‘God is Doing Something Pretty Incredible’: Prayer App Outranks Google, TikTok on Ash Wednesday
By Movieguide® Contributor
Hallow, a Catholic prayer app, landed the number 3 spot in the App Store on Ash Wednesday, surpassing other major players, including TikTok, Google, Netflix, Spotify and Instagram.
“God is doing something pretty incredible,” Hallow founder and CEO Alex Jones told The Daily Wire. “We never thought in a million years that we might have this many people from all around the world gathered together in prayer.”
“To be top 5 in the App Store is truly unbelievable,” Jones added. “Praise be to God!”
Hallow began its 40-day Lent challenge on Ash Wednesday, which will run until Easter Sunday. The app will feature prayers from Mark Wahlberg, Jonathan Roumie and Jim Caviezel throughout the challenge.
“For forty days, He walked through the desert,” the Hallow site explains. “Thirsty, hungry, tired, and tempted by the devil. And He continued His walk all the way to His loving sacrifice for us on the cross. A sacrifice for each and every one of us.”
“Together, as one community from all over the world, we’ll pray for 40 days leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection on Easter Sunday,” it adds. “We’ll journey through the life-changing spiritual classic the Imitation of Christ and focus our prayer and meditation on the three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting, and giving.”
Roumie recently reflected on his involvement with the challenge.
“[God] has brought me to these projects that put me in this position of prominence with this spiritual proclivity,” THE CHOSEN actor explained.
“We’re all on this big rock together, so I think our responsibility is to each other,” he said. “To God first, and then to each other. So hopefully these things that I’m involved with will help expedite the intensity of people’s connectedness to their creator.”
Wahlberg also shared his thoughts on Lent, as Movieguide® previously reported.
“God knows the things that he wants you to detach from,” he explained. “We all know those things that make us feel guilty, don’t make us feel as good as we should. So being able to detach from those things and focus on good habits as opposed to bad habits…just challenging people to be better versions of themselves.”
“I want to share that with people,” Wahlberg said. “So whether that’s with fasting [or] detaching from other things and just spending more time with God in prayer or in thoughtful reflection and those things are important.”
“We already have over 120,000 [sign-ups], and I expect over a quarter of a million,” Jones said. “It will be an incredible opportunity for us all to get to pray every day during Lent and prepare for Easter and the Resurrection. We’re pretty excited.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Hallow:
Hallow, a prayer and meditation app created by 29-year-old Alex Jones, recently reached the 100 million prayer mark worldwide.
Jones launched the app in 2018 and said that Hallow has 3.75 million downloads. Jones added that he wanted to connect faith and technology, mimicking apps like Calm but with a prayerful purpose.
“I thought they were super helpful tools to learn meditation within the comfort of your own home,” Jones told Fox News. “Every time I would meditate, my mind would feel pulled toward something Christian. An image of the cross, or the Trinity, or the Holy Spirit, which I thought was very strange.”
“I would ask, ‘Hey, is there any way there’s some intersection here between this whole faith thing and this meditation thing?’” he added. “They all laughed at me and said, ‘Yeah, we’ve been doing it for about 2,000 years. You’ve probably heard about it. It’s called prayer.’”
With newfound intentionality to his faith and a reconnection to his Christian roots, Jones set out to create something that encouraged others to pray.
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