Portsmouth church starts live streaming prayer sessions to hundreds of worshippers

City Life Church in Tangier Road, Baffins, is live streaming prayer meetings and church services, so that those who cannot attend still get their weekly worship.

It comes after all mass gatherings were strongly advised against by the government, leading to churches up and down the country closing their doors.

The church has filmed church services for a number of years, but is now seeing hundreds of people tune in to join prayer meetings during the week.

The first session, held earlier this week, saw more than 270 people tune in to pray alongside Pastor Daniel Harman and the Rev Sean Blackman.

Daniel said: ‘We’ve had a camera during Sunday services for seven years now, but got a new TV studio this week so decided to live stream our prayer meetings.

‘At prayer meetings we tend to get around 15 people, so I was stunned to see hundreds tuning in.

‘With everything closing down, I suppose it’s perfect timing for us.’

As part of the live stream, worshippers can give testimonies or prayer requests – and admin members are on hand to do private prayers with individuals, should they ask for it.

Daniel believes the church may have tapped into what could become the future for the church.

He said: ‘With the coronavirus at the moment, there is a real need for this sort of outreach right now.

‘Church gatherings themselves will never go away, but in general churches are starting to become more tech-savvy.

‘There is a lot of fear and anxiety in the world but there is also a lot of hope – and we want to send that positivity out to people; our methods might change but the mission will always stay the same.’

Daniel and Sean are excited for the future of the project.

To tune in, people can go to myCLC.org.uk and select the ‘watch live' option on the website.