The Church of England is embarking into the virtual realm of social networking by offering a selection of Christmas greeting cards blessed by it.
The specially-designed animated card, based on religious themes, free to U.K. Facebook users enables the sender to share their message of faith with the recipient through the popular site.
The Rt Revd Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden, said this concept was a 'brilliant' idea given the familiarity and the relative ease of using the site by his clergies and parishioners.
"I think this is a brilliant idea. Like a number of my clergy and hundreds of their parishioners, I've got a page on Facebook," Revd Broadbent said. "It's a quick and easy way for people to stay in touch and the Church needs to use websites like this to reach out to as many people as possible."
The bishop, continued, said Christmas was a perfect opportunity to spread the Christian message and he hoped this concept could be adopted by all the website visitors in spreading the 'life-changing' message to their friends.
"Christmas gives us the perfect opportunity to get the Christian message across even to those who think religion is scary, outmoded or pointless. These virtual cards are a simple idea but I hope they capture the imaginations of Christians across the country who want to spread the life-changing message of their faith among their friends."
The idea for the Facebook application follows last year's Church of England online Advent calendar, which received wide media coverage and around 1,000 unique visitors each day during December.