Churches in St Albans and Harpenden have made use of a range of digital solutions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

My own church has put out a recorded service each Sunday on YouTube. The small group I belong to within our congregation meets each fortnight by Zoom.

Small groups are a key feature of many churches. In our group we have about 10 members.

We look at some Bible verses together and discuss how we might apply them to our daily lives. We also share personal news, support and encourage each other, and then pray.

We have discovered that praying on Zoom works pretty well! We are simply bringing our request to the risen Lord Jesus Christ. We just happen to be in different homes, each in front of a screen.

We pray about our work, family concerns, issues to do with our health, for our church and for the world.

Last time we met our prayer topics ranged from someone who had lost all their keys – they turned up quickly afterwards – through to a member who has a chronic illness and another who is stuck in the UK when they are supposed to be at work in another country.

Nothing is too unimportant to pray about, although we also pray for major topics such as wisdom for our Government or the needs of persecuted Christians around the world.

We each put such concerns into a few short sentences, and we all say ‘Amen’ at the end.

On Zoom you can see everyone’s face, not to mention what may be going on in the background! Provided we remember not to mute ourselves we can also hear everyone, and it is not that different from being in the same room.

I don’t expect the techies behind Zoom or similar video conferencing software ever imagined it would be used by Christians to pray together but many churches do this.

So we thank God for the benefits of modern tech, even if we hope to meet in person again before too long.

John Truscott has lived in St Albans for over 40 years and is a member of Christ Church, High Oaks. He works nationally as a church consultant and trainer specialising in organisation.