Roblox & Red Flags: A Blueprint for Safe Gaming–Jonathan Ober & Frank Kuligowski

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Today® with Dave and Ann Wilson – Web Version Transcript

This content has been generated by an artificial intelligence language model. While we strive for accuracy and quality, please note that the information provided will most likely not be entirely error-free or up-to-date. We recommend independently verifying the content with the originally-released audio. This transcript is provided for your personal use and general information purposes only. References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the use or interpretation of this content.

Roblox & Red Flags: A Blueprint for Safe Gaming

Guests:Jonathan Ober and Frank Kulgowski

From the series:The Mission of Christian Gaming (Day 2 of 2)

Air date:June 2, 2026

Jonathan (00:04):

If they start talking about a game, they start talking about Roblox or VRChat or whatever it might be, tell me about it. Sit down with them. You may not understand it all, but that’s when you need to say, “Okay, what is a portal?” And get them to define that. And what do you do in this world? What do you do in this game? Be curious, be understanding. And then there are some boundaries you need to set.

Dave (00:33):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann (00:39):

And I’m Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

So today we’re going to be talking about gaming with purpose. Is that possible, do you think?

Dave (00:58):

Yes, it’s definitely possible. Our kids do it. They love it but—

Ann (01:02):

Do they do it with a purpose?

Dave (01:04):

Yeah, fun, pleasure.

Ann (01:05):

That’s true.

Dave (01:07):

And there’s probably a bigger purpose, which Frank and Jonathan are going to take us into today. So it’s going to be a great conversation.

Ann (01:13):

And maybe you’re thinking, “I’m not a gamer. This doesn’t relate to me.” But we can all make a dent where we’re sent because God’s given us passions and things we love and we can always bring the gospel into those areas.

Dave (01:25):

Yeah, and that’s what these guys are doing. And it’s pretty exciting. So let’s go.

Ann (01:34):

It’s an untapped world for the gospel.

Frank (01:36):

It’s a people group.

Ann:

Yeah.

Frank:

It’s a people group.

Ann:

Yeah.

Frank:

Yeah. And you can reach people. I mean, we’ve East Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, we’ve gotten conversations all over the world. Now, because of time zone, people tend to be on a little more at night.

Jonathan (01:50):

And I would also say another thing, and I would also say another thing is more times than I care to admit, but I feel like I’ve been there to save someone. I remember a conversation recently when I asked somebody, “How are you doing?” And they were like, “Not great.” I was like, “Okay, do you want to share a little bit?” And sometimes there’s a little trepidation. They don’t want to get into all the details, but more times than not, someone is willing to share what’s going on in their life because there is that anonymity of just being kind of an avatar and you’re not near me, you’re maybe across the globe. And this person was like, “I’m just having a rough day. My girlfriend just broke up with me. I think I want to end my life.” And that has happened more times than I care to count where—

Dave (02:35):

A suicidal tendency.

Jonathan (02:36):

The suicidal tendencies. The depression, the loneliness. I talked to that person, I said, “I can’t be there with you, but I can be here for you.” And as we were going through and talking, I said, “Is there someone that can come sit in the room with you?” And he said, “Not for a while.” And I said, “Okay, I’ll stay with you as long as I can.” And I think I went over my lunch break. I do know that. And I got to share about FamilyLife and what we do here and how we reach families, how we reach blended families and marriages and just kind of talked about anything. And I shared a little bit about video games and some of the games I like to play, and they shared about some of the stuff that they like to play. And I really truly believe that by the end of that, as I remember taking my headset off and just in tears for what God—and I was in a space by myself and met this person.

(03:25):

And so after that conversation, being able to pray with them, knowing that by the end of that two hours, they were not at that point thinking they were very thankful that I shared with them and talked to them and I got to pray with them. And so when you ask, why do you do this? I think it’s like those moments where somebody says, “I don’t want to be here anymore.” And I’m like, “You know what? I’m going to be here so that you’re still here,” and continue to pray over them, pray with them. We’ve connected with people in our Discord where we’ve been able to build relationships that are longer than just that 15 minute or hour long or two-hour long conversation. That’s why, because they’re not going to step necessarily into a church. They’re not going to, at least right now in their life, they’re not going to step into a church. They may never hear the gospel if we don’t go and share it.

Dave (04:17):

Yeah. So like that guy, do you end up staying in touch?

Jonathan (04:21):

Yeah. I mean, if that relationship seems to hit it off or there’s like a bond there. Sometimes I’ll just ask them, I was like, “Hey, is it okay if we become friends?” And so you can friend somebody, I can click on their avatar and ask them to be my friend.

Dave (04:37):

Sort of like Facebook?

Jonathan (04:38):

You can high-five them. And then become a friend. And then every time I go on, if they’re online, I will see them in my sidebar with my friends just like you would on Facebook. I can see when they’re there and I can actually join them if they’re in a place that it’s like, it’ll say like join and I’ll just click on join, and a portal will show up, and I’ll zap over to where they’re at.

Frank (04:56):

Yeah, zip over.

Ann (04:57):

You guys, I’m just thinking of the conversations that I’ve had over the years of people that are very judgmental when it comes to this kind of life, like what kind of person would get on this life. They have no life. I’ll tell you who would get on that kind of thing, Jesus, to save souls. He would go anywhere to rescue his lost children. And so I look at that and I think, how many did you say?—33 million are on Roblox?

Frank (05:22):

The numbers I heard from my friend Bruce is I think 380 million monthly active users. So every month—

Ann (05:28):

380 million.

Frank (05:30):

Yeah, is coming onto Roblox playing. And not all of them are like on headsets, it’s phone or tablet or headset. I mean, there are just that many people.

Ann (05:40):

It’s an untapped world—

Frank (05:42):

It really is.

Ann (05:42):

—for the gospel of Jesus.

Jonathan:

For sure.

Ann:

And if it’s your thing—we have a son who was a total gamer, into all of that. He loved that world and instead of poo-pooing it like “Get a life,” that kind of thing, you’re thinking, no, this could become a part of your life that could be redemptive for the gospel.

Frank (06:02):

Yeah.

Jonathan:

For sure.

Frank:

I do remember a leader a number of years ago in the digital space within Cru said, “We go where people are at.” And so if there’s a lot of people that are there, we don’t necessarily want to leave them in the same place, in the same way where they’re at, but you go and you share and a lot of it, listening, empathizing, asking questions, showing care, care for their soul. I mean, we want to go in these spaces and it’s always on. It’s just like anytime, “Okay, let’s pray and go.” And yeah.

Dave (06:35):

Yeah. I mean, when you said that, I thought we do that ministry wise in any other venue. If there’s a Super Bowl, we try to be there. The Olympics, Cru, FamilyLife, have people on site to be light and to seek out opportunities to be Jesus. Nobody’s thinking about this world. This is bigger than all those worlds.

Frank (06:58):

It’s really big.

(06:59):

And I will mention one other thing that Ober said, so again, the platform VRChat is one of them, Roblox, there’s all these. So if we go in to say VRChat, we have a conversation and it’s really good like, “Hey, I’d love to see you. You come here very often, maybe we can connect.” By the way, do you use Discord? That’s another tool, a platform that we can go and a lot of them do. And so I actually, I just take up my headset up and I say, “Hey, I would love to hear.” And then I type it in. They’re like, “Yeah, sure, my name is. ” I said, “Oh, great.” I type it in and put my headset back down. And then after that, I will send them a friend request on Discord and then you’re just connected anytime. You don’t have to be in the world.

(07:36):

You can text them, you can send them a video, you can listen, you can do video chat. Yeah. So we try to couple that, the in-person in the virtual space with the—

Ann:

You have a strategy.

Frank:

Strategy and then we can be—and for many people that we’ve met, it’s VR and Discord and you’re talking and then, “Hey, join me in this.” And you invite them to the community, “Hey, my friends are over here. We’re going to do this.” Really bringing them into community. And so yeah, it’s been really cool how God has started to build this out.

Ann (08:07):

Do you ever try to bridge it then for them to find a church or community that way, like in real life?

Jonathan (08:13):

Yeah. I mean, that is a goal is to connect them with other believers in their communities. I think the hard thing is because they are from all over, I’ve got to know somebody in that area. And that’s where having the Discord is kind of a steppingstone because they may on there, find somebody else who is a believer, who is going to church and they’re like, “Oh, we’re just a town away.” I mean, I know there have been people that I’ve had conversations with that got plugged into our Discord that then found a church to go to. So it is possible.

Frank (08:44):

Yeah. And actually, as Ober mentioned, we want to connect them physical reality, the church, a place where they can, my friend says, a place where they can get a hug. And so there is a story that I’ll briefly share is, so my friend, Jeff and I were in a spaceship world, and it was kind of noisy and we’re like, “Oh, there’s just a lot of commotion and stuff. It’s harder to get in conversations.”

Ann:

Because the spaceship was loud?

Frank:

Well, the people were loud inside the spaceship. I don’t remember the rumbling of the spaceship as much.

Dave (09:14):

Now when you say loud, are the people talking or is it all texting?

Frank:

Yep, it’s all talking.

Jonathan (09:18):

People are talking.

Dave (09:18):

In your own voice?

Frank:

In your own voice.

Jonathan (09:22):

I mean, well, some people will modulate their voice where it might be synthesized or sound.

Dave (09:25):

You’re like in a room that’s loud.

Frank (09:28):

And the same thing with like, if I’m closer to you, your voice is louder. If I go back, the same thing. If I hear you on the left, I look over and it’s like, it’s all spatially the same. So we’re in this part of the spaceship. It’s kind of a bunch of people and there’s this 3D drawing they’re drawing and just like—so we’re like, “Well, maybe we can—it’s a little easier. Let’s go over to this corridor.” And so we walk over and we saw an avatar look like a woman avatar, a female avatar, and Jeff and I just went in and we’re like, “Hey, how are you doing?” And then she started speaking to us and we’re like, “My friend and I, we come from a church. We like to—“ “Church, really? Church?” We’re like, “Yeah.” And so she was from East Asia.

(10:07):

She’s in East Asia at the time.

Ann (10:09):

But they’re speaking English?

Frank (10:10):

And she’s speaking English with an accent, and we could understand her some, but she’s like, “Oh, I’m in”—she mentioned a certain country in East Asia and she was like, “I want to go to church because I’m here in East Asia and it’s—” And we said, “Guess what? You can go to church right now if you want to.” 20 seconds later, I counted actually for my—20 seconds, we’re in a church. But what we didn’t notice was like, hey, Jeff and Frank and this other woman, then there’s a fourth person. And we’re like, “Welcome.” And this fourth person actually said, “Oh, hi.” And said, “I heard your conversation. I was curious about church. And I zipped through the portal just before it closed.”

Ann (10:50):

Come on.

Frank (10:51):

And I came in and I just was curious. And so we’re like, oh. And we got to know him. He’s just a really great kid. He ends up being a student here in the US and just got to know him more and said, “Hey, you want to come back to this church on Sunday when they have a service?” Sure. He came; it was so cool to have him there. And the next week they had, it was a fellowship time, and they have a virtual campfire in a virtual park, and the church is going to gather. And he came and he loved it and it was just really great. So eventually we got to know more, and we got to know him. We spent time in virtual reality in Discord and that, and then he wrote me on Discord and said, “I want to let you know I’m a Christian.” I was like, “Whoa, this is so cool.” And so we connected him with his local, the Cru movement there at his school through Discord.

(11:39):

He’s connected now with people right around him.

Dave (11:43):

Yeah, like when you were sharing that story, we talked a little bit about lunch. Some people would say, “Oh, you’re replacing the church, you’re a barrier to church rather than a pathway.” You would say—

Frank:

A pathway.

Dave:

It’s a pathway.

Frank (11:55):

It’s a pathway.

Dave (11:55):

You’re always leading them to the real world, the physical world.

Frank (11:59):

The physical world.

Jonathan (12:01):

I’ll share a little bit. This might be an abridged version, but as far as how I got to here, so I’ve been playing video games since I was little. My stepdad and I played the Legend of Zelda game. We would go into it into our own little save file and play through the game and share notes in a little notebook back and forth. So that was my first foray into video gaming and that has continued on in a lot of different ways. So I’ve pretty much had every video game system that came out. I’ve played a lot of video games. I’m even reviewing video games and now I’m also streaming on Twitch, playing video games and people are coming and watching. And what I mean by a pathway is that there was a time probably about a year ago now, I played a video game and in all this too, one of the other side quests I’m on is I run a video game club at a local college in Pennsylvania where I’m from.

(12:54):

And I have anywhere from like 15 to 20 students coming to our club nights on Mondays and Thursdays playing video games together.

Dave (13:02):

I mean, they’re coming into a building now.

Jonathan (13:03):

They’re coming into a physical building.

Ann:

Crazy, that they come to do this?

Jonathan:

Yeah, they come and play video games. And so they’ll play together. Sometimes they’re just playing their own games. Sometimes they’re playing a group game of four to eight players. And in that time and in what I was sharing about streaming games on Twitch, I had some students coming and watching me play games. And so I was playing a game one time, and it was about a woodsman who had recently lost his wife and the game takes you through the first year of that loss. And you go through basically him going through grief and doing his everyday tasks. Imagine having to garden and cut trees down and take care of the homestead and all the repairs. And through that, he has these flashbacks of when his wife was alive and with them and the joy that she brought.

(13:48):

And so you go through these ups and downs of his life. And as I’m playing this game, I’m sharing about a very personal part of my life. And that was, so I started talking about video gaming and my stepdad and the way that he and I bonded over video games. And he passed away several years ago. It’s probably been eight or 10 years now. And as I was playing this game talking about loss of this woodsman to his wife, I was just sharing and I had a couple students that were on my stream watching and texting in the chat. And I just started sharing about the feelings that I went through.

(14:24):

And even today, like some of the stuff that I just remember and grieve over. I have two teenage daughters that he will never see graduate. And so I’m sharing that. And one of my students, Chris, said, he came to me later and he said, “The way that you shared about your relationship with Jesus just made me realize that I need to get back to church.”

(14:44):

And so he’s one of many students. I was taking anywhere from like three to five guys to our church on Sunday mornings. And so we have a church bros Discord, and I just will send out and say like, “Hey, who needs a ride to church?” And so I pick these guys up and take them to church. And that’s like just a small part of like how all this comes together. One of the things I’ve shared probably over the last year, several, several times is that the Venn diagram of who I am is quickly becoming a circle. And it’s that love of Jesus, love of video games, and making sure that others know about Jesus. In the past, those circles barely touched. I lived a separate life of a Christian, I lived a separate life of a video gamer, and I wasn’t really sharing the gospel with others.

(15:31):

And over the last two years now of being a part of video game outreach, being a part of this advisor position with these young men, young women in our club, I’ve been able to build relationship with these students. I’m with them two days a week at least because we hold other tournaments and other events. I’m sharing and streaming online. I’m not afraid to pray for people when I’m streaming. Very much in the last two years, those circles or those pieces of that Venn diagram have become a circle that just overlaps.

Ann (16:03):

And isn’t that the goal for all of us? I think about you, Dave, you’ve done that your whole life. Like you’re a pastor, but even if you weren’t your whole life, one of your joys and fun is sports, another one’s music and you’ve always used that to draw people into the gospel, the kingdom.

Dave:

My portal.

Ann:

It is your portal.

Frank (16:21):

That’s your portal.

Dave (16:23):

Yeah. But you walk in, like you said, I mean, even working with pro athletes, it’s like, am I a football player who’s a Christian or am I a Christian who plays football? I’m a Christian first and everything else I do is an extension of that.

Jonathan:

Absolutely.

Dave:

So you’re a Christian who’s a gamer and you bring Jesus everywhere you go. I mean, FamilyLife’s strategy is make an impact on your corner of the world.

Frank (16:45):

I love that.

Dave (16:46):

That’s your corner. I always say, “Make a dent where you’re sent.” And the question then is, “Well, I think you’re sent, you’re in ministry.” I’m like, “No, wherever you are is where you’re sent.”

Ann (16:55):

And what are your passions?

Dave (16:56):

So whatever portal you’re walking into, you are sent to make a dent, mean an impact in whatever way it’d be. This conversation could end up there, may not, I’m just going to float around this world and see where God’s going to attach me to somebody that maybe has a need that I’m in the answer to bring Jesus, right? I mean, how beautiful is this? I never knew this.

Ann (17:20):

I know my mind is blown.

Dave (17:22):

And some parents are thinking my kid’s in some room and now they might go, there’s a Christian probably in that room who’s there on purpose with a prayer to use me, God.

Jonathan (17:34):

And if there’s not a person in that room that’s a Christian that maybe we’ll share with them, they can be that person, their kid or the mom and dad, they could be going into these spaces and saying, “How can we bring Jesus to this game or this world or this portal?”

Dave (17:48):

Yeah.

Ann (17:49):

Let your light shine.

Dave (17:54):

We meet a ton of couples who say FamilyLife helped them when they needed it the most. And that’s what being a FamilyLife Partner is all about, helping others find that same encouragement and tools that you found right here.

Ann (18:07):

And we’d love for you to join us. So click the donate button at FamilyLifeToday.com and become a partner today.

Dave (18:18):

What would you say to the parents whose kids are gaming and right now they’re like, “I don’t like this. This is something I don’t want them doing.”

Ann (18:25):

I didn’t. I’d be like, “What are you guys doing? You’re wasting your life. You’re wasting your time.”

Dave (18:30):

Talk to that parent. How would you give another perspective?

Jonathan (18:34):

Yeah. I mean, I think, again, it goes back to communication. I think as families, we need to make sure we’re communicating because I think that’s a huge lack, generally speaking, that we’re not talking to each other. But then I think as a parent, you really need to think, “Okay, why does my son or daughter enjoy this?”

Ann (18:52):

That’s the question. Be curious. Tell me about this world. Tell me what you love about it.

Jonathan (18:56):

So if they start talking about a game, they start talking about Roblox or VRChat or whatever it might be, there’s thousands, tens of thousands of games out there. Tell me about it. Sit down with them. You may not understand it all, but that’s when you need to say, “Okay, what is a portal?” And get them to define that. And what do you do in this world? What do you do in this game? Get them to define it, understand, be curious, be understanding. And then there are some boundaries you need to set. If grades start slipping or if it seems like they’re just spending all their time and their chores aren’t getting done, obviously communicate. At our house, one of the rules is you need to read a book as long as you’re going to play a video game.

Ann (19:38):

Ooh, I like that one.

Jonathan (19:39):

And so unfortunately that means we spent a lot of money on books and a good fair amount of money on video games, but it has turned into a conversation piece. And like I said earlier, when you’re going to play this game, what are your goals or what is your intent? What game are you playing? If you’re going in there and you really don’t have a plan, it’s not going to fly. And so you set boundaries, you set responsibilities. But I think if you have a child that is playing or a young student that is playing, show them this video of this podcast and say, “Hey, these guys are going in sharing a love of Jesus. What if you do that? Or what if we do that together?” And that becomes your mission field. Well, what if it’s like, “Hey, while you’re in a lobby waiting to start your match, what if you just say, ‘Hey, what are you learning?’

(20:27):

And then maybe it’s like, “Hey, well, I’m learning about what Jesus did in sharing the gospel to thousands of people while also feeding them.” “Oh, what is that? Tell me a little bit about that.” Their friends might start getting curious about who Jesus is or other things that are going on in your life. How is your family? And then they start sharing about maybe struggles with their mom and dad. Then you know like, hey, this is something I could be praying about. And then as a kid with your friends, maybe you’re like, “Hey, I could start praying for you.” And they’re like, “Whoa, what is this prayer?” And it just starts conversations. And because that your student may be playing with someone that goes to their school, that’s an easy end to then say, “Hey, come to youth group, come to church.”

Dave (21:06):

Yeah. I think it’s easy as parents when we don’t really understand that world that they’re in, whether it’s gaming or music or whatever. It’s easy to be judgmental and rather than curious to say, “Hey, I want to understand why and what you like about this.”

Ann (21:23):

I picked up this back then, a CD of something our son was listening to and I’m like—

Dave (21:28):

I was there. I watched this happen.

Ann (21:29):

“This is garbage and we don’t listen to this at our house,” and I threw it in the trash. Dave gets it out of the trash. He says, “Tell me why you like this music.” Which I’m like, “Oh, I need to be better at this stuff.” So to enter into our kids’ worlds, but I love that you guys are entering into a whole world to bring the gospel of Jesus. Well done.

Dave (21:49):

Yeah. Way to go. I mean, there’s a fear that parents have and part of it is we don’t know the world, we don’t understand it and there’s evil, dark people there, which they’re everywhere. So it’s one thing to stand 50 yards away from the darkness and yell at it, or do we walk into it with the light and say, “We’re going to bring the light of Jesus right into it.” Now, there’s dangers, of course.

Frank:

Yeah, absolutely.

Dave:

You got to be very careful to do it, like you said, two by two, go with your kids. If they’ll let you and say, “This can be a ministry field. Way to go.”

Jonathan:

Yeah.

Ann (22:24):

Well done guys.

Dave (22:24):

It’s exciting. I think a lot of parents are going to be like, “Wow.”

Ann (22:27):

Is there anything that they need to know as a parent or place that they can go to do this kind of ministry?

Dave (22:32):

You need to start a portal where you train parents.

Frank (22:36):

Well, I will say for the parents and others who are inclined to, if they’re curious and they’re inclined to look into this more, the Jesus Film Project has just recently released a Metaverse ministry toolkit.

Dave (22:49):

Ooh, perfect.

Frank (22:50):

So this is a compilation of tips and suggestions on how people, individuals, small groups, churches, parachurches, anybody, can get it free off the website, download it and look at it. There’s one for Roblox, there’s one for VRChat and they’re saying like, “This is a little starter guide if you’d like to look into this more.” So that’s—

Ann (23:10):

We’ll include that in the show notes.

Jonathan (23:10):

Okay. We do have a Cru gaming area where parents can come and get some resources and get plugged in to our Discord maybe even and talk to us, find us, and maybe even for their student to come join. My daughter’s in there and she has met several people, one of which that she’s met in real life, our friend Jeff’s daughter, and the two of them have done some gaming together. They’ve met in person, but they’ve also met virtually.

Dave (23:41):

How do they find you?

Jonathan (23:42):

Yeah, we do have the gaming@Cru.org email.

Dave (23:44):

Oh, okay.

Jonathan (23:45):

But we can make sure to link that.

Dave (23:46):

But if I’m in this portal, how do I find you specifically?

Jonathan (23:50):

In VRChat, you can find me with the name Jay Ober, J-A-Y-O-B-E-R, and—

Frank (23:57):

Cool Noodles.

Dave (23:59):

Cool Noodle.

Jonathan (24:00):

Yeah.

Dave (24:00):

Really?

Frank (24:01):

Yeah, I’m Cool Noodles. Yep. And so you just, as you type it in, it’ll show their avatars. And I get it. I mean, as a parent, it’s a battleground, whether it’s VR or football or music and all that, the enemy is also trying to make inroads. And so I understand that. I mean, and anything could become an idol. I mean, but yeah, if parents are like, “Well, I’d like to find out more. I’d like to engage with my son or daughter, be curious, what did they like about it?” And yeah, they can reach out to us, and we can put in the show notes, specific ways.

Ann (24:36):

Awesome. Perfect.

Dave (24:36):

Yeah, we’ll do it. That’s great.

Ann:

Thanks guys.

Dave:

Those show notes are at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann (24:45):

FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife®, a Cru® Ministry celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.

If you’ve benefited from the FamilyLife Today transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs of producing them and making them available online?

Copyright © 2026 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

www.FamilyLife.com