The Reverend Kate Bottley, possibly the most famous vicar in Britain thanks to her regular appearances on Gogglebox, seems to have a god-given gift for the 1983 arcade game Track & Field. She has just thrashed the Guardian’s games editor Keith Stuart at the classic button-bashing sports sim.

She takes the 100m sprint with ease, before breaking a record in the javelin. “That’s it, I’m retiring undefeated,” she declares to the small crowd that’s gathered around her at the GameCity festival taking place at Nottingham’s National Video Arcade (NVA).

She walks away from the machine. Stuart looks dejected, his fingers still poised over the buttons.

The National Videogame Arcade may seem like a strange place to find a member of the clergy, but Bottley feels right at home. She and her family are regular visitors to the NVA. Her young son loves its array of classic arcade games and interactive installations, but it’s not just about him: she’s been playing video games for 35 years, beginning with the old business sim Lemonade Stand on the ZX81. She’s good at them, even though she says she feels like an impostor here.

But then, Bottley is used to this feeling. As a priest, her gender alone is enough to mark her out as progressive. “I’m a 41-year-old, white, straight, able-bodied woman, and yet I’m cutting edge for the Church of England,” she says. “Now how disappointing is that?”

Of course, the most significant way that Bottley stands out from her colleagues is that millions of people from across the country know who she is. Slouching on the sofa with her husband, usually cup of tea in hand and slippers on, she’s a popular cast member on Channel 4’s Bafta-winning Gogglebox, a reality show where viewers watch other people watching television.

Bottley says there were no auditions before her appearance: the production company came to her. In 2012, she posted a video to YouTube showing footage of a wedding she was officiating. After the bride and groom kiss, Bottley breaks out into a dance accompanied by C+C Music Factory’s hit Everybody Dance Now – the married couple quickly join in – as does the rest of the congregation. The video has now been viewed more than 7m times. It was this video that impressed the casting Gogglebox casting team.

“Fancy doing a flash mob,” she says. “That’s very 1990s. But the Church of England is always a healthy 30 years behind everybody else, so I got away with it. When it went viral on YouTube, I remember ringing the press officer at the diocese and saying, ‘I’ve done something, and it’s gone viral,’ and I kid you not, they said, ‘What does ‘viral’ mean?’”

The three-minute video is the perfect encapsulation of her relentlessly outgoing, energetic personality. “I’ve never been a quiet, meek and mild kind of gal,” she says. “For me, obviously because I have a faith, it’s like God’s gone, ‘Oh, you’re an attention-seeker. OK. We can use that.’”

Television has used it too, not just on Gogglebox, but also BBC Radio 2’s Pause for Thought and, of course, Songs of Praise. But it’s her demeanour on Gogglebox that people like; she seems relaxed and affable but then also engaged, passionate and animated when a political topic comes up on one of the shows they’re asked to watch.

Is she constantly aware that she’s being filmed though? Does she feel relaxed enough to say anything she wants? “No!” she exclaims. “I’m a vicar for a living. I couldn’t say what I really think about David Cameron. Yeah, we’re always aware that the cameras are on and there’s a whole crew in the house when we’re filming – you don’t forget.”

But it’s video games she’s here for today and it’s unsurprising that she understands the culture that has grown up around them. After all, Gogglebox has direct parallels with the “let’s play” videos beloved of the gaming community, where YouTubers such as PewDiePie and Ali A are shown playing and chatting about the titles they love. For Bottley’s kids, like most others of their generation, YouTube and its celebrities are just part of their lives.

For her son Arthur especially, these online communities are about more than just entertainment. “I have a son on the autistic spectrum who is passionate about gaming and really struggles with socialisation,” she says. “Online gaming really helps him, and he’s got a little community that he plays with. These are his friends. These are his community. These are the people that he learns how to socialise with.”

For a person on the autistic spectrum, it can be difficult to socialise and connect with other people. But video games can be a catalyst for those tricky human connections, whether online or in person.

“If we put Arthur in a room full of people he’ll find it quite difficult to make friends,” Bottley says. “But when there’s something else to talk about, and there’s something that’s connecting people right in front of him, then that really really helps.”

Places such as the NVA, where games are the centre of attention, are particularly great for him. “We can let Arthur go here, and he can talk to anyone. And they won’t make him feel stupid, and they won’t make him feel silly, and they will listen to him. They will listen to what he’s got to say. He’s quite used to being the weirdest kid in the class. He’s not the weirdest kid here.”

Even outside of the benefits for people on the autistic spectrum, Bottley believes that video games have the power to provide connection not just with each other but with ourselves and even with the universe as a whole. Unsurprisingly, she links that power to spirituality.

This summer at the annual arts, faith and justice festival Greenbelt, Bottley and her family attended an event about gaming and faith run by writer and speaker Andy Robertson. In the past, Robertson has introduced congregations to games such as thatgamecompany’s Flower and Journey. As the name suggests, Journey is a particularly spiritual game, the story of a pilgrimage, but Bottley sees that spirituality in the medium as a whole.

“I think what human beings want, regardless of whether we express an actual named faith or whether we profess to be atheist or whatever, is connection,” she says. “So that’s connection with ourselves, connection with others, connection with the universe as a whole.

“What gaming provides for us is a platform to provide that connection with ourselves. It’s not just about wasting an hour. It’s actually about developing ourselves, and our relationships with others, and our relationships with the universe as a whole. I definitely see gaming as a way of exploring our own psyche.”

To those who worry that video games are a waste of time, or that the content is inappropriate for children, Bottley has some advice: “I think the danger comes when people just sit their children in their bedroom, close the door and leave them to it.

“Get involved, ask your kids what they’re playing. Ask them about where they’re going in their game, all that sort of stuff. From a faith perspective, you know, I think some people of faith would like their children to live in some sort of religious bubble their entire lives. I think it’s called a convent, isn’t it? I want my kids to be in the world and of the world.”

That desire to be in the world and of the world, rather than holed away with other people of the same religious background, is why Bottley can be found dancing in flash mobs, watching television on the television, and playing Track & Field at the NVA.

“I preach a gospel of normality,” Bottley says. “So when people say to me, ‘Why do you do Gogglebox? Why do you do all this stuff?’, I say, ‘Because most people who have a faith are just normal people.’ I’m just a normal person.”

But of course, that normality must now include an element of fame. And for a lot of women, especially women active on Twitter, that means abuse. Bottley talks passionately about the connective value of games and digital media, but she has also encountered the dark side of all that. She treats it with the wit and stoicism her Gogglebox appearances have become renowned for. “I get some horrible, horrible things on social media: bless and block is my usual strategy,” she says.

“But just occasionally, just occasionally, I compose the tweet I would like to reply with. So the other day someone put, ‘Your husband obviously hates you. I’ve got no idea why he stays with a bitch like you,’ and I typed, ‘I’m really good in bed’. Obviously I didn’t send it.”

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