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Amid coronavirus stay-at-home orders, churches have done virtual services, prayers, choirs. Now, with Easter approaching, a Texas church announced it is doing a virtual Easter egg hunt.
Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington hopes to engage its elementary students by designing a virtual Easter egg hunt on the popular video game Minecraft, something they started using Monday to do weekly children's Bible studies.
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"It allows our kids to go in and build something that other people see," Curtis James, the church's family pastor, told the Baptist Press.
The family pastor at Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas plans to host a virtual Easter egg hunt for kids on the popular video game, Minecraft. (Baptist Press)
"We're going to do some sort of digital Easter egg hunt, put things around the Minecraft world and kids have to go find them," he said. "We're not real sure what we're going to do yet, but we've got some people with some ideas."
James pointed out that many churches have been able to achieve ways to connect adults and teens but it is more challenging for younger children as families stay home.
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"What we wanted to do was build a place where our kids could come and they could actually play together and build stuff together...and interact with one another and kind of be together in some way when they can't actually be together physically," he told the Christian outlet.
The church has built its own server, which disables features inappropriate for children. Also, the pastor said only church members and trusted friends will be able to participate.
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The pastor added that any church can use Minecraft to aid in ministry at little to no cost and recommended the Church Media Hacks Facebook group as a helpful resource.
In the weeks leading up to Resurrection Sunday, the holiest day on Christian calendar, online ministries have seen record numbers of people turn to Jesus, asking questions about faith. Religious institutions have had to get creative in how they minister, with some priests doing drive-thru confessions and several congregations doing drive-in style church services.