Growing up, we often had missionaries visit our church on Sunday nights (always Sunday nights for some reason) to present a slideshow of the people group they had devoted their lives to serve.

They would always follow the same format. Introduction. Personal testimony. Accepting the call. Snapshots of life in the field. Success stories. At the end, they always made one last request (aside from financial support).

They would ask for prayer.

Mentioning not only specific ways to pray for them as a missionary, but how to pray for those in their mission location as well.

They had spent the last 45 minutes giving us all a crash course into the lives and culture of these faraway people, so we could better understand how to pray specifically for a people group we knew nothing about until that moment.

Those prayers made me feel connected to the missionary and all of those people.

Through prayer, I came to understand those people groups a little better. I was able to put personal requests aside and feel a deeper burden for others in ways I had never thought of before.

A number of months ago, I began thinking about the friends and family of those who consider themselves “missionaries” in gaming circles. Do they have specifics on how to pray for gaming missionaries?

I also wondered about friends and family who don’t understand gaming culture, who have a child, sibling or friend who lives in the gaming world. Would they know how to pray specifically for their gamer?

This led me to conduct a survey among Christian Dungeons and Dragons players and ask for input on what they would want prayer for and what prayer needs those players around them might have.

I compiled the answers, and in true tabletop role-playing game style, I came up with a roll table for non-gamers and gamers alike. I’m encouraging them to roll a D20 (20-sided die) daily and pray specifically for a specific person with that specific prayer prompt in mind.