Prayers were said for victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 at Sunday's church service in Surabaya, Indonesia, where the airliner made its last departure before crashing a week earlier.

Friends and relatives of the victims gathered at Mawar Sharon Church for prayers led by Pastor Sonny Susanto.

Susanto acknowledged the pain of the congregation as 41 of its members were among the 162 aboard the flight, with little hope of their bodies being recovered.

After departing Surabaya for Singapore at 5:35am on December 28, the airliner disappeared from airspace less than an hour later. It was learned that the pilot had sought clearance minutes after take-off to fly higher due to bad weather but this request was denied.

Bodies of passengers were spotted floating in the Java Sea days later, and last Saturday, four large objects on the seabed believed to be broken parts of the wreckage were detected by sonar.

At the prayer service, Susanto asked God to "give the grieving families extraordinary strength and help ease their pain."

Earlier, Pastor Philip Mantofa and other counsellors from the same church led a mission to comfort those awaiting news of their missing loved ones at the Surabaya airport.

"Some things do not make sense to us but God is bigger than all this... help us God to move forward even though we are surrounded by darkness," Mantofa said in his prayers.

In the crowd was Linca Gonimasela, grieving over her 13-year-old son Adrian Fernando who had joined his aunt, uncle and their three-year-old daughter in the flight to Singapore for the New Year's celebration. "He is my only son," she said.

Just as tragic for the Bethany Church, five members of the same family who belongs to its congregation died in the air crash. According to The New York Times, the church's pastor, who goes only by the name Deddy, said the crash was a tragedy for all Indonesians.

Florida Rambu Bangi Roni, Gereja Kristen Indonesia Ngagel church, which lost three members told USA Today: "The tragedy of AirAsia is a reminder... we don't know what time we will die. So we should care for others, make them happy. It's important."

Bad weather has hampered weekend efforts to reach the wreckage and retrieve more bodies, frustrating the hopes of relatives wanting to give the victims a proper burial.