Research by the Church of England has revealed that more than 9,000 churches – equating to 78 per cent of places of worship – offered Church at Home online, via email, post and telephone during the first lockdown between March and July 2020.

More than 8,000 churches offered livestreamed or pre-recorded services, while more than 5,000 places of worship provided services downloadable from a website or via email.

The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, claimed last year that the advent of online worship had led to a “digital coming of age”.

The Church of England’s head of digital, Amaris Cole, said: “Online services and worship have provided people with the chance to gather together, regardless of where they are in the country – or in the world – to experience the consoling message of the Christian faith at what has been a difficult and painful time for many.

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How should we respond?

Well here’s three things all of us can do –

Be prepared to make sacrifices ourselves. Sanctions on Russia will also affect us. We have to be ready to pay that price.
Offer generous humanitarian aid. Just think for a moment what it’s like to be a young family living in the middle of Kyiv at the moment, sheltering from bombs in metro stations, fearing for the future. We must offer help.
Be ready to welcome Ukrainian refugees into our country. And, make it easier for them to come.
And, for me, there’s a fourth. As a follower of Jesus Christ, I will be praying.

Yes, for an end to the madness of war and a withdrawal of Russian forces; but also because we people of faith believe prayer changes things, beginning with ourselves.

"Russia invading Ukraine is a terrible, barbarous, illegal act."

The Archbishop of York @CottrellStephen has called on the government to impose the "stiffest possible sanctions" to isolate Russia and "offer safe routes for refugees" from Ukraine 🇺🇦 https://t.co/kbcNORvJB9

— ITV News Calendar (@itvcalendar) February 27, 2022

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Russian forces have launched a heavy bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, an assault that overshadowed the first direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials since President Vladimir Putin began his invasion five days ago.

Residents of the city said they had come under intense artillery and rocket fire from Russian positions. Video footage shared on social media showed high-rise apartment blocks in Kharkiv being hit by heavy shelling that shrouded the sky with plumes of dark smoke.

“Dozens of civilians are dying,” said regional governor Oleh Sinegubov. “It’s happening during the day when people go to pharmacies, for food, for drinking water. This is a crime.”

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Having seen the pictures we didn’t use for this story, what is happening right now in Kharkiv is horrible.

Russia launches fierce rocket attack on Ukrainian city of Kharkiv via @FT
https://t.co/JnMcPVstkq

— Alice Ross (@aliceemross) February 28, 2022

It seems ever clearer that the Russian elite is appalled—and impoverished—by his paranoid adventurism. The worse his plans go in Ukraine, the sooner cracks will start to appear in his regime and the more the Russian people will take to the streets. If Mr Putin is to hold on to the Kremlin, he may be obliged to impose terror of a severity that Russia has not seen for decades.

Mr Putin’s first mistake was to underestimate his enemy. Perhaps he believed his own propaganda: that Ukraine is not a real country, but a fake erected by the cia and run by crooks who are despised by the people they govern. If he expected Ukraine to collapse at the first show of Russian force, he could not have been more wrong.

Mr Putin’s second mistake was to mismanage his own armed forces. His air force has so far failed to dominate the skies. He has laboured to reassure his people that Russia is not engaged in a war, but just what he calls a “denazification” operation. Soldiers, unsure of what they are supposed to be doing, have turned up in Ukraine expecting to be welcomed as liberators. If he orders troops to slaughter their Ukrainian kin in large numbers, they may not obey. If many of his troops die in the attempt to crush Ukrainian cities, as is likely, he will not be able to cover it up at home.

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When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine he miscalculated. Now that he is wielding the threat of nuclear war, the world must make clear that his actions are unacceptable. He must not miscalculate again https://t.co/5392ZsohL6

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 28, 2022

A month later I sat eight feet away in the same coffee shop with a different conversation partner who also knew I was busy. This time there was no pretending life was tidy, sane, and successful. After some introductory reflections on COVID and the season, we got to the point. “Why do you still bother with Christianity?”

I paused. I actually looked over my left shoulder to see if my previous conversation partner was still sitting there with a raised eyebrow. I considered referring to my previous dialogue—“Would you believe someone else asked me a very similar question in here just the other day?”—but thought better of it. I sensed that this may have sounded like the same question but was in fact very different. It seemed a much bigger, harder, and more challenging question—after all, God, the Trinity, and the universe seem rather bigger than the church. Yet in another way it felt like a much simpler question—an easier, one-coffee question—mostly because the person really wanted a reply, rather than needing to voice a lament.

I settled on a straight answer. “Because the alternatives are too terrible to contemplate.”

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Help us this day, O God, to serve thee devoutly, and the world busily. May we do our work wisely, give succour secretly, go to our meat appetitely, sit thereat discreetly, arise temperately, please our friend duly, go to our bed merrily, and sleep surely; for the joy of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

–Robert W. Rodenmayer, ed., The Pastor’s Prayerbook: Selected and arranged for various occasions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)

Well that was an unexpected start to the day in Glastonbury. The sky was on fire before the rain started. Portrait format so might need a click. pic.twitter.com/DjfQmVjaUX

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) February 28, 2022

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, 1that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

–Philippians 2:5-11

Beautiful sunrise at the Old Santee Canal Park in Moncks Corner! pic.twitter.com/JKQ5ngg2GP

— JoeyLive5 (@JoeySovine) February 28, 2022