A LAKE District church is taking a leap into the 21st century with a pioneering ‘digital prayer’ project.

St Michael’s and All Angels in Hawkshead has been fitted with specialist equipment allowing people to type in prayers which are then projected onto the church’s interior wall.

In coming weeks a link will also be created to allow the prayers to be shared with members of the Church of St Peter de Beauvoir in Hackney, London.

The Rev John Dixon, vicar of Hawkshead with Low Wray and Sawrey, said: “It struck me immediately as a very exciting idea.

“I think that people are looking to see what kind of relationship develops between Hawkshead and a very different community in Hackney.

“We’re also interested to see if people like to pray in this way. People have come to this church to pray for centuries but never before has it been connected digitally with another church.”

The digital installation includes four votive candles which light up when a prayer is registered on a touch screen device near the church’s entrance.

Two months ago John was approached by a team from Project CEDE (Creating and Exploring Digital Empathy), which includes input from Lancaster University, Sheffield University and University College London.

Prof Paul Coulton, Chair of Design at the University of Lancaster and a member of CEDE which funded the project at Hawkshead, said: “Some digital communication can be quite brutal and people don’t take the time to understand someone. Empathy is missing from that type of communication at the moment.

“We were looking to link churches up around the country and thought it would be nice to link up with a rural church which would provide a contrast with the church in Hackney.”

The four candle prayer system has been in place for two weeks and so far John says there has been real interest shown.

“It’s wonderful to see how everybody – and especially younger people - have come into the church and really engaged in the prayer process through this project," he said.

“We live in a media age and anybody coming to this church under a certain age is very familiar with new media. People communicate all the time in this way and there’s no reason why the church should be any different.”