Body, Soul and Spirit

It might be best to have all of the players aiming for the same goal. You could have the bad influences come from the game. Of course, then it would be easy for the players to know what to do and what not to do. Perhaps you could have events that start out as good but lead to bad. Like the old saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

If you do a missionaries game, you may try to use an ancient map around the mediterranean and use the apostoles as playing characters. Even if each chose its own paths, you have many letters (form Peter mostly) supporting each other's efforts in their local communities. So that's kind of an interaction.

The thing with cooperative play is that you have to have players constantly interacting among them. Otherwise, you'll end up with a "multi-player solo" game.

I don't share your whole "life" idea (sorry). I would choose "health" instead, and treat it like a resource to pay for actions (like "traveling" pay 2 health and move, or "alone in the desert" pay 2 health and gain 1 soul permanently).

Maybe you can narrow down you idea a little more, so you can get more precise feedback here.

PS forget about Money mixing with religion, is a bad word for some people

What popped into my head, after reading your original idea and the feedback, is having a cooperative game where pieces move on a continuous board (e.g., Monopoly board - sorry if there's lingo for this I should be using). All players start at one place, maybe the "life event" space. These pieces are the "body" and move around with dice rolls. Every time they go around the board once and pass the "life event" space, they get a +10 years card. Once a player has 10 of these, he or she stays at the life event spot ("death" at age 100) and does not move from that spot (but can still roll and use leftover cards to help other players).

At the start, everyone is "born" and moves around the board as babies (innocents). Landing on different spaces means getting different positive things (faith cards, prayer cards, blessings, resist temptations, etc.) and possible negative things (moment of weakness, temptations, shaken faith, illness, etc.). When younger, there is a less chance of things affecting the player (e.g., a baby is not affected by temptation but can be affected by illness). As a body gets older, the chances of things affecting the person increase. For example, if "illness" is drawn, it means a x1.5 move of the dice for babies, 2x roll for age 10-30, 2.5x roll for age 40-60, and 3x roll for age 70-90: until the other players have enough "faith, prayer, and blessing" cards to help cure the illness.

If a temptation card is drawn, for example, the card can say within age categories, what the effect is and what it takes to counter this (giving up things or being moved up the board to a certain spot, etc). All negative event cards could work this way. (except "illness" which moves the player around the board faster, thus the person is "dying faster"). The person could be more tempted in the middle ages of 20-60 and less at the ends ages 0-10 and 70-90.

After getting at least 2 +10 years cards, the person could somehow have the option to get married and this could have benefits in the game (x2 blessing or something). You could come up with other events that do this too (baptism, accepting Christ, other faith-based/life events).

Once all players reach age 100, there are left over positive and negative cards. Players pool up to counter everything negative that they can and see what's left over. If there is more positive stuff left over than negative, the players win. If not, the "game" wins. The only problem I see here is how one construes the "game" as winner.

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I hope that jumble of thoughts might help somehow. :)

A lot of things come to mind when reading about your plans. But let me first ask you this question:

What needs the World to be saved from?

I'm asking this question because you have posted before that the job of the players would be:
"to go out into the "nations and baptized them" spreading the word of God."
This would be done on a World map where there is land where: "the majority of people are of a different religion".

That, for me, gives a scary prospect to the purpose of your game. I hope I'm misinterpreting all this.
Could you please clarify this for me?

I've made a similar religiously themed game. It is an RPG where each players character increases in 4 spiritual categories, essentially powering them up against temptations and trials. The temptations and trials come from the game at regular intervals, but the biggest problem with my game it that it can be too much solitare, and not enough player interaction. Hopefully you can find a way to made player interaction a better part of your game.

here's a link to a game that I think could be a suitable inspiration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlcvO8e3JOU
The main-track in the game can be the road to salvation. The small sub-tracks can be renamed into "helping the poor", "spreading love" etc. etc. Have a look! I think this is a good co-op multi-player game!!

I don't want to get into a religious discussion here, but "spreading the word" is part of all religions and has caused a lot of conflicts. Hence, personally I´d like to avoid "conquering the lands/world" type of board. Maybe focus at the central parts of Christian religion i.e. love, forgiveness, understanding, helping the poor and sick etc.
Anyway, good luck with your project and enjoy the youtube-clip!