“I’m a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.”^♠

As baptized children of God, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.^♣ One of those things happens to be: Play Dungeons & Dragons like a boss.

“I’m a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”^♠

As baptized children of God, we’re also called to follow Jesus, to carry the good news of God’s Kingdom to the ends of the Earth, and to participate in God’s mission of love for the entire cosmos. One of the ways we do that happens to be: Serve the Church as congregational pastors.^♥

This blog is about how these things meet.

• Where our lordship meets our servanthood.
• Where our identities and God-given abilities meets our activity in God’s proclaimed mission.
• Where Pastor meets Dungeon Master, and following Jesus meets tabletop fantasy role playing.

We have a hunch that these things have more to say to one another than you might think.

---

As the Dungeon Master Pastor, Rory Philstrom has been exploring the intersections between tabletop roleplaying games and following Jesus since 2014. Players in Rory’s games have included over 50 pastors and church staff, in addition to neighborhood youth, congregation members, rpg-curious adults, and gaming-convention goers. He leads retreats for clergy and church workers, organizes a local Dungeons & Dragons Youth Group, uses tabletop RPGs a tool for participatory education, and works within the gaming community to promote justice, generosity, and love. He seeks out new adventures of all kinds, whether they be exploring the outdoors, advocating on behalf of others at city hall and the capitol, discovering a new part of town, or raising two small children.

He also serves as is the Lead Pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church, an ELCA Congregation in Bloomington, MN. While at CTK he has worked with the congregation to revivify adult and youth education, innovate new structures for ministry, and engage the neighborhood around pressing issues such as affordable housing and anti-racism. He previously served with his wife as Co-Pastor of Prairie Lutheran Parish, four congregations in and around the small town of Stanley in northwestern North Dakota.

Rory grew up in Omaha, NE where he learned the values of hard work, fast friendship, a lived faith, and adventure. From there he moved on to Fort Worth, TX where he studied Religion and Spanish at Texas Christian University. While at TCU he got bit by the international travel bug and made his way to China, Tibet, New Zealand, Australia, Tonga, and Nicaragua. After college he spent a year in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, working as a Youth Ministry Coordinator at a congregation in urban Chicago. During that year he intentionally lived below the poverty line with a community of folks doing the same. From there he enrolled at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, where his studies focused on interfaith relations. He is passionate about the work that God is doing in our world today and is constantly thinking about how we might become better disciples.

You can follow Rory @TheDMPastor@Dice.Camp on Mastodon, and @TheDMPastor on Twitter. 

---

Ben Loven 

Pastor Ben is extremely passionate about helping God’s people live into the mission that God has given us through baptism, and enjoys preaching and teaching. He moonlights as a dwarven fighter-paladin and relishes the opportunity to play the DM for his two adorable children.

---

♠ Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian.

♠ Philippians 4:13

♥ We’re pastors in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but the views and opinions on this page are our own and are not meant to be representative of the ELCA. For more about the ELCA go to http://www.elca.org/