In years past, over a hundred children gathered to hunt eggs on Easter at Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington. This year, they’ll be doing it virtually using Minecraft.

Minecraft is a multiplayer video game that allows players to build houses and other structures in a virtual sandbox. The virtual egg hunt will be held from 12:15 to 3:15 p.m. Parents need to RSVP on the church’s website.

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, Arlington is under a shelter-in-place order, which orders residents to stay home and canceled all gatherings in the city.

Lead pastor Jared Wellman said the church already moved service online, but it’s hard to keep young children engaged. His own children can get restless watching the prerecorded service, he said.

Using Minecraft will help reach the children where they’re at, he added.

“We’ve had people from all over the nation on our website and people signing up,” Wellman said.

He said the church is looking into opening multiple time slots to allow more people to participate without overloading the server.

Family pastor Curtis James came up with the idea for a Minecraft egg hunt after brainstorming ways to keep children engaged virtually.

James enlisted a church member who works in tech. A few YouTube videos later, they figured out how to set up the server, which includes features to restrict inappropriate content.

The Easter server will be hosted temporarily and open to anyone who would like to participate. The church also created a private server to host Bible lessons as well, where James will lead a study through the game’s in-game chat function.

His team even released an instructional video on how other churches can create a Minecraft server for their communities.

“These are strange times, and I think they require us to think outside of the box and to figure out how we can connect with people,” James said.