Minecraft church services
Date: 10. December 2026Time: 16:15 – 17:45Location: 📍Platform ReliLab
A religious feature in an online game
Dr. Sascha Gebauer (Vicar) @gebauer.sascha
Since 2020, the Cansteinsche Bibelanstalt in Berlin e. V. has been holding regular worship services in the online game Minecraft. This initiative has given rise to an active community with participants from across the German-speaking world. The digital gaming environment opens up new forms of religious expression for young people, which tie in with their everyday lives and enable active participation. Alongside the joint creation of virtual projects, spaces are emerging for the exchange of personal experiences, existential questions and individual searches for meaning. Using concrete examples from practice, the opportunities and challenges of digital faith-based communication, as well as the potential of Minecraft as a church-based social space, will be presented and discussed.
Moderation: TBC
This lecture is part of the Bavarian Interreligious College (BIK), the lecture series organised by the Bavarian Research Centre for Interreligious Discourse (BaFID) at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. The theme for the 2026/2027 winter semester is: “Follow Me! Religious Self-Presentation on Social Media”.