Advent is a time of preparation and waiting. It’s a time when we prepare to celebrate that world changing moment when Jesus Christ, God Himself burst into human history.

And that gave birth to a new era in history. One where we look forward to the completion of a kingdom of truth and justice and peace and light – God’s Kingdom raining on earth when Jesus returns.

We all need this message, we all need to prepare. And we all need it especially at a time when round the world so many are caught up in devastation and war and poverty and struggle. And that’s why this evening we think of Ukraine.

As the Russian invasion continues and the chaos and the evil that has been released – all the forces of hell – are visited on that courageous people.

Recently, Bishop Robert and I and some others visited the Anglican community there, as well as Christians from other churches. It was a tiny gesture of solidarity with a suffering yet courageous people.

It was about saying to them, you’re not forgotten. We pray for you. We support you. We stand with you, we’ll advocate for you.

Read it all.

On my recent trip to Ukraine I saw the devastating impact of the invasion – and the courage of its people. Join with Christians from across Europe for an Advent prayer service for peace in Ukraine, hosted at 5.30pm this evening by the @DioceseinEuropehttps://t.co/LvOs0G3bmU pic.twitter.com/4q45Kmd6ui

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) December 21, 2022

At Mattie Richland Baptist Church in Pineview, Georgia, the adults have been back in Sunday school and the kids led a Black history presentation, but the bus that picks up children for their education program will remain idle until January.

Sunday school, adult forums and other Christian formation classes, already threatened by declines in worship attendance, have been further challenged since COVID-19 shuttered churches and sent their services online. A study by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research said more than half were disrupted in some way. Other research shows religious education for adults has bounced back more than for younger church members.

“For some, it continued without any real major disruptions, and for others, it basically collapsed,” said Scott Thumma, the institute’s director, summing up its 2022 pandemic-related research during an October event at Yale Divinity School. “And the easiest way to make it collapse was to keep religious education for children and youth online. If you kept it online, you probably don’t have a religious education program now.”

The Rev. Scott Zaucha, pastor of St. Ann’s in Woodstock, a mostly white congregation with about 50 attending on Sundays, said its Sunday school had ceased to exist before the pandemic because of its aging congregation. He wondered how to begin it again and learned that online Christian education was not the answer because it seemed like “another thing to try to keep up with” when regular schooling was online.

Read it all.

“We have a crisis of catechism going on in America right now,” said @UMIChicago CEO Jeffrey Wright, expressing concern for the religious upbringing of the youngest generation. My @RNS story: https://t.co/Ji7MySJBgA

— Adelle Banks (@AMBankstw) December 22, 2022

This was supposed to be the year of returning to the office. The same could be said for 2021, and even the second half of 2020. The office seems to have become a place where we’re always “returning” but never quite “arriving.”

Although office occupancy rates have risen meaningfully, they are still nowhere near pre-pandemic norms in most of the country. In most big cities, offices are still empty more than half the time. Even in Austin, Texas — which has the highest occupancy rate among large cities, according to Kastle Systems badge-in data — workplaces are still much emptier than before the pandemic.

So, what have we learned about hybrid work over the past 12 months?

Hybrid work is the norm. The idea of a tug of war between managers and employees over spending time in the office has been a bit exaggerated. Polls have shown consistently that employees do value some degree of face time and want to be in the office roughly two days a week. Managers would prefer three. For those keeping score at home, that’s a difference of … one day.

“Overwhelmingly, managers are pretty much aligned with employees,” Stanford’s Nicholas Bloom says. The exceptions he has found are people who have “30-plus years of work experience, and have been very successful and have done that all in person … but they are real outliers.” Instead, most bosses are gradually becoming comfortable with managing and evaluating employees they don’t see every day — and not with creepy surveillance software, which Bloom dismisses as “awful.”

Read it all.

Hybrid work is the norm. The idea of a tug of war between managers & employees over spending time in the office has been a bit exaggerated: “Overwhelmingly, managers are pretty much aligned with employees,” Stanford’s Nicholas Bloom says https://t.co/1XHLXCawo6

— Jim Russell (@ProducerCities) December 22, 2022

As the war in Ukraine soon enters its second year, Ukrainian troops will find it much more challenging to reclaim territory from Russian forces who are focused on defending their remaining land gains rather than making a deeper push into the country, American officials say.

Over the course of the first 10 months of the war, the Ukrainian military has — with significant American support — outmaneuvered an incompetent Russian military, fought it to a standstill and then retaken hundreds of square miles and the only regional capital that Russia had captured.

Despite relentless Russian attacks on civilian power supplies, Ukraine has still kept up the momentum on the front lines since September. But the tide of the war is likely to change in the coming months, as Russia improves its defenses and pushes more soldiers to the front lines, making it more difficult for Ukraine to retake the huge swaths of territory it lost this year, according to U.S. government assessments.

All of these factors make the most likely scenario going into the second year of the war a stalemate in which neither army can take much land despite intense fighting.

Read it all.

As Ukraine Prepares for a Second Year at War, the Prospect of a Stalemate Looms https://t.co/VfOBYpVi7f

— Jose Manuel Paredes (@JMParedesC) December 22, 2022

Creator of light, we offer thanks for thy priest Henry Budd, who carried the great treasure of Scripture to his people the Cree nation, earning their trust and love. Grant that his example may call us to reverence, orderliness and love, that we may give thee glory in word and action; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

#Today in #Christian #History 1850
Henry Budd becomes the first person of First Nations ancestry ordained to the Anglican priesthood. He will work a large area of Western Canada and translate the Bible and Prayer Book into the Cree language. pic.twitter.com/7v7wJdNcXw

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@HistoricalRook) December 23, 2020

O God, who didst promise that thy glory should be revealed, and that all flesh should see it together: Stir up our hearts, we beseech thee, to prepare the way of thine only begotten Son; and pour out upon us thy loving kindness, that we who are afflicted by reason of our sins may be refreshed by the coming of our Saviour, and may behold his glory; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth one God, world without end.

Beautiful 🧡🏔️ pic.twitter.com/fj3tPjde7p

— Aleksandar Mitrovic (@Aleksan52094351) December 22, 2022

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechari’ah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

–Luke 1:39–43

Cette #Visitation peinte en 1491 par Domenico Ghirlandaio relate le célèbre épisode de l'évangile selon saint Luc pic.twitter.com/T6IZuPeytX

— Musée du Louvre (@MuseeLouvre) May 31, 2016