Religion is finding its place online as a new group has been set up to provide support a digital platform for prayer.

Facebook isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when people think of the Methodist church - but the Rev. Rachel Williams from Brampton Methodist Church is changing that.

She has created a Facebook group called the Borders Methodist Group which encompasses Methodists in Brampton, Gilsland, Longtown, Wetheral and Corby Hill.

Prior to setting up the group, Rachel would copy and paste the same information across different congregations’ Facebook groups, which was a time consuming process.

She said: “Instead, I created the Facebook for the Methodist church as a Facebook page to gather everybody together.

“I could put one prayer video out and it would reach four places.

“It has worked really well.”

The group works in collaboration with the other churches in the area as each minister grapples with the new government guidelines.

They are now harnessing the power of social media to keep their congregations connected.

The Borders Methodist Group goes beyond Facebook and is using a range of means to keep people engaged - WhatsApp, email, phone calls and the post.

“It’s not just Facebook that we’re using, I’m in the process of putting together some worship materials to post out so that everybody in the congregation will get a copy of the morning prayer and a copy of the Sunday service that they can use themselves,” she said.

“We’re trying to keep the church family and the church community together through all the different means of communication that we have got available to us.”

Beyond the prayers and readings, the group is also a way for the community to continue to meet and chat outside of prayer.

On Tuesdays, there is a virtual knit and natter group and, on Wednesdays, there is an online coffee morning.

The group is trying to maintain a sense of community during difficult times.

This all takes place through pre-recorded and live videos, as well as Facebook posts.

Getting to grips with the technology has been a learning curve but people are grateful. Rachel said: “The main challenge is the technology but I think the nice thing is that the situation we find ourselves is that people are just really grateful when you try.

“It’s connecting everybody together and keeping people in touch with each other, I think that is the main benefit.

“It’s using all the technology that is available to us to try and engage spiritually if they’re feeling a bit lost because the church isn’t on - actually church is still happening, we can worship God in our own homes as much as we can in a church building.”