The time is eight o'clock on Monday morning and a message pops up on my phone: 'St Helen's Church is live now'.

Click on the notification and you can see a member of the clergy reads what is now a daily prayer to people who 'like' the Ashby church's Facebook page.

This 'virtual' service is designed to be a voice of comfort in an increasingly isolated world brought about by the Coronavirus crisis.

And this is how the church - not just in Ashby - uses modern day methods to reach out to their regular parishioners and others (click on video above).

After all, not even vicars are allowed to enter the area's churches any more as part of the Government measures.

But it seems as though the feeling of being effectively trapped inside your own house for days on end, with the prospect of weeks ahead, means not just church-goers are drawn to the St Helen's services.

They are attracting a wide range of viewers and not just from the Ashby area.

Actually, this is not exclusively a St Helen's thing - includes several of the churches in Ashby and the surrounding villages.

Rev Mary Gregory is rector of St Helen's Church Ashby but also team rector of the Flagstaff family of churches which includes St. Helen's, Holy Trinity, Breedon on the Hill, St. Mary's and St John's Chapel in Coleorton, Isley Walton, Staunton Harold and Worthington.

And she says this method of keeping in touch with the community is growing fast.

Rev Gregory explained: "We started it the morning after Boris Johnson said we had to work from home and do social distancing, and we did it the next morning.

"That was the Tuesday then, on that evening, we were told we couldn't have any public services in our buildings.

"So this seemed really important to me because, although we couldn't meet physically, we could offer something where people could gather.

"I know Facebook's not the perfect place, but there is a level of inter-activity, people can say 'Good morning'.

"It feels as though the community has been gathering, although it is dispersed.

"We do two services every day, one at 8am and another at 9pm, and we're getting people joining us every day, and we're doing the Sunday service as well.

"At 8am, we do a short prayer for the day. At 9pm, we do a night prayer to end the day.

"For people who want it, we email out an order of service so they can print it out and join in.

"On Sundays it's 10.30am. The first week we did it, it was quite a small number, but now it's growing. 

"People have said to me it's something that's giving them some shape to their days, they know at 8am they will see us and again at 9pm.

"For me personally, it's about relearning how to be a vicar. I've been a vicar for 15 years now, but never remotely. And it's led to me thinking how to do this under the current circumstances."

She also said that the online services have been seen in areas of the country that are not only outside of Ashby, but miles apart.

"What's been really interesting is that people have been joining us who would normally not come to church, which is fine of course," added Rev Gregory.

"But it's had the really unexpected consequence where people are finding us all over the country and joining in.

"Friends of friends have been joining us, there have been people from Scotland and the south coast of England.

"It's been Ashby people and the those from the villages I'm responsible for, that's the core, but all sorts of people are discovering us.

And the area's churches are already planning for Easter and will still be playing an important role as it would normally.

Rev Gregory added: "I'm doing a big mailshot in the week leading up to Easter to make it easier for people. I shall also be posting out Palm Crosses as well.

"I think it's so important at the moment for people for whom spiritual comfort is important, we can offer that.

"Although I am bit reticent about seeing myself on video, I think people want to see a face as well.

"That's why we've gone down the Facebook Live route, and that seems to be the easiest way for people to find us which is actually really lovely, from the point of view of our church in Ashby it's lovely to be able to play host to people.

"I've also asked people who've been following the services, if they like to do one of the Bible readings and they are recording it at home, and email it to me, and I'm going to embed it in the service, so that we've got different voices reading as well.

"It's another way to be a bit more participatory."

Rev Gregory admits these extraordinary times are not ideal, especially as she is not allowed access to her own church in Lower Church Street.

"It's very hard for people not to be able to worship together, but last week we were told we had to keep our building is locked. In the first week people could go into church, even though we weren't having services, they could sit and light a candle if they wanted to, but they can't even get in now. For some people that's really painful," she explained.

"But what we're doing is working really hard to create community as best we can. This is what we can do, I'm not allowed to go and visit people, I can wave at them through the window, and I post chocolate through the door believe it or not!  But I'm not allowed to go in, we are just trying to offer a sense of community and worship."

Rev Gregory hopes that this very new way of life will add something when the Coronavirus restrictions are finally lifted.

"I actually think it's been very moving and I hope will learn lessons for when we do get back to normal. A few people have contacted me saying they are severely disabled and I can't get to church, I've been looking for an online church and here you are," she said.

"And it's made me wonder what we could offer when we are back to normal. Maybe we can do something once a week where people could join in. There is a lot of learning for us I would say, I hope we will learn lessons in the future.

"There is the spiritual aspect of church life, but there's also the community as well. People have worshipped together for years, they are good friends so there is a dual loss. How do we give people the spiritual input they need? But also how can we give them that sense of community that's really important to them.

"We are doing other things as well, such as a phone support group, people are ringing around. We have a lot of widows for example, and they are completely by themselves, it's so tough."

But if you miss the live services, do not worry, you can access them later.

"We do our videos live, but people are then catching up with them after the event when we post them onto the Facebook page," added Rev Gregory.

"We do the services from our houses. We did wonder whether we could actually go into the church and lead worship from there, but we're not allowed to do that.

"It's all about leadership, if we were seen to be going in to church then people might say 'If they're going in, why can't we go in?

"I've tried to be absolutely scrupulous in being seen to adhere to everything being asked of everyone. The Church of England has said we can go in and get vital things but not for any other reason.

"So we do the online services from our houses."