DO you know what \u201cLiFEgame\u201d is? At first glance, it appears to be just a game, but in fact, it is a creative simulation game of life. In a short period of 3 days and 2 nights, players will \u201clive\u201d an entire life.<\/p>\n
Over the years, many young people have found their life purpose after joining this game. Others have had their whole worldview turned upside down. What kind of power does this game have to bring such great change to its players?<\/p>\n
\u201cActually the players spend 3 days and 2 nights going through a person\u2019s entire life. In the game, you have to find a job, get married and raise a family. You may be able to live a long life, or you may die early.\u201d During the interview, LiFEIMPACT Ministries founder Rev. John Kwan explained the basics of playing LiFEgame.<\/p>\n
Bad first impression of Christians<\/strong> In 1961, Rev. Kwan was born in an ordinary Sandakan folk religion family. As the oldest of 5 children in the family, his father had high hopes on him from a young age. Not only was he in charge of the shrine at home, his father also appointed him as successor. \u201cI didn\u2019t know anything at the time. I only knew that my father told me that I had to burn incense sticks regularly every day and clean the shrine. I was a little scared, but I still had to do it. As time went by, I started having questions, are there really ghosts in this world?\u201d<\/p>\n Growing up, he came across Christians and even went to church, but at church, no one paid him any attention. He was very disappointed. Through this unhappy experience, his understanding of Christians was that they contacted him with a hidden agenda. Christians were all fake. They only wanted him to become a Christian and did not care about anything else. Later, after completing secondary school at 16 years of age, his father wanted him to take over the family business of a photograph studio. This would set him up for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n Can people really change?<\/strong> Rev Kwan said that during that time he was full of swear words, and often spoke harshly to his little brother, even beating his brother at times and treating him as a slave. But then one day, he suddenly felt that he could no longer beat his brother. He could not even argue with his mother as was the daily occurrence. Swear words made him feel extremely uncomfortable. He had loved listening to rock music, but now he liked listening to the calming church hymns. This all began on a Friday evening after he had joined a few gatherings.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the gathering, there was a small group sharing their testimonies. After hearing them I wondered, can people really change? That night, I was lying in bed, and suddenly I said, \u2018Jesus, are you real? If you are real, come into my life.\u2019 Then I fell asleep. How was I to know that after 2 weeks, I would be changed.\u201d<\/p>\n Deciding to follow Jesus<\/strong> This experience made him resolve to follow Jesus. But he did not know how. He began to serve in church, whether in choir or Sunday School. Wherever there was need, he was there to help. That was in 1981. He was still working at his father\u2019s photograph studio, but he would often sneak off to church during working hours, ask the pastor for things to do, then rush back to the studio afterwards. Week after week went by, and slowly he began to feel that he was still not serving enough. He started to consider full time ministry. But the pastor at the time wanted him to think it over carefully, to ensure that he did have the calling of God.<\/p>\n He prayed for a year over this, but still did not hear God\u2019s calling. He was desperate to serve full time, so in the end, the pastor prayed for him and allowed him to serve at the church. But his decision to go into full time ministry also enraged his father, because his father\u2019s work of grooming of his only successor over the past years was now futile.<\/p>\n Helping youths to empathize<\/strong> \u201cMany youths were able to go home and reconcile with their parents after this game. In 1984 I began to organize this game regularly, calling it \u201cLiFEgame\u201d. At first, the game was mostly about life, but later we slowly added elements of the spiritual side until it has the content and form seen today. It is suitable for sharing the gospel with youths. It also helps them find their life purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1992, he received a special scholarship allowing him to study at Hannibal-LaGrange College in the United States. In 1995, he received his Bachelor of Christian Education. \u201cThe principal of the college personally asked local churches to contribute money for the scholarship. He believed that instead of spending huge sums sending a missionary to another country, it was better to use the money to train a local to become a missionary in his own country. So I received this full scholarship allowing me and my family, penniless as we were, to go to America to study. This was indeed a miracle from God.\u201d<\/p>\n Though he was on a scholarship, he worked hard, taking many courses even during summer holidays. He finished the 4 year program in 3 years. In 1995 he graduated and returned to the same church to serve. He became a pastor and continued to organize LiFEgame.<\/p>\n Partnering with SCAC<\/strong> Many responded with pledges to full time ministry. It also allowed many more to come into contact with LiFEgame, including Pastor Hii Mee Yieng from the SIB Hosanna church. \u201cIn 2004, Pastor Hii held the first LiFEgame in Sibu. In 2006, the then-Dean of Students at Methodist Pilley Institute, Principal Hii King Kai, discussed with me about organizing LiFEgame camps. From there, I came into a partnership agreement with SCAC in 2007.\u201d<\/p>\n Prior to this, since he was Englisheducated, LiFEgame was held only in English. With SCAC\u2019s help, the Chinese version of LiFEgame was born, including its own Chinese name. Up until today, SCAC has organized countless LiFEgame camps, not only during SCAC MJYF Conference, but also in global youth conventions.<\/p>\n Inventing more games<\/strong> Over the years, participants of LiFEgame number no less than 50,000. Rev Kwan continues to invent more games, so that a person\u2019s life can grow more balanced – from LiFEgame to Church Game, then Gospel Game, and finally Discipleship Maker Game.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, besides these few main games, we have also created games targeted at non-Christians. For example, World Game which is about governing countries, Junior Game suitable for children, and Career Game about careers.\u201d<\/p>\n In order to minimize unnecessary expenses, there are only 4 full time workers (including Rev Kwan) at the LiFEIMPACT MINISTRIES headquarters in Penang. All the manpower needed to organize camps comes from volunteers. Therefore, Rev Kwan\u2019s vision is to have a team developing in each country involved with LiFEIMPACT MINISTRIES.<\/p>\n Interviewed by Menglei DO you know what \u201cLiFEgame\u201d is? At first glance, it appears to be just a game, but in fact, it is a creative simulation game of life. In a short period of 3 days and 2 nights, players will \u201clive\u201d an entire life. Over the years, many young people have found their life purpose after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,230,10],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRev. Kwan was born and raised in Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia. He founded LiFEgame without suspecting it would bear so much fruit today. \u201cAt the time, I only thought about inventing a tool to let youths understand their parents. And the easiest way was to let youths go through their parents\u2019 life, and from there to understand the difficulties of being a parent. As for LiFEgame becoming so famous, I can only say, it is God\u2019s amazing grace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nRev Kwan had been working at the studio for 2 or 3 years. One day, a friend saw him idling and so invited him to a gathering at church, which happened to be a Sandakan Baptist church. Perhaps he did not want to reject his friend\u2019s good intention, or perhaps it was God who moved him. He accepted the invitation and joined the gathering. \u201cAt the time I really didn\u2019t think too much. I still thought all Christians were fake, so I might as well go and see how fake they could be. And I was attracted by the many pretty girls in the church.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nLater, he actively went to church with his friend. After half a year, his friend asked if he was willing to join Sunday School and be baptized. He joined a 10 week baptism class, and from it learned the truth. Two weeks before baptism, the pastor as usual asked the class about their resolutions. All his classmates had shared their testimonies about coming to Christ. He felt that he did not have an obvious testimony, and he thought this was all there was for himself. But suddenly, as if God hit him on the head, he came to a sudden realization. Wasn\u2019t the change of the past few months his best testimony?<\/p>\n
\nHe served full time in the church for 2 years. During that time, the pastor of the church put him in charge of the youths. He discovered that many youths could not communicate properly with their parents, or were unable to understand their parents. So he began to create a simulation game, so that youths would have a chance to experience life\u2019s many ups and downs at an earlier age, to help them learn to empathize.<\/p>\n
\nAs the years went by, youths who had participated in LiFEgame grew up. Some even went to the Baptist Theological Seminary in Penang to study. During one Baptist national annual conference, they brought in LiFEgame, organizing the game for more than 280 people. Through this convention, people from different churches were strongly affected.<\/p>\n
\nBecause of the huge influence of LiFEgame, many players saw the potential in it and through church networks brought the game all over the world, including Australia, the United States, Japan, New Zealand, England, Nepal, Indonesia, etc. \u201cThis is because the Methodist church is truly a global network. So once they issue an invitation, we send a team to organize the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nRecorded by April
\nTranslated by Joy Tie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"