Session Archives

Full Schedule (All times CDT)

Scheduled Speakers

April-Lyn Caouette
Love Thy Nerd

April-Lyn Caouette is Chief Resource Nerd and a co-founder at Love Thy Nerd. Her passion is to help both nerds and church leaders alike learn to love their nerdy neighbors the way Jesus does—unconditionally, personally, and without reservation. She writes, edits, and solicits articles and training materials for Love Thy Nerd, and has also written for the UYWI blog, GROW Curriculum, and Explore the Bible for Students. She lives in Southern California where, in addition to her work with Love Thy Nerd, she is a freelance editor, tabletop gamer, knitter, avid reader, and nerdy knick-knack collector.

Bubba Stallcup
Love Thy Nerd

Cecilia Kaya Rose
Jesus Otaku

Cecilia Kaya Rose is the founder of Jesus Otaku, an anime outreach ministry whose purpose is to creatively model the love of Jesus to bring otaku and the church together. Jesus Otaku began out of Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA. Since its formation in 2013, the ministry has grown to include branch locations based out of churches in Silicon Valley and Greensboro, North Carolina. Over the years, Jesus Otaku teams have gone on mission trips to anime conventions both big and small, sharing the message “YOU ARE LOVED JUST AS YOU ARE” with thousands of anime otaku. 

Cecilia has spoken about anime otaku outreach to youth groups and at various events such as the Equipper Conference and the Reaching Japanese For Christ International Conference. Her (not-so-secret) alter ego is Cecilia Amo Badua, Life & Legacy Planning Attorney. 

Chris Gwaltney
Love Thy Nerd

Chris is the Chief Executive Nerd of Love Thy Nerd as well as co-host of the Humans of Gaming Podcast. He’s been a nerd longer than he’s been a Christian. He was a church planter for seven years and has worked in nerd ministry for the past six years. He loves his wife and games. He lives in Ventura, CA with his wife and his games.

Chris Poirier
River Valley Church

Chris Poirier is the Lead Pastor/Church Planter of River Valley Church and the Founder/Game Master of Columbus Got Game. Chris also is the co-host of The Pull List Podcast for Love Thy Nerd and a connoisseur of nearly all things considered even remotely nerdy. When not reading comics or playing video games he and his wife Rebekah seek out all that can be found on the nerd scene by hunting for vintage toys, finding the most epic comic shops, and getting their tabletop on. In the hours that remain, Chris serves as a missionary for Love Thy Nerd at conventions across the US. Previously, Chris served for almost a decade as a Program/Project Manager for the US Government, handling multiple high value, high impact National Security Programs/Projects.

Drew Dixon
Love Thy Nerd

Drew is the Chief Content Nerd at Love Thy Nerd. Drew is also the Team Leader for Student Ongoing Bible Studies and the Editor of Explore the Bible Students at LifeWay. He also co-hosts the co-host of Humans of Gaming in which he talks to game designers about life and belief. Drew has written about games and nerd culture for Paste Magazine, Relevant Magazine, Christianity Today, The Christian Research Journal, Christ and Pop Culture, WORLD Magazine, and Think Christian. He lives in the Nashville, TN area with his wife and their three children.

Erin Warmbier
Love Thy Nerd

Erin is a Kentucky homeschool mom. She enjoys introducing her 5 children to her passions in life: being outside, reading, tabletop gaming, conversation, making nerdy family Halloween costumes, and never taking the world too seriously. You can catch Erin laughing about life and losing to her husband at a variety of tabletop games on Love Thy Nerd’s Co-Optional livestream.

Hector Miray
Faith & Fandom

Hector Miray is a semi-professional geek from the armpit of North Carolina. He is the writer of the Faith & Fandom book series and travels to cons across the country. He is one of the co-hosts of the pull-list podcast as well as doing the Critical Hit segments for Back Row Radio. He is also a former screenwriter for Clevver Movies/Screen Junkies, with over 130 episodes to his credit. He is the 1993 Blockbuster Video Video Game Champion for the state of North Carolina. He also managed to end up on an episode of the Swamp Thing tv show for like 30 seconds. In the muggle world Hector is the former director of a children’s Bible Camp, and collegiate minister. He now serves as the pastor of Vertical Church in Lumberton North Carolina, and is a husband and father.

Jamie Harris
Satellite Gaming

Jamie is a daddy, hubby, Jesus lover, and of course, he’s a nerd. Jamie is the founder of Satellite Gaming and has a passion to reach youth through nerd culture.

Matt Warmbier
Love Thy Nerd

Mike Perna
InnRoads Ministries

Mike Perna is the founder and president of InnRoads Ministries – a nonprofit organization that works with church and community groups to help them use board games and tabletop role playing games to build powerful relationships that demonstrate the love of God. When he’s not talking through the process of gaming in ministry with folks, he can be found on the Game Store Prophets podcast talking about the intersection of gaming and God or on his story-driven devotional podcast called Bard & Bible.