Life.Church pastors Craig Groeschel and Bobby Gruenewald are in self-isolation after attending the Willow Creek Leadership Summit in Germany, which was cut short last week when one of the speakers tested positive for coronavirus.

Gruenewald told Religion News Service that they were made aware of the diagnosis while travelling back to the US. 

The summit had been due to run from February 27 to 29 but ended a day early following the diagnosis.  At the time, organisers said that the unnamed speaker had not been present at the summit and that they had taken the decision to cancel the remainder of the meeting as a precaution. 

Groeschel and Gruenewald have since returned to their homes in Oklahoma, where they are self-isolating for 14 days. 

Gruenewald told RNS that both are "home and healthy", and have had no contact with church members or their families. 

"While en route home from Germany, we were made aware of the situation at the conference. We immediately notified health authorities and have followed every recommendation," he said.

"Out of an abundance of caution, we have been isolated in our homes the entire time, even limited from interaction with our families. We have no symptoms, and someone is checking on us regularly."

He added that they were making good use of their time "to focus on ministry work and even doing some extra situps and pushups". 

European countries have been racing to delay the spread of coronavirus.  There were 358 cases of coronavirus in Germany as of Thursday, with the country's health minister Jens Spahn saying a day earlier that the outbreak had become a "worldwide pandemic".