Christian video games are scarce in today's technologically advanced entertainment industry, but a growing interest to teach children about spiritual and moral values may change that.

The video gaming industry generated $25 billion in worldwide sales last year with nearly $10 billion in this country alone, according to the National Institute on Media and the Family, which reports that "video games are excellent teachers."

However, Christian video and computer games make up only a critically small part of the multi-billion dollar industry.

Ben Turner, president of One Way Book Shops, Christian book stores in St. Louis, says it's apparent that there are not a lot of wholesome video games for kids today although there is an increasing market.

"There is an extremely strong need for Christian video games that have more positive role modeling and morality wrapped around it to teach our younger generation," said Turner, 34. "But the quality has to be at a level that competes with the current gaming systems that are out there."

Turner, whose three stores don't carry Christian video games because of low availability, believes that in order to increase the demand, graphic quality should equal that of the more popular secular video games, which sometimes have strong sexual and violent content.

"I've got three girls and I refuse to buy them a game system because I don't want to go there yet," said Turner. "I don't want to have to explain to them why they can buy this game and not buy that game."

Turner is like many parents who have decided that the vast majority of video games offer negative influences.

However, many parents who buy video games for their children don't realize the content.

Al Menconi's Ministries, a California-based evangelical ministry, was developed in 1982 to help educate parents from a Biblical perspective about the values and influences of the entertainment industry. The ministry has set up a system to review video games.

"As Christians we believe we are in a spiritual war," said Menconi in a telephone interview.

"I'm afraid that the majority of Christians have allowed much of today's entertainment to undermine our Christianity. We accept certain forms of entertainment, compromising our morals and our values.

Menconi, 60, a former California school teacher, says that basically any video game that's "challenging and has strong moral values," he supports even if it's not a Christian video game. "I want to challenge Christians to rethink what they are putting into their brain," he said.

There are several popular Christian video games on the market, including "The Bible Game" (by Crave Entertainment), which in gameshow format has minigames and trivia questions about the Old Testament and can be played on PlayStation2 and the new X-Box.; "Catechumen" (by Centurion Soft) puts good versus evil in ancient Rome and "Ominous Horizons" (by N'Lightning Software) has players track down missing pieces of Gutenberg's Bible, stolen by Satan. There are more games in the planning stages.

Matt Yaggi, 30, a former youth pastor in Illinois, is a video reviewer for Menconi Ministries.

"We just basically make parents aware of what's in the games," said Yaggi. "We don't grade it so much based on the fun factor, although we will mention in our review if we enjoyed the game or not."

The ministry reviews the games through five different categories: violence, language, sexual content, occult, supernatural and cultural, and moral and ethical values.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board video game ratings are: EC for ages three and over; E, everyone; E10+, everyone 10 and over; T, ages 13 and over; M, mature, ages 17 and over; and A, adults only.

Seven out of 10 children ages 8 to 17 report playing M-rated games, according to the National Institute on Media and the Family, while less than half (47 percent) of children say their parents understand all the ESRB ratings.

"We just find that a lot of parents and grandparents are not educated when it comes to the content in some of the games," said Yaggi.

Still, some church youth leaders are unaware of the existence of Christian video games.

"It just doesn't seem like there is a demand or an interest from the Church with these video game makers that they would come out with something that would be educating for our kids," said Patrick Krepps, youth pastor at life Christian Center in south St. Louis County. "It always seems like we're behind in everything that's created for the public. It took so long for Christian music to actually become where it's at right now and it looks like it's the same way with video games.

"It would be obviously something that once I get my hands on, we will be able to impart into our church and into our youth groups, and as well in my own family."