Happy New Year! It’s here! We are in 2021! The past is behind us, so let’s celebrate a new year that God has given us. Whether 2020 played you like a PlayStation 4 or not, this is a new start. I want to encourage you and remind you that He is with us through every trouble we face. I myself need encouragement everyday because life is hard, in case you haven’t noticed! We were never promised an easy road, but we are promised that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ for us.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39 

Every year I like to make goals for myself, my family, our finances, my career or business ventures, and of course this blog. A few of mine would be wanting to workout more, read more books, spend more time in prayer or reading the bible, and write a whole lot more! There’s books I want to publish, articles I would like to finish, so instead of getting frustrated as to why I am not finishing what I start, I’m taking greater steps this year.

One of the ways I intend to be more accountable and responsible to fulfill my goals is buying a weekly planner. I’m not one to write down everything I’m going to do, because I honestly don’t have the time to do that sometimes, but I want to give it a try. I have written down goals in the past, in fact every year I make a list of them with my wife and we keep track of what we’ve accomplished individually and as a family. This time I want to try this planner, recommended to me from JeanneDArcc from Morning Brew.

Goals For Gaming & God In 2021

I think it’s a good habit to not only look over your past achievements, but also to set new ones and not stay stagnant. Many times we revel in our past accomplishments, and tell the stories of what we did instead of attempting something new. In 2020, Gaming & God saw a lot of changes, and I will list them below in no particular order:

• Added several new writers, which I hesistated to do in the past since I thought it was more complicated than it was. In fact, it’s been a blessing to meet and chat with the recent contributor’s to the blog.
• Added two new columns, What We’re Playing & Sidequest News which is only on it’s first post. I hope to add more in 2021 that you will all enjoy!
• Created an instagram account, and have done one video review so far (and working on several others).
• Dusted off my Twitch account and started streaming more, albeit not a whole lot but more than nothing!
• Raised over $130 during Extralife with Christian Geek Central, which is always fun to do and a blessing to help children locally.
• Became a God Mode Activated affiliate! They are a fantastic group and I highly recommend their DIscord community.

So for 2021, below is a list of goals that I have for this blog. Whether I get them all complete or not is another thing, I just pray that God’s will be done and He would guide me and those who contribute to this blog where it should go. I know there are a lot of Christians out there who love gaming or are curious about it, as is seen in many other groups that I am a part of. Let’s get started!

• Post at least one article a week, hopefully two. It can be a mix of a written post, interview, review, or video review.
• More videos! I enjoyed making the Art of Mana artbook review on Instagram, and I want to do more of those.
• Get more involved with groups like GMA, Beneath The Tangles, and a few other groups I’m part of on Discord.
• Write articles on larger gaming websites to give a Christian point of view on the genre.
• Review more games and conduct interviews with more people involved in the industry, not just Christian gamers.
• Start a Patreon to raise support for the blog, mainly to pay for the WordPress hosting and hire some help to make the website look neater. I’m not a WordPress or HTML expert, so I would want to outsource some of these details. I’ve already done it a few times with my own money, like updating all the main pages on the blog.
• Grow more community. I feel that the blog is lacking that so I would like to find a rhythm and involve those that have liked the various social media pages.

Thank you for reading our coming updates, and I pray that God would be with you all throughout 2021. If I can pray for you, or you just want to chat, let me know.

Here’s to another year, keep on gaming!

-Samuru