AT 11am yesterday, some 200 people assembled in Falkirk Trinity Church for the regular Sunday morning service.

It was telling, however, that in the hour that followed, some others watched the hymns, the prayers and the readings not from seats within the church but from their own living rooms.

The church, whose minister is the Rev Robert Allan, occupies a 206-year-old building in the town centre and is home to many items of historical interest.

Nevertheless it is one of the Kirk’s frontrunners when it comes to exploiting new technology, and is one of only 20 congregations out of 1,300 that currently live-stream their Sunday services.

The Kirk, hoping to increase that number, has just appointed the Very Rev Albert Bogle, a former Moderator, as its first digital minister.

I watched the Falkirk service from my home, barely a mile from the church. A couple of cameras relayed the service via the church’s website; if you wanted to sing the hymns at home, the verses appeared as captions.

During the service there was much talk of building solid foundations. There were hymns and readings. There was a talk about the work of Christian Aid. It was, in other words, the kind of service that has sustained churchgoers for generations.

There’s a mild curiosity at first in watching a live service from the comfort of your settee, especially one that is taking place less than 20 minutes’ walk away.

But you quickly realise why live-streaming appeals to churches seeking to increase their reach and the size of their congregations, and to aid those who are, in the Kirk’s words, seeking spiritual fulfilment online. Tech-savvy older churchgoers who find it difficult to get to church are among those who enjoy a live connection with their church via live-streaming.

Motherwell Dalziel St Andrew’s Church has been live-streaming its services for more than four years. Its dedicated YouTube channel has had 74,000 views from across 100 nations. A second livestream is aimed at the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Its minister, the Rev Derek Hughes, has said the live-streams had not only increased his attending congregations but had also lowered the age-range.

Many churches offer downloadable recordings via websites. Medieval Glasgow Cathedral live-streams its choral evensong. Mr Bogle is the minister at Sanctuary First, a pioneer ministry being developed through Falkirk Presbytery. The aim is to turn it into a worshipping congregation of the Kirk on the internet. Asked if he expected that many more congregations would now end up live-streaming, Mr Bogle, who stood down from St Andrew’s Bo’ness in 2015, said: “Absolutely. Part of my remit from Falkirk Presbytery is that we’re going to connect at least another two or three congregations here but I’ve already had ministers and congregations in other Presbyteries asking if we could help them get involved. Sanctuary will do this through Sanctus Media, the not-for-profit media company that was developed out of St Andrew’s Bo’ness.

“A few years ago there was a retired man in his 80s, in Bournemouth, whose wife was dying. He told his daughter in New York they missed church. She said there must be online church he could listen to but he said he didn’t want one of these fancy American churches. St Andrew’s Bo’ness was one of the few churches live-streaming at the time and he started to watch it. Within a month he’d written to tell me he wanted to join the church.

“His wife died. But he kept watching services online. People say, ‘You can’t be a church online’, but that was a genuine expression of people having a relationship with each another that went beyond looking at a flat screen.”