PAX Australia 2025 brought cosplay, church and community together.
By Rev Will Nicholas
“Where two or more gather, in cosplay or community, there is church.”
The Sonderverse arrived at PAX Australia 2025 not as tourists, but as pilgrims.
More than a dozen members of our ever-growing digital congregation – streamers, gamers, clergy, and chaotic good disciples of play – came together to create what we call intentional community inside the convention floor.
In a world of noise, lights, and loot boxes, we found a third space, a kind of digital cathedral stitched together from laughter, shared story, and spontaneous moments of grace.
From the duo of Wolverine and Deadpool in clerical collar photo ops to impromptu theological debates over tabletop dice, the Sonderverse lived up to its name: a constellation of unique souls orbiting one another in joyful weirdness.
We crossed paths with the Fantastic Four, shared space with the Cult of the Lamb’s flock at Woolhaven, and discovered that holiness can indeed wear spandex.
Midway through the weekend, PAX was interrupted by an evacuation, with alarms blaring, crowds streaming, and gamers of every genre converging under the Melbourne sky.
Yet even here, something sacred unfolded.
The PAXAUS community moved together, calm and connected, turning confusion into care.
Strangers offered water, friends cracked jokes, and the moment became an unplanned liturgy of patience and presence.
In the pause between the chaos, we saw it again: that the Gospel is not a doctrine or a building, but the way people look after one another when the script falls apart.
At the board-game tables, we didn’t just roll dice, we rolled out belonging.
Whether it was co-op campaigns or competitive card play, each session became communion: strategy, story, and sacrament all in one.
The PAX floor turned into a chapel of cardboard and imagination where conversation flowed as easily as dice across velvet mats.
For the Sonderverse, PAX wasn’t an escape from faith, it was an extension of it.
We practised what we preach: that sacred connection can happen anywhere hearts and stories meet.
We found worship not in pews, but in panels; not in sermons, but in shared laughter echoing off the convention walls.
The Sonderverse crew listened, learned, and lent their voices as part of the PAXAUS community.
Across the weekend, PAX’s panels became pulpits of possibility.
Creators, critics, and community builders shared stories about inclusion, identity, and imagination, each one a spark for spiritual reflection.
Whether it was a deep dive into the ethics of AI, a retrospective on storytelling in RPGs, gamifying government, or a conversation about mental health in gaming, these sessions became sacred classrooms.
The Sonderverse listened, learned, and lent our voices.
In those moments, dialogue replaced dogma, and we were reminded that wisdom is not confined to seminaries, it’s alive in the curious, the compassionate, and the creative.
We were inspired by indie creators, met old friends, and made new ones.
We shared meals, ideas, memes, and meaning.
Each elbow rub, photo, and conversation reminded us that church is not bound by geography or walls, it’s found wherever compassion, curiosity, and creativity collide.
We didn’t go to colonise or control but to be present with and to the gathering of passionate enthusiasts in nerddome.
Walking through the exhibition halls felt a little like Paul standing in the Areopagus in Acts 17, surrounded by altars, each devoted to something people hold sacred.
Paul didn’t condemn what he saw; he listened, he looked, and he found a bridge.
In the same way, as we wandered through the booths of artists, designers, and dreamers, we found glimpses of the divine in unexpected pixels and polyhedral dice.
Every creative display was a testimony to human imagination, echoes of the Creator’s own artistry.
Like Paul, we weren’t there to argue for God’s presence, but to name it where it was already shining.
In the hum of the expo hall, the gospel sounded less like a sermon and more like a conversation: faith meeting fandom in a space where everyone belonged.
“What began as a gathering of geeks became a glimpse of the Kingdom, one cosplay, one card draw, one sacred laugh at a time,” writes Uniting Church minister Rev Will Nicholas.
This year, we were joined by a few curious travellers from the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, who stepped into PAX to experience something far beyond their usual Sunday rhythms.
For them, this was a glimpse into a living experiment of what Faithful Futures might look like when the Spirit leads into uncharted territory: where the sacred is not confined to sanctuaries, but discovered amid the hum of pop culture, digital storytelling, and playful theology.
They came to observe and left inspired, witnessing firsthand how mission and meaning can thrive in unexpected places.
The Sonderverse became a living parable: the church not waiting for the world to come in, but courageously stepping out to meet it.
As the lights dimmed on another PAX, the Sonderverse left a mark, small but luminous.
We came not to consume, but to contribute; not just to attend, but to attune.
What began as a gathering of geeks became a glimpse of the Kingdom, one cosplay, one card draw, one sacred laugh at a time.
So here’s to next year: to deeper wonder, louder joy, and even holier chaos.
image here
Rev Will Nicholas is the minister at Newtown Uniting Church (St David’s)
Rev Mat Harry says PAXAUS was a wonderful example of church being present where people are at.
Presence at PAX a gift
Rev Mat Harry, New and Renewing Communities Catalyst
I joined over 50,000 people at the Melbourne Convention Centre to see colour, costume, digital, in-person and imagination collide into a community of disperse people of a relatively younger age profile.
Board-gamers, artists, fantasy costumes, participation, play, and fun were all happening.
Over the weekend thousands of people walked through the doors and in this mix was a Uniting Church presence.
The Sonderverse crew was there, including Reverends Will and Amanda Nicholas and Chris Booth, as well as equipping Leadership for Mission’s Kelly Skilton.
The Sonderverse crew set up a table and provided a ‘base camp’ and point of connection for UCA people who were part of the crowd.
This was a wonderful expression of the Church being present where the people were at.
The potential to build Christian community within such a context exists, but it will take people who are contextual natives in this space with the ability to theologically reflect to understand where the story of Jesus connects with the stories that are told within the narratives of this group.
The Synod of Victoria and Tasmania is blessed to have such people, immersed, engaged and loving the community and the people who were present.
