Social media platform Facebook has confirmed that they are testing a new prayer feature within selected accounts.

The description of the new feature reads, “You may enable group members to ask for and respond to prayers in a post,” Religion News Service reports.

Facebook group administrators will be able to manage who can create posts, leave a comment or send a private message to the poster.

“Our mission to give people the power to build community extends to the world’s largest community, the faith community,” Nona Jones, head of Global Faith Partnerships at Facebook, told RNS.

Jones, who pastors the Open Door Ministries church in Gainesville (Florida) pointed out that she “knows very well how disruptive the last year has been for people of faith and the houses of worship,” so that Facebook is “committed to finding ways to build the tools that help people connect to hope.”

In its 2020 review, the social media platform informed that “with in-person services on hold due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the holiday week of April 6 (Easter and Passover) was the biggest for group video calls on Messenger and the most popular week of Facebook Live broadcasts from spiritual pages, ever.”

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This story originally appeared at Evangelical Focus and is republished here with permission.