Technology worship has ascended to a higher spiritual plane with the Church of England now offering the faithful daily voice-activated prayers from Amazon's smart home kit, Echo.

Using the new Alexa "skill", believers can ask the CoE for prayers, explanations of the Christian faith and location-based information about local church events and services.

The function was developed by the church’s "digital and ...publishing" teams together with dev Aimer Media Ltd.

Sadly, users do need to be locked into the CoE ecosystem to use the service (although there's nothing to stop other faiths from introducing their own proprietary applications).

The gimmick online campaign is part of a move by the CoE to boost the dwindling numbers of folk attending services. The church also intends to offer the function on Google Play.

Videos, podcasts, blogs and images including prayers are reaching an online audience of 1.2 million a month through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, according to stats from the CoE's digital project.

However, Sunday attendance at CoE churches in 2016 (probably heavily weighted on Easter and Christmas services) was 739,000 people, 14 per cent lower than in 2006.

The function will also help users answer the big questions such as: what is the Bible? What is a Christian? Who is God?

Meanwhile, followers of the Apple faith are being kept in limbo as to whether they too will be offered similar salvation from the HomePod. ®