Kiran Skariah: Episode Description

On this episode of The Inspiration Project, Brendan Corr talks to Reverend Kiran Skariah (also known as PastorSKAR) about his ministry witnessing to the online gaming community, why Kiran started his online gaming ministry, whether there is a typical gamer he’s trying to reach, how to establish a connection with a young person online, how he’s been able to spread the gospel to a unique community of about 100,000, and whether Kiran sees himself as a pastor or missionary.

Episode Summary

• Starting SKAR ministries to the online gaming community
• How to reach 3.2 billion gamers with the gospel
• Whether there is a typical gamer or a broad community he’s trying to reach
• How to establish a connection with a young person online
• Are there any boundaries with online gaming and sharing the gospel
• Whether Kiran sees himself as a pastor or missionary
• Why Kiran wants to reach the gaming community specifically

Kiran Skariah: Episode Transcript

Sponsor Announcement
This podcast is sponsored by Australian Christian College, a network of schools committed to student wellbeing, character development, and academic improvement.

Introduction
Welcome to The Inspiration Project, where well-known Christians share their stories to inspire young people in their faith and life. Here’s your host, Brendan Corr.

Brendan Corr
Hi there everybody, welcome to another edition of The Inspiration Project, the podcast where we get a chance to talk with people of significance who’ve been able to combine their interests and their talents with their faith into the creation of a career. Really looking forward to a conversation with the Reverend Kiran Skariah, also known as Pastor Skar, who is a minister with a passion to see the next generation be all that they can be. Kiran’s based in Sydney, and graduating from William Carey Christian School. Studied his theology at Moore Theological College. And after serving as youth pastor at his local church, realised that there was an opportunity to develop an online space where honest faith conversations could be held and people could be their genuine selves, asking questions and connecting in ways previously not possible. After exploring some of those issues with live streaming, Kiran joined the largest streaming platform, Twitch.tv, where he’s dedicated himself to creating a free and accepting family-friendly online community, open to gamers and non-gamers who can share their interests and their passions and ask the deep questions of life. This has led to the creation of Skar Ministries that are operating out of Kiran and his family’s home and has become a registered not-for-profit organisation with a lot of support from various parts of the broader Christian community. Kiran, it’s lovely to welcome you. In our pre-recorded conversation, I admitted my naivety in this sort of space. So I’m really looking forward to learning a bit about what’s the gamer world, how does it work, what are the points of interest, what are the points of difference, and finding out a little bit about how you found yourself in this rather unique channel of ministry. Welcome.

Kiran Skariah
Thank you so much for having me. It’s an absolute pleasure. And a super minor clarification point, I didn’t actually graduate from Moore Theological College, I graduated from Morling Theological College. It’s the other one. But it’s all good, though.

Brendan Corr
Yeah, good for transparency. I got that. Backtracking my notes, you’re exactly right. That is actually Morling. So online gaming, is your ministry targeted to the gaming world? Or in that little brief bio, we mentioned gamers and non-gamers, is there a difference in that community?

Kiran Skariah
Absolutely. I mean, the number of gamers in the world is an astronomical number, one that if you haven’t looked into it or heard someone like me talk about it, you probably wouldn’t realise because they’re not a group that you can just drive past and see like you see the skate park kids at the skate park or the basketball players at the basketball court. Because instead, they are in their homes, they’re in other spaces. But you might be surprised to know that there are over 3.2 billion active gamers worldwide, and the entire world’s population is about 7.9 billion. So that number is huge. And so for me, my heart and desire, and the reason why I created this ministry, originally this isn’t what I was planning on doing or what I was going to be. And gaming was a side hobby that I would do when I would get home from work. I worked full-time at my local church. I was associate pastor there for eight years on staff and was leading a variety of things in the church, but young people and the next generation were always my passion. And it was only when I realised how many gamers there were in the world that it made me stop and go, wait a minute. If that’s the case, if that really is such a huge people group, how many churches, organisations, and ministries do I know, back in 2018, that are intentionally trying to reach that people group? And I couldn’t think of one. We weren’t one, and I didn’t know of any. And so in that sense, the pastoral heart in me broke and I thought, something has to happen here. I’ve been a gamer my whole life, but I’ve never thought about this group of people as one that needs reaching for Jesus, need support, and need help. In the same way that I had been doing at the skate park and at the basketball court, who is doing that in the online spaces? And so for me, that was the start of just listening to God’s calling in my life and recognising that the call to a life of youth ministry wasn’t necessarily just through working at a church as a youth pastor and the traditional route, but instead, there’s actually almost this hidden group of people that need this all the same, but don’t have access otherwise. So that’s kind of what led me a little bit down that road.

Brendan Corr
I can hear your passion and your pastoral inclination. I’d be interested to know what attracted you yourself as an individual to that world, that community, that type of activity. But that 3.2 billion is a startling number. I would never have guessed something of that magnitude.

Kiran Skariah
And it’s increasing at a phenomenal rate because internet speeds are getting quicker, technology is getting cheaper, and the internet is more accessible and available in countries around the world than it wasn’t before, at speeds that weren’t possible before. And so because of that, the accessibility that gaming has is huge. Whether it’s someone sitting on their train on the way to work who’s playing a mobile game, or whether it’s someone who’s just bought a new PlayStation 5 console for Christmas, and they’re starting to unbox that now, the world of gamers is vast and varied and has varying age groups and varying demographics within itself. So it’s a huge people group. And to answer your question about what got me into it, I’m one of them. I’ve been a gamer my whole life. And so it’s just one of those things that were naturally there, I just never saw it as a ministry mode.

Brendan Corr
Well, let me probe a little bit further because I was interested in that 3.2 billion to try and figure out, obviously part of your interest in that space was your orientation towards serving the next generation, youth. But 3.2 billion, that can’t all be young people. There must be quite diverse demographics, diverse age ranges, backgrounds, cultures, social strata, and people involved in gaming. Can you give us a little bit of a picture as to whether is there a typical gamer or is that just too broad a category?

Kiran Skariah
Fantastic question. And when I got into this, I thought what I was doing was almost an online youth group kind of mode. I was very wrong. That’s what I anticipated because I thought, yeah, young people, they’re the ones that game, right? Then I started realising, hold on, I’m not the youngest that I’ve ever been and I am still in this world. And I have friends that are older than I am and they’re still in this world. And when you look it up, you realise that the average age of a gamer around the world is mid-thirties. They’re not teenagers, they’re not young people per se, they’re in their mid-thirties. I know of, in our community alone, grandparents who are regular attendees of the stream, who are people that are involved in various ways in gaming because it’s their way to connect with their family, and it is just a helpful mode and an outlet for them, right through to young people. So it’s vast and varied, and it spans across any social ladder if you will. There are people who are wealthy, there are people who aren’t. There are males and females. You name it. When you get a cross-section of the community, there are 3.2 billion, you can only anticipate what that entails. And everything is the answer.

Brendan Corr
Yeah. That’s pretty wild when you start to consider that, but you’re exactly right. I’m from an older age bracket than yourself, principal of a school, but I know that there are people that are my peers who are interested in gaming and involved. Another question that’s come to my mind as I was thinking about this conversation with you, Kiran, was, again, this might be the naivety of my limited experience in the world, but it seems to me that people become quite committed to a particular game, a particular type of format: Fortnite, Call of Duty, whatever it might be. The 3.2 billion collective gamers, how much interplay and how much cross-connection is there between the Call of Duty devotees and the Fortnite experts, and how does that happen across those boundaries?

Kiran Skariah
Yeah, so it’s very spread. It’s vast and varied. There’ll be some people that will live and breathe a particular game and be so well-versed in that game that they’ll understand the law, the culture, and everything around it. They’ll know information about the game that you wouldn’t even dream of if you just played the game, but will have absolutely zero interest, and could not care less about another game. Because again, it’s like anything else in life, movies, music, whatever. There’ll be people that love a certain genre of music but hate another, or just won’t listen to it, but are very passionate about what they do. It’s the same thing here in the gaming space. The games that you just mentioned, Call of Duty and Fortnite, are two very popular games, with very different audiences, very different demographics within those games, and different things like that. So yeah, there’s a lot of variety for sure.

Brendan Corr
Well, without inviting you to disclose too much, where are your special interests, and what was the pathway from your youthfulness into now mature adult life still involved in gaming? What are the things that attracted you to it?

Kiran Skariah
Yeah, so for me, it served as a variety of things. Gaming for me has evolved from being a child and growing up as a teenager we had in our household a PlayStation 1, then 2, then 3, then 4 as I was growing up. And that was just a regular part of life. It served as, one, a chance for me to just unwind and just relax a bit, switch off from the real world if you will, but just to get my creativity out there and allow my brain to do some pretty cool things and create some cool things. So there was that element. But there was also a factor of needing a sense of community and playing games where I was able to actually engage in conversation with people and that kind of thing. And recognising that actually, even though I might not be able to go and see that friend from school right now if we both jump on the same game at the same time, we can play that together. And although my mum and dad might not drive me to their house this afternoon, I can still talk to them and have a full conversation with them. We’ll just do it with our headsets on instead. And so it’s that new social world that it opens you up to. And that was way back then, 10, 20 years ago. But fast forward to now and the space that gaming plays is similar in a sense. I catch up with friends online and do that kind of thing, but also just allow myself that downtime. I remember when this ministry first was created, it came from me getting home from work, being at church, and working full-time at church, after a really heavy day of pastoral care. And the issues that we had been talking about were really weighty, and I was like, I just need to mentally switch off. So turning on the PlayStation for me allowed me to do that in a really helpful way in that mode. And it just let me put that aside and then come back to it when I needed to, but do that in moderation. Also, I found with my wife, when we first got married, in the first year of marriage, she had to work interstate for a while. So what ended up happening is the Airbnb she was at had a PlayStation and at home, we had a PlayStation. So we both bought a copy of the same game. She took it with her to the Airbnb, and we would have date night digitally where we’re both playing Call of Duty together with a headset on and a plate of food in front of us, and were able to do that as a point of connection. So yeah, there are many modes that gaming has taken over the years and they’ll all probably continue to change.

Brendan Corr
I think that’s a profound change that has occurred, isn’t it? It is so much now not just sitting in your lounge room, interacting with your screen. Gaming, that’s not really what we’re talking about. It is this boundaryless connection that you have that allows for real-time interactions with people that you know, people that you don’t know, in a common area of interest, or in a common activity.

Kiran Skariah
Yeah. And I think the real-time component that you just mentioned is such a key piece because for us, for the ministry that I now lead, we are there specifically to love and cater to the gamers of the world, to help them to know Jesus and experience faith community, maybe even for the first time, maybe even in places where they’ve never even heard that name before of Jesus. And so being in those spaces in real-time and having systems in place so that even while I’m fast asleep, someone else from our team can see a message that gets posted in our little chat board, if you will, an app called Discord that we use where people can post prayer requests at all times of the day. And we can have a community of strangers from all around the world praying for these things with full anonymity is a really powerful thing and a really beautiful thing because God knows exactly who that is that has the need. So we are there to be praying into those things and making that happen. And so yeah, we’ve seen some really powerful things just from being available and accessible, not just on a Friday night for two hours like I was doing at youth group, but instead in a mode that says, hey, every day at any point in time, there are ways that we can still support each other and minister to one another.

Brendan Corr
Yeah, that’s great. I want to circle back and find when was it and how was it that ministry and the call of Jesus came to you to be a disciple that ultimately led you to carry his work into this online space? Let me wrestle with some of the mechanics again, for my own sake. What I’m understanding is that this ministry that you have, Skar Ministries, to the online gaming community, it’s not rooted and it’s not dependent, it’s not associated with any particular gaming format or any particular manifestation. It’s a separate thing that runs parallel to or undergirds people’s involvement and interest in what is their specific dedicated game communities. This is a meta community?

Kiran Skariah
Yeah. So essentially, I guess the easiest way for me to explain in a really simplistic sense of what we do is if you visualise your standard, say, church youth group, there’s a part of the night where you might run around and play soccer. There’s another part of the night where you might have a worship time or a prayer time or a sermon and all those kinds of things. What we’ve done is we’ve taken that model and said, how do we digitise that to make it accessible so that even the kid who can’t attend the youth group because they live on the other side of the planet and have COVID or are bedridden or have social anxiety, or maybe they live right next door to the church, but they wouldn’t dare step foot in it because of the judgement that could come from that in their mind. But instead, what if we just make it super accessible, super easy for anyone to just click a link, and there they are, they’re now a part of it? And so we do exactly that. So at some points in the live stream, we’ll be playing video games. And you might think, well, hold on. How do you talk about Jesus? How do you read from the Bible while playing video games? And it’s very simple. At a standard youth group, when you’re playing that game of soccer, you could ask, well, hold on. How do you read the Bible while you’re playing soccer? It’s like, well, in that exact second, you might not be holding a Bible while kicking a goal. You’re just kicking a goal and connecting with the young people in the youth group. But after that game of soccer, you move inside for sermon time. We do the same basic premise. We will play games together and hang out together and do messy food challenges. And this room was a big old mess the other day because we were all letting off party poppers because of a birthday celebration. It was a lot of fun. But then after that, we go, all right, now we’re going to transition into a mode that we call real talk, which is essentially our sermon segment, where we go, all right, controller down, mouse and keyboard away. Let’s just talk about faith and about life and about what God is teaching us. Let’s open up God’s word together. Let’s do that. So if you zoom in too far, you might miss part of the nuance of what’s going on, but if you zoom out to see the bigger picture, you go, actually, this is embedded all throughout what we do. And therefore we have these faith conversations all throughout the stream where the community knows that they can be prayed for and all the rest of it. And that’s kind of how it functions. In fact, if you like, I can even show you what it looks like just a little bit because I am in the stream room right now. If I click a little button in front of me, I can transition across and…

Brendan Corr
Okay, now is this going to expect me to engage in a game with you?

Kiran Skariah
Absolutely not. This is just going to show you some bright lights and colours and give a little bit of a sense of what it feels like to the viewer at the time. So if I click on this button, you’ll see a little transition, and boom, here I am. Now I’m little, so let’s just zoom in on the camera. There we go. Perfect. And now we have Spider-Man over here with a little doggo on its back, which I can make Spider-Man wave. I could make Spider-Man play scissors, paper, and rock if I wanted to. Or we could just make him hang upside down, and don’t ask me how the dog isn’t falling out. It defies gravity, but that’s okay. And this is part of the fun. And so at this point, there would be music pumping. There would be laughter in the chat. We would have a live chat operating at all times so that while this game is happening, it’s not a one-sided thing. It’s not like a YouTube video where they’re just watching someone play. Instead, it’s completely different because there is a live chat. I have a monitor sitting next to me, a vertical monitor where the whole purpose is just the community, it’s the conversation, it’s the chat. So the entire time the game’s on, I’m glancing that, I’m reading it, we’re dialoguing that together. I’ll just zoom the camera out again. And get to engage in that way. So as the gameplay is going on, where we might be playing with the viewers, with the community, someone will show up in the chat and say, “Hey, could you just pray for me real quick because this thing is going on at home right now.” And we’ll say, “All right, everyone, let’s just take a moment,” and we’ll pause the game if we can, or we’ll hide it in a corner somewhere and we’ll pray for that person. Or we’ll pray for them right after that match. Or we’ll have our team in real-time align to those conversations. So it’s very much a group effort to make this work. But yeah, it’s a beautiful thing.

Brendan Corr
So when you say it’s a group effort, you become sort of the leader or the face of it, or at least the name of the ministry. How many other folks did you get recruited into engaging with this in one of these sessions, these streaming sessions?

Kiran Skariah
Our team consists of about 13 people, a mix of staff and volunteers that are involved actively in what we do, in moderating the live chat, and in helping with a variety of things. We’ve got a safe ministry team that is very important to make sure that everything that we’re doing is above board and reproach. We have a board that we’re accountable to because we are a registered not-for-profit organisation. So there’s a whole bunch of governance pieces in there. We have a general manager who helps with a variety of things in the organisational side of things. And I look after a lot of the content side of things here. But in terms of how many people show up to the streams, last year being 2022, we closed out the year with just under 100,000 unique individuals that we connected with within just one year. Which is unbelievable. We hosted an event at the end of last year. It was our closer event, it was a Fortnite tournament with a cash prize. And we did a real talk like that sermon mode in the tournament right before the grand final to help people hear the gospel in that mode. It was a beautiful event. And we had just over 24,000 unique individual human beings scattered across the globe be a part of this event and tune in for us, some competing, some just watching people and cheering their friends on. But it just goes to show the scope in which this exists. I’m used to a ministry mode where if we had…There were some nights when we had double digits of young people show up, we high-fived each other and cheered. And so we should be, that’s really important that every one of those youth groups exists. But also recognising that there’s an additional, in that one event, 24,000 people that are sitting at home right now that wouldn’t otherwise have that, that now have that, because we’ve decided to meet them where they are. And I think that’s really important.

Brendan Corr
So clearly this is a ministry that’s the product of its age, that it wouldn’t have been possible 50 years ago, wouldn’t have been possible 20 years ago, possibly. And it’s the reflection of the changes that have happened in our world and our society. You are making, by all accounts, the best use of some of that technology and some of those connections. Undoubtedly, you must have wrestled with the dark side of that same technology and the notion of the authenticity of connections and relationships and the reality of the other person at the end of the chat. How do you reconcile the notion of you are using it for good and for glory, but knowing that there are other places where it’s not being used so wholesomely?

Kiran Skariah
Yeah. Well, let me tell you, that is part of the driving force to be there, because if we are not, who’s left? If the world is spending time on the internet, and we know that the internet can be a dark, devastating, hurtful, and awful place, if the Christians of the world retreat from it, the world is still engaging in that space, we’ve just left them there alone. And so for me, that’s the call. That’s where it’s like, actually, if we are not doing this, then I’ve seen what else is out there. And there are all kinds of influencers and role models that aren’t people that I personally would want our youth group kids to be influenced by. And so for that reason, I see that and go, there is a need to be in this space and to be unashamed and be active and be in this space with purpose. And not just be a Christian that happens to go live, but instead to be doing this in a way where we are fulfilling that calling, but using the latest technology and digital means to really fulfill the Great Commission. And that’s just so, so important to me. And my heart has always been to help the next generation to know Jesus. And so I feel that we’re able to fulfill that all the more by utilising this space. And like I said, the call is even more important, knowing what else is out there.

Brendan Corr
It’s interesting that you referenced the Great Commission, Kiran. That was the exact thing that was coming to my mind as we were talking about, going to all the world, even the cyber world, going to all those places, and preaching the gospel.

Kiran Skariah
We have over 110 different countries that are now tuning into our live stream. When we go live, people in 110 different countries. In real-time. I don’t mean that they are from those countries and they’ve now all moved to Sydney, Australia, and they all live within the same area and they happen to be here, but I mean they’re breathing that air, they’re eating that food, they’re hearing those voices, they’re smelling those smells in countries that I couldn’t even name, places that I may never ever go to, that are getting to hear the message of Jesus. And getting to do that day after day, week after week for the last five years that we’ve been operating. That’s powerful. And so when I hear the Great Commission now, go and make disciples of all nations, I stop and I go, yeah, my whole life I thought because I went to a really multicultural church that I was making disciples of all nations. And here I’ve now found this ministry mode where without getting the passport and learning the language, and again, that is still really important, that needs to happen. But without doing those things, all of a sudden we’ve managed to cross borders and be in the spaces that God is telling us to be in, in real-time, and to have those conversations. Again, it’s a powerful mode.

Brendan Corr
So what you’re recognising is that the cyber world is a reality. It exists and God’s redemption needs to penetrate that space as much as it does any ghetto or any slum or whatever physical space needs grace. This online world needs the proclamation of grace just as much.

Kiran Skariah
Like it or not, if this is where people are, we are called to be where people are. And clearly, this is where people are. Every major Fortune 500 company out there is leveraging this and tapping into this. And Google owns YouTube, which now is pouring billions of dollars into YouTube Gaming, one of their big spaces, trying to compete with Twitch, which is the live stream platform that I currently stream on, which is owned by Amazon. And then Microsoft had to go, Facebook has Facebook gaming. All these big tech giants are in this space for that key reason. But we’re there, where they are in there to make money, I’m looking at that going, can we be in there to make disciples? Can we flip the script, still be in those spaces that they’ve identified they need to be in, but instead of trying to make a buck off it, what if we go there and try and make an impact, try and make a change, try and see lives changed? Because where people are is where we need to be, and this is where people are.

Brendan Corr
That’s a wonderful commission for you to be fulfilling. Let me ask you, Kiran, in that sort of space, then, with that mindset, do you see yourself as a pastor or as a missionary?

Kiran Skariah
Yeah, it’s a funny question because we’ve gone through so many different modes in this ministry. Because when this ministry started, it was literally I would get home from work. And I still remember the very first time I had a faith conversation with someone because my logic was simple. Either way, I’m having downtime right now, so either way, I’m going to be playing this video game right now. So I might as well just turn on the webcam while I do it and live stream the process. And if someone by chance happens to stumble across this link and says, hi, I’ll try and tell them about my faith. And I’ll do exactly what I would do at the skate park. And that was it. It started from just bare-bones beginnings. There was no massive team, there was no funding, there was no anything. It was literally just me in my bedroom with a PlayStation controller in hand and a dodgy webcam built into a laptop, going, I wonder if we can make an impact. And from there, this ministry has evolved into all kinds of things. And it’s one of those ministries that doesn’t fit in any one box uniquely and overlaps into so many boxes. I’ve had this referred to as a church and a church plant before. I’ve had this referred to as a missions organisation before. I’ve had this referred to as all kinds of things by different people hearing it in different ways and seeing it through different lenses. And in a sense, they’re all true and they all have a sense of honesty about them because it’s just such a new uncharted space. And so for me, I am an ordained reverend with the Baptist Association of New South Wales and ACT. And so I’ve been to bible college, I’ve done that. I’ve got the credentials in that sense. I’ve worked at my local church for, like I said, eight years. Was there full-time as associate pastor and wrapped up that role and launched this. And in the process, we as an organisation have had to go through different modes of figuring out which space we land in. And I think where we’ve settled. Well, actually, really, we’re still figuring out some of this in going, you know what? What we know is that God has called us to be his hands and feet and to be in these digital spaces and make disciples of all nations and in doing so we have a variety of modes of doing that. We have things that are life, like our stream with the gaming. We have things that are not live, like discipleship groups that we host and prayer rooms that we host and connecting people with physical on-the-ground churches and connecting people in with digital churches. And we play this support role for many where we’ll go, hey, you know what? If you’re in a place where we’ve helped you meet Jesus and you now want to go to a church, tell us what city you’re in and we’ll try and find you a church to connect with. And we’ll send them there. Or if for whatever reason, the online mode is the only mode that will work for them, which there are people out there like that, then we’ll look into, all right, well, what are those alternatives? Do we do something in-house as an organisation? Do we host a discipleship group or whatever for you? Or do we connect you with someone who’s already doing that and playing that role? So that’s kind of the space that we as an organisation currently sit in.

Brendan Corr
So, Kiran, in that mode of trying to find what works best for the circumstance, for the person, the aim is an authentic, deep connection, genuine community, and genuine relationship. What’s your view on the depth of connection and the authenticity of a relationship that’s possible in an online space, versus catching up for coffee, meeting in the same place and praying together, do worship in the same place? Is it equivalent? Are there nuanced distinctions?

Kiran Skariah
Yeah, absolutely. There are definitely differences. And there are some things that are harder to do and there are some things that are far easier to do. One thing that I’ve noticed very uniquely in this mode that I had never experienced the same way in the local church context is how quickly people can get very deep and very vulnerable when they know that their reputation isn’t attached to the conversation. And what I mean by that is in the online mode, they have a screen name, no one can see their face, no one can hear their voice, and they can make their name whatever they want. But what that means is that they can deep dive into that faith question they’ve had for the last 30 years that they’ve been too scared to ask someone because they’re actually a deacon at a church or they’re an elder or they’re a senior pastor’s son somewhere, and they know that their reputation is attached to any conversation they have with anyone in their real world. And so in this mode, it allows this really unique rawness and vulnerability, because at the end of the day, we don’t know who they are behind the screen, but we also recognise that there’s only a certain level to which we even need to know. Because at the end of the day, that person has a question about how do I overcome this thing. Let’s speak into the issue and help that person and allow them to get the answer that they need. We had someone who was literally the son of a senior pastor of a megachurch in the US. This is what they told us, and they came in and they said, look, here’s the situation. I’m not going to tell you what church or anything like that, but I’ve been struggling with a pornography addiction for years and no one in my church knows it. And there’s no way I’m talking to the youth leaders about it because they’ll probably tell my dad. And I can’t have that. I’m the golden child if you will. Not their wording, but it was kind of the… I’m the senior pastor’s son. I cannot have that on me, but this is what I’m going through. Can you help? And we were able to say, hey, look, we might not know your name, but we know that if you have a pulse and if you are breathing air right now, Jesus loves you and he wants what’s best for you. So let’s help you with this situation. Here are some resources that exist. Here are some tools you can use. Feel free to come back and keep on talking to us about this. It’s like, at the end of the day, we allow you to, in a sense, take the mask off a bit and go, because we don’t know your name, your skin colour, you’re any of that, we’re just talking to the person behind the scenes. And I remember once having my dad come up to me in a conversation where. I mean, my dad, obviously older generation, had a great heart for the Lord, a great heart for ministry, but not fully understanding what I was doing originally. Now he does, but I remember one of those early conversations where he said, “But if they say that they’re 40 and they’re actually 20, how do you know?” And then I looked at him and I said, “Why does it matter?” And he was just like, what? I’m just like, “Does a 20-year-old not need Jesus too?” Because this isn’t a youth group. This is how we are meeting people and sharing Jesus with them. So if that person says, “Oh, I’m from Brazil,” but they’re actually my next-door neighbour, why does that actually matter? Even if they are, and I even said to him, “Technically, if you went to church this Sunday and someone came up to you and told you that they’re new here and they just flew from Brazil yesterday, how do you know they’re not lying?” It’s not like people won’t lie to you to your face. We don’t know. We never know. That person might say they came from Brazil and they might be your next-door neighbour. Either way, at the end of the day, our heart should be to help them become closer to Jesus. And so therefore, there’s a level of we get that and there’s a level of, we might never know the answer to that, but at the end of the day, if you’re still here, I’m celebrating, because you are going to hear the gospel every single week. And even if your intentions aren’t right, because you’re saying this but you’re meaning this, every week you’re hearing the gospel, the longer you hang out with us. I’m going to allow the Holy Spirit to do His thing there and just be present in that situation.

Brendan Corr
It’s an interesting concept that you’re exploring there, Kiran, is the notion of we deal with people’s projections all the time, whether it’s face to face, and “How are things?” “Everything’s fine,” and how much of that is a projection or a mask or a representation versus my screen identity and name and my avatar the real person? And I guess what I’m sensing as I’m talking with you is that the notion of real connection, person to person, is subsumed under your desire to really connect them with God. And that doesn’t happen through the cyber community, that happens. There is no mediator.

Kiran Skariah
Yeah. And so we’ve been really intentional to keep the threshold as low as possible for people to engage in conversations and to do that. So that way, anyone going through whatever can feel comfortable enough to even not type in the chat, but just be a fly on the wall and just watch silently for as long as they need to. Now, they might not be comfortable doing that at a church because they know that someone’s going to walk up to them and say hi, and be hospitable and lovely, which in the Christian world, we get as a good thing and we go, yes, we need to do that. The new person, go talk to them for sure. I’ve been doing this for years, but lately, I’ve been talking to more and more people that go, hey, that’s why I don’t go to church, because I actually just want to hear what you believe without having a conversation with you. Give me a month of just watching and then eventually I’ll start talking to you about it. But right now, I’m in the research phase and I don’t want to get caught up in this, so I don’t want to go. And so here we say, hey, if you are just on Twitch, the term is lurking, which just means that you’ve got it on, but you’re not going to type anything. And we all literally call out the lurkers and say, “Hey, if you are a lurker here, we just want you to know that God loves you and you take all the time you need.” And we’ve had people who’ve said, “Hey, I’ve been watching you for six months, never typed a word in the chat before. Can I tell you about how this community has helped me, even though we’ve never spoken I’ve just watched and seen the difference between this live stream and all the others that I’m subscribed to, and here’s what I’m noticing.” And we’ve allowed that really low threshold for people to just go, you know what? You might have all the self-doubt in the world. Come on in, you’re welcome here. You might have all kinds of ailments and things that would mean that you will get instantly judged when people will see you. Come on in, you’re always welcome here. And just allow that to really organically create a community that is vast and varied and has all the mess that you would expect from any community in the world, but comes together to go, hey, this is what we’re doing. We are meeting the people that otherwise when was that conversation going to happen? And the number of conversations, the number of faith stories, and the fruit that we have experienced over the last five years have just been astronomical. It’s the reason why I’ve poured myself into this, and it’s the reason why our team has come together, volunteers from around the world, including one guy from Kansas who will stay up until ridiculous hours to help us in the chat because he’s so passionate about what we do because he’s seen the fruit. He’s experienced it firsthand in his heart and in his life, and he’s seen it. And he’s a pastor of a church in the US. But another thing regarding the relationship side is that I’ve found some of the most genuine relationships that have stemmed from this, from this online world. I’ve had people fly from different parts of the country to meet up because the opportunity was there, having journeyed together online for the longest while. I’ve been invited to the wedding of someone who I connected with online a number of years ago, and they are like, “Hey, I’m getting married next year and I’d love for you to fly to the US and be there.” And we’re looking into if we can make that happen. And we’ve seen people be baptised from being a part of an online mode together for a number of years, and then meet together in person in a church context and make that happen. And just really beautiful situations that are allowing this globalised world to be able to go, you know what? Just because I’m not physically near you doesn’t mean we can’t have a conversation and really help each other. And in the same way that you and I having this chat, we’re not in the same room right now, and yet we are able to connect and share a story. If we did this consistently for long enough, regularly, and committed to that, I would be certain that a friendship would form and it would be a really beautiful thing. And that’s really what we allow for here, to do that, but at a scalable level where many can come into that room and say, look, we might not be able to host everyone in one building and have a meal together, but across homes all around the world, in 110 countries, in almost 100,000 people last year, yeah, let’s have those conversations anyway. And I’ll have a plate of food and you’ll have a plate of food, but at the end of the day, the food was never the thing, it was the conversation. So let’s still do that.

Brendan Corr
Yeah, the mechanism and the thing that facilitates heart-to-heart is what you’re describing. Kiran, fascinating to get a little window into this avenue of service, this new place where the gospel needs to be proclaimed and God’s goodness demonstrated. Just as we close, can you share with us your own story? You spoke about your dad and his interest in your new ministry. How did you come to know the goodness of God and this call to ministry that has led you to commit so much of your time and effort to this work?

Kiran Skariah
Yeah. I was blessed enough to have a really faithful family. My mum and my dad are committed believers who always demonstrated in really profound ways how to serve God and to really be all out for that. So I got to see that firsthand in their lives regularly growing up. But for me, I was one of those kids who grew up also wearing masks. I was one of those people who on the outside would look like the church kid who knows all the Sunday school answers, all of that. But on the inside, I was hurting. I was struggling with a variety of things. I was a different person behind closed doors than I was when I was out in public for the world to see. When I was at school, I was a different person from who I was when I was at church. That was very much a part of my world. And one day I found myself in late high school getting to a point where I almost got frustrated with Christians in general, who would live one way and say something else. And then it was one of those logs in your own eye kind of moments where I went, wait a minute. I’m getting frustrated at the fact that there are Christians that are hypocritical. I’m doing the same thing. It just might not be in as public ways. It might not be in as noticeable ways, but I am doing the same thing at a heart level. I am that guy and I don’t want to be that guy. And I decided then and there that I’m either all in or I’m all out in terms of the faith journey. And I decided that, no, I believe this. I know this. I’ve looked into the Bible and I want to do this and I want to really commit myself to this. And so that vision right there. And then from there, I felt, a little while later, God specifically calling me to a lifetime of youth ministry. And I didn’t know what that meant because I’d only seen youth ministry demonstrated as almost a stepping stone ministry. You do youth for a bit, so then you do young adults and then you do senior pastor, that whole gig. But I felt God saying, actually, you’re going to reach the next generation and you’re going to keep reaching the next generation. And so that’s your story. And there were numerous ways that He affirmed that in the years. And of course, as a young person, I default assumed, all right, that means I’m going to be a youth pastor in the traditional sense. And that’s what I did. And I went to Bible college and I got my bachelor of ministry at Morling College and then went on to do further studies, got accredited, became an ordained reverend, that whole piece. I Got started working at my church and did all of that. And in that mode, just felt God saying, hey, your calling is still the same, it’s to reach the next generation, but it’s going to actually look a little bit different from what you thought. Because the young people that I’ve called you to reach, they’re not just coming to Parkside, which is the church that I was at. They’re not just coming here. They actually need this. They need what you’re doing, but they need it elsewhere. And so that faith journey progressed throughout that process of childhood and struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts and just really, really dark places that I was at, to go, you know what, God? I just need to trust you with this and I need to lean in. And again, each of those moments that I just summarised in 10 sentences, each of those has a powerful impact story where God intervened in some pretty crazy, remarkable, even miraculous ways that led me to be who I am, but with a very strong conviction that He’s put me on this earth to do this and I’m going to serve Him with everything. And that’s what I was doing at church, and that’s what I’m doing now. I didn’t resign from full-time ministry at church to do a live-streaming gaming thing, I moved from full-time ministry to full-time ministry. The difference is I stopped getting paid halfway through. And I gave up the income to continue doing full-time ministry, just in a mode that the world might not understand yet. But it was a mode of going, this is what obedience looks like. If we lose the house, we lose the house. But right now, God is saying, be where the people are. And you’re reaching more people for Jesus in this mode, so this is where you need to be. And therefore, my wife and I were obedient to the call. We stepped in and we continue to run that race, now coming on, in March, it’ll be five years since we started this journey. So yeah, it’s been quite the ride.

Brendan Corr
You didn’t have the whiteboard with the business plan and the rationale and the KPIs all mapped out for your five-year expansion pattern? It was just step-by-step faith?

Kiran Skariah
Yeah, absolutely. I did write a pros and cons list when it came down to the, do I resign from my full-time paid job to do this ministry that didn’t make a lot of sense, but was seeing incredible fruit? I fasted and I prayed and I sat with God. And got an Airbnb in Leura, which is near the Blue Mountains. And sat there by myself and just prayed and cried and sat and looked at this piece of paper and said, “God, how do I do this?” And that’s when I felt God saying that what you’re going to need to do is you’re going to need to resign from the paid church role and you’re going to reach even more people. And in terms of sustainability, He would provide. And He told my wife the same thing. And we loved what we were doing at the youth group and everything. It’s not like there was any tension there. It was an awesome ministry. But we just felt this is where God is calling us and that He will provide. And He’s continued to do that, and we know will do that all the more as we continue to reach gamers with the gospel.

Brendan Corr
Fantastic. Well, Pastor Skar, as your lovely sign in the background makes clear, it is a really fascinating area of God’s call to a new vocation for you. And I honour your faithfulness, your courage in following a path that was not logical, maybe not even sensible to many people. But it was God ordained, and clearly, there have been many, many folk who have heard the gospel because of that faithfulness. I’m really hoping that the people who are listening to this story will lean in. Is there any advertising you need to do? Do you need to let us know where to find you or how people might help?

Kiran Skariah
If you Google that, Pastor Skar, you’ll find us. We’re an online-based ministry, so we should be pretty easy to find, hopefully. But we’re on everything. It’s @PastorSkar on that side, @PastorSkar, on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and Twitch. Twitch is the live streaming channel that I’m live at most of the time. So the link is there if that’s big enough. Probably not. But twitch.tv/pastorskar. That’s where I go live, but the ministry operates in many other ways. Alternatively, just very simply, pastorskar.com. There are links to articles that talk a bit more about what we do. There’s even a way that you can become a ministry partner with us and help support the work that God is doing. Sign up for the newsletter, even. We send a monthly newsletter with praise points and updates and all kinds of things. Yeah, love to partner with whoever it is that’s listening to this or watching this. If that’s what God is putting in your heart, then by all means, reach out.

Brendan Corr
Fantastic. God bless you, Kiran. May the Lord keep you, and honour you.

Kiran Skariah
Thanks so much, mate.