, laugh genuinely, and pray without shame — they start asking questions. Not because you launched a campaign, but because they got curious about who you are.
This is incarnational ministry translated for digital spaces. You can’t parachute in, drop a gospel tract in the chat, and leave. You have to live there — building real relationships with real people who have real skepticism about faith.
Practical Steps for Aspiring Gaming Digital Missionaries
If Jate’s story is lighting something up in you, here’s how to start:
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Pick your platform. Twitch is great for live interaction. YouTube works for longer-form content. Discord builds community between streams. You don’t need all three on day one — pick one and commit.
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Define your audience. Jate is specifically focused on the unchurched and those far from God. Know who you’re called to. That clarity shapes everything from your content to your tone.
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Be yourself, not a Christian caricature. People can smell inauthenticity instantly online. Play games you actually enjoy. Have a personality. Don’t perform holiness — live it.
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Integrate faith naturally. Pray on stream when it’s genuine. Share what God’s been doing when it’s real. Let your worldview show through how you treat people, not just what you say.
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Build a Discord. This is where the real ministry happens. The stream is the front door. Discord is the living room where actual community forms.
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Think in seasons, not viral moments. Six months of consistent presence will do more than one perfectly-crafted evangelism moment. Trust the process.
The Church Needs More Jates
The unchurched aren’t going to find their way to a pew. But they might stumble into a Twitch stream. They might join a Discord. They might, after weeks of watching someone pray out loud without embarrassment, finally ask — “Hey, can we talk about God?”
That’s the door Jate keeps his foot in. And it’s a door the church largely hasn’t walked through yet.
Digital missions isn’t coming. It’s already here. The question is whether you’ll show up.
Ready to dive deeper? Listen to the full conversation with Jate on EP258 of The Church Digital Podcast — available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Then follow Jate on Twitch at JateLIVE and join his Discord community to see digital missionary work in action.
