Mark Zuckerberg (4th from right), Chief Executive Officer of Facebook at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2017. PHOTO/Courtesy.
Facebook is testing a new feature called “prayer posts” for groups on the platform.
“You may enable group members to ask for and respond to prayers in a post,” read a Facebook prompt shared last week by Robert P. Jones, founder and CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute.
A spokesperson for the social media platform told the Religion News Service that the feature — which will allow users to post prayer requests as well as click a “pray” button to let other posters know they have prayed for their respective requests — is currently in the testing phase.
“Our mission to give people the power to build community extends to the world’s largest community: the faith community,” said Nona Jones, head of global faith partnerships for Facebook.
Jones, who pastors a church alongside her husband, told RNS she is aware of just how “disruptive” 2020 was for people of faith, explaining that’s why she is “committed to finding ways to build the tools that help people connect to hope on Facebook.”
She noted that it was during Easter and Passover time last year — in early April — when Facebook recorded the most video calls ever on its private messaging app, Messenger. And the majority of its Facebook Live broadcasts came from pages labeled as “spiritual” in nature.
It is not immediately clear when the feature might become available more broadly. Faithwire has reached out to Facebook for comment. If a representative for the platform responds, this story will be updated.
