Last Chance to Register for TTRPG Faith Retreat!

It is less than one month away from the start of the Holy Rollers Retreat, and there are only TWO SPOTS LEFT before we hit our absolute maximum capacity! Single or double room available. Today is your last chance to register with our deep New Year’s discount – 23% off for 2023!

Sign up by midnight tonight (January 6th) and use the code HAPPY2023 for a 23% discount.

The 2023 Holy Rollers Retreat will be held Jan 31 – Feb 3rd at the ARC Retreat Community, about an hour north of the Twin Cities. In a homelike atmosphere, ARC offers 90 acres of pristine wetlands and woodlands within a majestic white pine forest. Trails are available for walking, skiing, and snowshoeing, as is a labyrinth for walking meditation.

This retreat will provide attendees with a wonderful mix of gaming, learning, and rest.

ROLL INITIATIVE!

Each day will afford hours of Dungeons & Dragons play, with daily game sessions run by four seasoned DMs. The whole experience will be that of a collective West Marches campaign, and will lean heavily into exploration, discovery, and emergent storytelling.

GAIN EXPERIENCE.

Within each day, opportunities will be offered to explore the history of the ups and the downs between the gaming community and the church, as well as exploring emergent ways that people of faith are forming themselves for the work of God today. A highlight will be a screening of the GenCon-award-winning documentary The Satanic Panic and the Religious Battle for the Imagination and follow up conversation with the featured Pastor Derek White, aka The Geek Preacher.

TAKE A LONG REST.

The ARC Retreat Community offers a quiet place to slow down the pace of life, restore balance, and grow on your spiritual journey. Enjoy healthy and delicious meals prepared and served from the ARC kitchen. Cozy up by the fireplace or strap on snowshoes and explore the 90 acres of pristine wetlands and woodlands within a majestic white pine forest, located in Stanchfield, MN, about an hour north of the MSP Airport.

Space is limited and only 2 spots remain (single or double room)! Register by midnight today – January 6th!

Sign up by January 6th and use the code HAPPY2023 for a deep 23% discount.

Start Your New Year with a D&D Retreat

We are exactly one month away from the start of the Holy Rollers Retreat. As of writing, there are only a few spots left (4!). To celebrate the new year and make this retreat as accessible as we can financially, we’re offering a last chance deal with a deep discount – 23% off for 2023!

Sign up by January 6th and use the code HAPPY2023 for a 23% discount.

The 2023 Holy Rollers Retreat will be held Jan 31 – Feb 3rd at the ARC Retreat Community, about an hour north of the Twin Cities. In a homelike atmosphere, ARC offers 90 acres of pristine wetlands and woodlands within a majestic white pine forest. Trails are available for walking, skiing, and snowshoeing, as is a labyrinth for walking meditation.

This retreat will provide attendees with a wonderful mix of gaming, learning, and rest.

ROLL INITIATIVE!

Each day will afford hours of Dungeons & Dragons play, with daily game sessions run by four seasoned DMs. The whole experience will be that of a collective West Marches campaign, and will lean heavily into exploration, discovery, and emergent storytelling.

GAIN EXPERIENCE.

Within each day, opportunities will be offered to explore the history of the ups and the downs between the gaming community and the church, as well as exploring emergent ways that people of faith are forming themselves for the work of God today. A highlight will be a screening of the GenCon-award-winning documentary The Satanic Panic and the Religious Battle for the Imagination and follow up conversation with the featured Pastor Derek White, aka The Geek Preacher.

TAKE A LONG REST.

The ARC Retreat Community offers a quiet place to slow down the pace of life, restore balance, and grow on your spiritual journey. Enjoy healthy and delicious meals prepared and served from the ARC kitchen. Cozy up by the fireplace or strap on snowshoes and explore the 90 acres of pristine wetlands and woodlands within a majestic white pine forest, located in Stanchfield, MN, about an hour north of the MSP Airport.

Space is limited and only 4 spots remain! Register today!

Sign up by January 6th and use the code HAPPY2023 for a deep 23% discount.

Praise for Dungeon Master Pastor Retreats

This January, we’re launching our third retreat, Holy Rollers: Blest Marches. This experience will be similar to past experiences, but expanded in some exciting new ways. Hear what participants at our last Dungeon Master Pastor Retreat had to say about their experience:

“I loved diving deeper into how D&D can be used outside the gaming table.”

– 2019 Pastors & Dragons Retreat Participant

“The highlight for me was obviously the gaming, but the subjects in the learning sessions were on point. Also, I really liked how the groups switched up, so we played with everyone over the course of the week.”

-2019 Pastors & Dragons Retreat Participant

“The development of new personal relationships that were hopeful, supportive, and with a good chance of continuance was my favorite aspect. And, of course, the gaming.”

-2019 Pastors & Dragons Retreat Participant

“My highlight was being able to be myself. Also, the campaigns were brilliant.”

-2019 Pastors & Dragons Retreat Participant

“All the education sessions were well thought out and executed.”

-2019 Pastors & Dragons Retreat Participant

“The learning sessions! Great DMs who created a safe space! Playing with creative new friends!”

-2019 Pastors & Dragons Retreat Participant

“The best parts were the fellowship and the game session the final night. Yargle!”

-2019 Pastors & Dragons Retreat Participant

A Dungeon Master Pastor retreat is a chance to learn something new, develop new and lasting friendships in a restful retreat environment, and play some epic games of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a gaming convention but without the overwhelming crowds. It’s a learning experience built around play. It’s spirit-filled but not oppressively pious. There’s truly no other experience like it.

Join us this January for our next retreat – Holy Rollers: Blest Marches!

Announcing the Holy Rollers Dungeon Masters!

Holy Rollers: Blest Marches 2023 DMs

Our Dungeon Master team is assembled! Meet the DMs for Holy Rollers: Blest Marches, and don’t forget to register for this one-of-a-kind retreat experience. Earlybird pricing ends on October 31st!

The Dungeon Master Pastor – Rev. Rory Philstrom, Retreat Leader

This will be Rory’s third D&D retreat as Retreat Leader. He currently serves as Lead Pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Bloomington, MN, where he has founded a D&D Youth Group and developed a process for using the roleplaying game genre as a tool for Biblical learning and exploration. He’s also produced a resource called Biblical Verbal Components, which matches a unique Bible verse to each official spell in Dungeons & Dragons 5e (available on the DMs Guild). During the social unrest following the murder of George Floyd, Rory served as part of the Interfaith Movement Chaplain Corps, providing spiritual care at marches, protests, and relief efforts around the Twin Cities.

Outside of pastoring and dungeon mastering, Rory has been an SMA speaker both nationally and internationally, talking about life with his son, who was diagnosed at birth with Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

The Geekpreacher – Rev. Derek White

Derek, aka The Geekpreacher, leads a clergy cohort group titled D&D and Discipleship showing clergy (and others) in the East Ohio Conference United Methodist Church how to use a tabletop roleplaying game like D&D as a discipleship tool. As The Geekpreacher, he has spoken at and moderated panels on Faith & Gaming at various conventions. He has also led ecumenical worship services at GenCon, Origins, and serves annually as the official chaplain for Gary Con, a gaming convention in Lake Geneva, WI that honors the life of D&D co-creator, Gary Gygax.

When he’s not pastoring and chaplaining, Derek is busy making documentaries. He’s been involved in the production of multiple documentaries, the latest entitled The Satanic Panic and the Religious Battle for the Imagination which won the Best Gamer Film award at GenCon 2022.

Rev. Ben Loven

This will be Ben’s third D&D Retreat, and second as a DM. He currently serves as Senior Pastor of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Rochester, MN. Pastor Ben loves to help God’s people imaginatively live into the mission that God gives through baptism. He moonlights as a Dungeon Master for pastors and their spouses, as well as members of his congregation.

Matt Spring

Matt co-founded Four Humors Theater in 2005, a local and touring theater company that creates original works. In 2012 he also helped co-found the Twin Cities Horror Festival, now an annual event. Since 2014 Matt has been working as a writer and consultant with Augsburg Fortress publishing house, creating materials for church youth education. When he’s not doing that, he’s parenting his two young kids and working gigs as a professional DM.

Announcing the 2019 Pastors & Dragons Curriculum!

We’ve been hard at work honing and preparing some really amazing learning sessions for this year’s Pastors & Dragons continuing education retreat. Each session will dial in on a particular aspect of the correlations between adventure, imagination, and spirit.

Self-Reflection through the Player Character

We’ll engage in the character creation process while asking, “How do we bring ourselves to the characters we imagine?” Whether as a reflection, an exaggeration, or challenge to grow, the characters we play on the tabletop are an opportunity to reflect on who we are, what we fear, and who we want to become.

Adventurers, Assemble!

In D&D you join a party of adventurers to explore fantastic and often dangerous locations. But what happens when you take that method of collective exploration and apply it elsewhere? We’ll engage our imaginations in collectively exploring the foundational stories of our faiths and our lives.

From DM Prep to Ministry Preparedness

What are some best practices for preparing to run a D&D adventure? What can the prep work we do for tabletop adventures teach us as we do the prep work for ministry? Whether it’s pastoral care, small group leadership, meeting facilitation, or presiding at worship – a bit of the right kind of prep can really pay off in a great experience for everyone.

More than Meets the Eye

How can Dungeons & Dragons strengthen our empathy muscles? We’ll open our eyes to the complexities of our real life stories. Then we’ll spend some time practicing using stories to help us enter into the experiences of others.

Fandoms: A Model for the Future Church

How can fandom help us better embody God’s unfolding story? Geek communities provide a fascinating new lens for how we can understand our faith communities. Cultures of imagination meet cultures of spirit and share a lot more than might be expected.

Read more about Pastors & Dragons: An Adventure of Spiritual Imagination and register to attend the best church/nerd retreat around.

Announcing Pastors & Dragons 2019!

We’ve been hard at work recently getting the logistics in line for our next retreat and now we are excited to announce Pastors & Dragons: An Adventure of Spiritual Imagination!

In 2019 we’ve leveled up and will be enjoying a new retreat center with a ton of additional amenities. Manicured trails and gardens… a pool, sauna, and spa… and chef prepared meals…nothing rustic here! It’s also a lot closer to the Twin Cities metro area, making transportation even easier.

For 2019 there’s also a new addition to the retreat organizing crew – Pastor Ben Loven! Ben has been a great friend, is an awesome minister, and is an equally avid D&D player. He brings his own unique perspective on how Dungeons & Dragons and ministry intersect, and will be sharing a bit about it in posts here in the coming months. Welcome Ben!