Meet Nerd Pastor Nate

Who Are We? — Part 1

If you’ve been around Checkpoint for any length of time, you’ve probably picked up the basics: there’s a guy, he’s a pastor, he really likes video games.

Let’s fill in the rest.

I’m Nathan Webb, and I’m an ordained elder — which means I went through the full schooling and ordination process required to become clergy in the United Methodist Church.

Checkpoint Church is the church plant I was appointed to build, starting back in 2020. It didn’t exist before that. It exists now because the UMC said yes to the idea of a church that lives on Discord and YouTube instead of a building with a steeple.

Outside of Checkpoint, I’m married to my wife, Logan, and we have two daughters we love with our whole hearts. We’re a beach family whenever we can manage it — sand, books, the whole slow-down-and-breathe of it.

And yes, I’m a nerd through and through, which is not incidental to the ministry — it is the ministry. I care about video games and anime the way some pastors care about golf or gardening: not as a hobby I set aside to do “real” pastor work, but as the actual lens I use to talk about God, grace, and what it means to be human. That’s the whole premise of Checkpoint. Gaming and anime aren’t sermon illustrations we bolt on afterward — they’re where the theology starts.

I also write beyond Checkpoint’s walls. I published a book this year called God and the Machine (Abingdon Press), which explores faith in the age of AI — I’m not writing as a cheerleader or a doomsayer, just someone trying to think carefully about it. And I write regularly over at Pixel & Pulpit, with a lens on those doing nerd and digital ministry.

That’s the low-down on me. Next up: why Checkpoint is a United Methodist church — and why that matters in a different way than you might expect if you’re not United Methodist yourself.