I speak to you today at the same hour as my father did, exactly 75 years ago. His message then was a salute to the men and women at home and abroad who had sacrificed so much in pursuit of what he rightly called a “great deliverance”.

The war had been a total war; it had affected everyone, and no one was immune from its impact. Whether it be the men and women called up to serve; families separated from each other; or people asked to take up new roles and skills to support the war effort, all had a part to play. At the start, the outlook seemed bleak, the end distant, the outcome uncertain. But we kept faith that the cause was right – and this belief, as my father noted in his broadcast, carried us through.

Never give up, never despair – that was the message of VE Day. I vividly remember the jubilant scenes my sister and I witnessed with our parents and Winston Churchill from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. The sense of joy in the crowds who gathered outside and across the country was profound, though while we celebrated the victory in Europe, we knew there would be further sacrifice. It was not until August that fighting in the Far East ceased and the war finally ended.

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Founded in the mid-19^th century, New Hope United Methodist Church had been operating on a razor-thin budget for years. Even after renovating the sanctuary recently, Sunday attendance was low, with $300 in the collection plate on a good week. But the church’s small, bustling food bank served 50 people a week in the low-income Starlight neighborhood of Atlanta. Others came to the church for Bible study and a free meal on Thursday nights, where a volunteer made sure everyone went home with an extra plate.

But the pandemic accelerated New Hope’s struggles. More than half its meager weekly donations came through cash in the Sunday offering basket, and the congregation has not met in person since mid-March. To raise extra money, pastor Abby Norman had recently started renting out the historic church building for documentaries and other film projects, including rap and country music video shoots. (Norman said she mostly stayed out of it but did ask the artists to email her the lyrics first.) The pandemic killed those gigs, too. Last week, Norman told her congregation that the church—and the food bank—would have to close. “We were so close,” Norman said. “It’s not just that we’re losing a church that worships Jesus on Sunday. It’s generations worth of knowledge about how to care for a community.”

Temporary church closings have meant spiritual losses for many Christians. Zoom is no substitute for the fellowship of weekly gatherings and the ritual of communal worship. But for churches as institutions, with buildings to maintain and staff to pay, the pandemic has also prompted a financial crisis. About 40 percent of Protestant pastors say giving has declined since earlier this year, according to an April survey conducted by LifeWay Research, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Just 9 percent said giving has increased. “This will push some churches over the edge,” said Scott McConnell, LifeWay Research’s executive director. “It’s definitely an existential threat.”

The unexpected dry season is especially acute for smaller churches and those serving low-income communities.

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Excellent reporting here from @publicroad: https://t.co/vCwBqAHja7

— Michael Wear (@MichaelRWear) May 8, 2020

1. Russia confirmed 10,699 new coronavirus infections Friday, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 187,859. Russia is now the fifth most-affected country in terms of infections, surpassing Germany and France on Thursday.
2. Moscow’s coronavirus lockdown has been extended until May 31, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Starting May 12, Moscow residents will be required to wear face masks and gloves in all public places and transport, Sobyanin said.
3. Hundreds of thousands of Moscow’s rapid antibody tests labeled as Dutch-made are unreliable at detecting the coronavirus in its early stages, meaning patients who receive false negatives could potentially infect others, a new investigation has said.

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#BREAKING Russia confirmed 10,699 new coronavirus infections Friday, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 187,859https://t.co/mJhaqBFUI5

— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) May 8, 2020

May 7, 2020
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As social distancing restrictions are relaxed here in South Carolina, it’s important to think carefully about how and when we move toward the resumption of public worship as a Diocese.

As the deanery clericus conversations the past few weeks have clearly revealed, this is a complicated challenge.

Therefore, the conditions under which the Bishop will allow public worship to resume are detailed in the attached Guidelines. It is the first step in what we anticipate will be a multi-phased process. These are meant to provide boundaries for each parish to make plans that are fitting for their community. They will be updated periodically as conditions dictate. They go into effect Sunday, May 17, though no church is compelled to begin public worship on that date. Anyone wishing to do so must submit a written plan to the Bishop’s office, following these guidelines, five days in advance.

Also enclosed is an example of how a parish may communicate implementation of these guidelines.

As we seek to understand the restrictions and allowances of the Bishop’s guidelines, it may be helpful to think about three principle issues…

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The UK has held a two-minute silence to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, as the country remains in lockdown due to the coronavirus.

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall led the silence at 11:00 BST to honour servicemen and women during World War Two, and the Queen will address the nation later.

The PM thanked the VE Day generation, saying “our gratitude will be eternal”.

Events are taking place all day, but public gatherings have been cancelled.

Victory in Europe Day marks the day in 1945 when Britain and its allies accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, bringing the war in Europe to an end.

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The two minute silence was nicely done, epitomising what we like to think of as classic Britishness – quiet, understated – and of course bagpipes! VE Day: UK marking 75th anniversary of end of WW2 in Europe https://t.co/yOKAaL2wWm

— Nicolette Harrison (@NickyHarrison12) May 8, 2020

When everything began shutting down back in March, Steve Wiens thought he would be leading church via Zoom for two, maybe four, weeks.

Members of his church, Genesis Covenant in Robbinsdale, Minn., rose to the challenge. They celebrated the Eucharist from their kitchens, with coffee and doughnuts, Capri Sun and Oreos. They divided themselves into small groups across town to keep tabs of who needed groceries or supplies.

“We’ve somehow maintained a real intimacy and sweetness because we leaned into the values that always held us,” Mr. Wiens said.

But as the weeks have turned into months, and Zoom fatigue is settling in, many church leaders are contemplating how — and when exactly — to reopen. This week, Mr. Wiens mapped out a four-stage plan of what a return to safe in-person worship might look like. Maybe by July they could worship in socially distant groups of 50, he guessed, and maybe they could lift all limits in the fall.

“That may be optimistic,” he said. “What we are doing right now will change how faith is expressed in worship, whether we like it or not.”

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After Weeks on Zoom, Churches Consider Plans to Reopen https://t.co/D3gOQZX8gk

— Herb Scribner (@HerbScribner) May 7, 2020

China has gone furthest. In 2015 it launched cips, an interbank messaging system to ease international payments in yuan. It uses the same language as swift, allowing it to talk to other countries’ payment systems. For now just 950 institutions use it—less than 10% of swift’s membership. But “what matters is it’s there,” says Eswar Prasad of Cornell University.

The real revolution is happening in low-value transfers. Like swift, the network of American card schemes is tricky to displace. Member banks and merchants trust each other because they adhere to tested rules. They also like the convenience of the schemes’ settlement platforms, which compute “net” positions between all banks that they square up at the end of the day. So rival schemes struggle to make a dent. In 2014, fearing sanctions could block it from using American schemes, Russia created its own, which now accounts for 17% of domestic cards. But its 70m tally is dwarfed by Visa and Mastercard’s 5bn. Size is not a problem for UnionPay, China’s own club. Just 130m of its 7.6bn cards were issued outside the mainland, however, where it is mostly used by Chinese tourists.

A mightier threat comes from a state-led revamp of domestic payment systems. Eager to reassert control over key infrastructure, some 70 countries have rebuilt their local plumbing to enable near-instant bank transfers at the tap of a screen. Europe is the most advanced, having fused local networks into a bloc of 35 countries and more than 500m people. South-East Asia is also trying to stitch its systems together. On March 5th India and Singapore connected theirs for the first time.

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Last year Chinese customers paid $49trn in purchases via mobile, 35 times the total in 2013 https://t.co/RGtbz28DiP

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 7, 2020

Lord God, who in thy compassion didst grant to the Lady Julian many revelations of thy nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek thee above all things, for in giving us thyself thou givest us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Julian of Norwich is commemorated on 8 May, the likely date on which she began to receive her visions of divine love in 1373.

‘Right the same we shall be without end, the same we were, treasured in God, and hid, known, and loved from without beginning.’ https://t.co/gAHAwOGxhU pic.twitter.com/n013X3olbj

— Fintry Trust (@FintryTrust) May 8, 2020

O Christ, the light of men, Who on the third day didst arise from the grave and shed Thy bright beams upon the darkness of the world; grant, we beseech Thee, that, enlightened by Thy presence, we may walk as children of the day, to the glory of Thy Name Who livest and reignest, world without end.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Happy Easter from West New Hope United Methodist Church between Mount Pleasant & Mount Vernon, Texas.

Amazing phot… pic.twitter.com/k0cAgK8Srs

— Texas Forest Trail (@etxtraveler) March 27, 2016

And the LORD said to Moses, “Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. And when Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. And afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai.

–Exodus 34:27-32