With the coronavirus pandemic reaching far and wide, Christian hymn writer Keith Getty is encouraging people to start having conversations about death and what happens next.

He told The Belfast Telegraph that death wasn't something to fear and that it was "healthy" to talk about it.

"It's such a hard time," he said.

"And there is so much we don't know at the minute.

"We don't know when lockdown will end, or how it's going to end, we don't know if our jobs are going to be the same as they were before and we can't be sure we won't get Covid-19 or even a variant in a few years' time." he says.

"But what we can be sure of is that we're all going to die at some point, even if it's not now during this time of crisis. I think that's a healthy thing for us to think and talk about.

"We can't be afraid of it, because it's about the only thing we have to be sure of.

"As Christians, we believe life doesn't stop at death, and that what happens next is extraordinary.

"If anything, this is a time for people to start having these conversations about what happens next, because death isn't something to fear."

He and his wife Kristyn Getty have been bringing spiritual comfort to people around the world through their live hymn singalongs. 

Millions of people have tuned in the Getty Family Hymn Sing since the lockdown started. They have been taken aback by the response. 

"We didn't think too much would happen, and he shared it out with our mailing list and it went out live on our Facebook page.

"But by the end of the week, our girls had been on Fox News more times than Kristyn and I had in 20 years, and a week later it was being aired on lots of different platforms.

"By the end of the second week it was total chaos with 1.1 million people tuning in and before we knew it we were all on Fox News.

"It's been a huge hit, in a way we never imagined. But over here the idea of a family gathered around a piano singing together is an unusual one. Culturally in America, it doesn't seem to be the same. At home, that happens all the time.

"But here, it's really caught the imagination. Tomorrow we'll be broadcast on radio and TV, which is just above and beyond anything we'd imagined."