By Grayson Hester
This one’s for the nerds.
Rev. Aaron Coyle-Carr, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Morehead, Ky., insists that that once-insulting term, “nerd,” is not only acceptable, but today in his university-adjacent congregation it is desirable.
“A nerd is someone who is super passionate about one particular thing, who lives into it as best they can,” he said. “Visual artists, taxidermy, theater guild — whatever quirky but awesome thing you’re passionate about, there’s a good chance someone else is passionate about it here. It’s a basis for creating community.”
FBC Morehead is a quirky, nerdier, church than one might expect to find in rural Appalachian Kentucky — to say nothing of its history of including those excluded on the bases of gender, sexual orientation, ability, race and so on.
Instead of downplaying this uniqueness, the church, especially under the leadership of self-described nerd Rev. Coyle-Carr, dove into it headfirst. Straight down into the dungeon.
“95% of the time the buildings are empty,” he said. “What if we open our Sunday School classrooms? Or, this is where D&D can be played — no fees — at the big table in the library. I’m pretty sure the building was built around it, it’s that big.”
Yes, by “D&D,” Rev. Coyle-Carr means Dungeons & Dragons, the perennially popular and hugely influential tabletop role-playing game (RPG) that has been bringing bands of nerds together to imagine grand scenarios, embark upon epic quests, create some awesome inside jokes and save the world since 1974.
It’s a collaborative game, each session (or campaign) of which is led by a Dungeon Master (known colloquially as a DM) who keeps the lore of each quest and reads aloud the story to their party, informing them of obstacles, opportunities and facilitating combat.
There’s significantly more to this ever-expanding game than can reasonably be covered in a Fellowship! article, but that’s the gist – a party of people, all inhabiting imaginary characters with specific attributes and gifts, working together towards a common goal, fueled by imagination and fun and cauldrons full of caffeine and snacks.
It’s that part, the working together, that not only drew Rev. Coyle-Carr to the game, but inspired him with a fairly groundbreaking idea.
“There’s real theological value here,” he said. “For folks in marginalized communities, D&D is a powerful tool of self-expression. They get to try on new identities in a low-stakes environment, which also holds true for students who are learning how to be themselves: ‘If I pretend to be this really powerful character, maybe I can live a little bit more like that during the week.’”
Why not, then, host a D&D summer camp at the church? And make use of that Goliath-sized, load-bearing library table?
It would tap into FBC Morehead’s surplus of nerds. It would appeal to a highly educated, predominantly white-collar, professional class community. It might even teach middle and high schoolers a little bit about a more playful, adventurous understanding of God.
But, perhaps most importantly, it would give this generation — this infamously overworked, misunderstood, anxious generation — nothing to do.
And that’s kind of the point.
“Something that seems silly and flippant is really, really powerful, actually. It’s the whole life of faith in and of itself. Playing D&D can be commercialized, but, primarily, at the end of the day, it’s use-less,” Rev. Coyle-Carr said. “Play is a vital sabbath activity. When you’re playing, you’re not worried: You’re focused on the game and having a good time. We want to help our students who are busier than ever and on the verge of burnout at age of 13. We care about providing places for them to rest and play and allow that experience of God.”
With an initial idea formed, Rev. Coyle-Carr set about the business of making this camp a reality. It took virtually no convincing.
Next, he had to adjust the concept of D&D ever so slightly to make it a tad more relevant to church. While FBC Morehead in no way subscribes to the theologies that once denigrated the game as devilish (see season 4 of Stranger Things for a fictionalized primer on this phenomenon), it does still hold a responsibility to a text even higher than those of D&D lore.
Enter The Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible.
Rev. Coyle-Carr found this tabletop RPG online, a product of a Kickstarter and an independent press called Red Panda. It applies the gameplay mechanics of D&D to stories found within the Bible. Instead of, say, fighting an evil warlock, parties might rally against Pharaoh in the Exodus narrative, or combine their powers against a demon.
“When I got the book, I was concerned,” he said. “Is this going to be cheesy or disrespectful to the Biblical narrative; is this going to appeal to anyone other than gigantic Bible nerds like me?”
To answer this question, he joined forces with the pastor of a local Disciples of Christ church for a Saturday playthrough.
What started out as a test run turned into a full-fledged campaign; the two “gigantic Bible nerds” enjoyed the game so much, he said, that they made their plan to return to it even before their first session had ended.
With approval granted and a game found, Rev. Coyle-Carr next had to procure the money and the congregational support to make this literal fantasy a reality.
Fortunately, through the CBF’s Ministries Council Grant program and an enthusiastic church body — who, according to the Rev., “wanted to play, too” — it didn’t take long for the requisite pieces to come together.
It took about as long for the initial vision — a few sessions of relaxing, imaginative gameplay — to expand into something far greater.
“Because collaboration is so important at the table, we want to help our students to collaborate more with our community,” he said. “We’re hoping to invite folks from a variety of different organizations to participate…to engage with the beautiful community as a whole.”
Such organizations included the theater guild, which could present a session on character development and roleplaying; Morehead State University with its STEM education center could integrate technology into prop making; Morehead’s library could utilize its 3D printer — the possibilities abound.
As is the case with many D&D or Adventurer’s Guide campaign, what happens on the tabletop only skims the surface. Significant study has been conducted into the community-building capabilities of these games, to the extent that the game has even been used as a lifeline for men on death row.
It’s not too much of a reach, then, to extrapolate some theological implications, particularly about a God of adventure and mystery.
“There is this sort of journeying into the unknown and a commitment to follow where the path leads,” he said. “That adventure is deeply suffused with compassion and creativity; we’re doing this together. God calls us to do this together. The adventure is fun and delightful, and it’s not as much about the end, but the means to the end, to go about the world with a sense of curiosity and awareness and a desire to do good.”
It’s a way of participating in a vast theological tradition of affixing attributes to God in an attempt to understand God, whether in 1 John — “God is love” — throughout the Gospels — God as Father — or even in the Creation narrative, God as sophia, as creative, feminine Spirit.
So, why not God as adventurer or God as one who suspends their own power if another player needs it?
“A lot of the things you have to do around a D&D table are things we want our students to do as disciples of Jesus, and it’s really hard to give them spaces to practice that,” he said. “How do you give them space to share power, especially when they feel disempowered? How do they allow the story to unfold and trust it’s going in a good direction? Sometimes in D&D you have to step back and let others shine, or to step forward and know what we have to do and lead the charge.”
If the campers, somewhere along the way of rolling dice, swapping jokes and vanquishing enemies, catch an altogether more relatable understanding of God, one who walks alongside them in their daily quests and travails, then that’s all the evidence Rev. Coyle-Carr would need of the camp’s success.
But, perhaps most crucially, if they were allowed a rare chance to rest? Well, that wouldn’t be so bad, either.
“Sometimes Sabbath activities feel wasteful,” he said. “But there’s nothing more important than feeling Sabbath, for our overworked, overused students to relax and be.”