Pastors and bishops tell CityServe leaders their greatest needs are helping young mothers who are now widows, the elderly and traumatized children. CityServe President Wendell Vinson is grateful to Ukrainian pastor and churches. “We get to link up with the church Jesus already has in Ukraine; it is moving forward, and the gospel is advancing throughout eastern Europe,” Vinson said.

The little known story of war in Ukraine is how churches are turning what the enemy intended for evil into glory for God through ministry to millions of people traumatized by Russia’s aggression.
With support from Christians in America, Ukrainian churches have shared the gospel with millions of people, filled empty stomachs, sheltered the homeless, and prayed for peace.
A prayer leader in Ukraine, Vitaliy Orlov, is thankful for spiritual and financial support from American intercessors for neighbors and a family member who’ve suffered as a result of the war.
“It is true that daily we are being bombed, especially my city and region, along with thousands of other towns in Ukraine. I know that almost every Ukrainian is traumatized today,” Orlov told American prayer warriors.
Orlov, the leader of Intercessors for Ukraine, said his brother expressed doubts that he will survive the war as a member of the army.
“There are hundreds of thousands like my brother,” Orlov told Intercessors for America (IFA). Watch here: Watch – Intercessors for America (ifapray.org)
People without food for months heard the gospel and received prayer booklets, thanks to IFA, which  provided one million meals after the war began.
Still, spiritual, emotional and physical tolls mount for Ukrainians in the second summer of war, according to a pastor whose church’s doors are open to hurting people.
“It’s tough to see families that have lost fathers and homes,” said Pastor Maksym Bilosouv, who weekly serves hundreds of refugees at his church in Dnipro.
Praying for and over refugees, church members lead them to the Lord around tables set up for meals and conversation, said Bilosouv, who calls it a starting point.
“When I look ahead, I see problems in the future that only God can deal with,” said Bilosouv who, despite adversity, retains joy.
Though the church responded wonderfully at the beginning of the conflict, fatigue is now a factor.
Both leaders ask prayer for the military, more prayer book resources, and care for orphans.
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In this final passive act, the Queen called us to acknowledge not our inner selves, or our felt selves, or our authentic selves, or whatever the latest psychobabble bon mot is that describes incurvatus in se, (the self curved in on itself) – but God Himself above. Her commitment to transcendence – God’s transcendence meant that down here she lived a life lived outwardly and upwardly. 

For one brief day the world was porous again.
For one brief day we recognised that the invisible world still leaks into the visible.
For one brief day – perhaps one final day – transcendence was admitted into the public square in the modern Western world, and we all stood and acknowledged it.
For one brief day the immanent frame of our secular imaginary was peeled back, and we were given a vision, albeit in shadow form, of what true majesty might look like.
And for one brief day the nation, indeed billions around the world, watched as a Queen, whose every fibre acknowledged that transcendence, was honoured and laid to rest.
And for an even briefer two minutes – the whole nation fell silent, and the shockwaves of that silence spread to us as well. No phones, no blips, no bleeps, no pings. Silence.
In this final passive act, the Queen called us to acknowledge not our inner selves, or our felt selves, or our authentic selves, or whatever the latest psychobabble bon mot is that describes incurvatus in se, (the self curved in on itself) – but God Himself above.
Her commitment to transcendence – God’s transcendence meant that down here she lived a life lived outwardly and upwardly. That Archbishop Justin Welby acknowledged that very fact as he opened his homily is worth noting.
I read in The Times just prior to the funeral that the word was that French President Emmanuel Macron would throw “a hissy fit” if he were not right up the front. Which of course makes sense coming from that most secular of countries in which the immanent frame is a public virtue. The desire for transcendence never leaves us, it is merely transferred. Perhaps he is aptly named Emmanuel.
Tony Blair’s senior advisor famously said that the British Government doesn’t “do God”. And, my, how it has shown over the decades since.
Perhaps, if I may be patriotic, a special thank you to our new Prime Minister in Australia, Anthony Albanese, whose grace, wisdom and manner has been exemplary for our nation at this time. Not too heavy, not too light. Just right. But then again, as he himself said, the Catholic Church is one of the great shapers of his own life. He knows transcendence when he sees it.
The Queen, however, was the ultimate counter to all the immanent politics. Her funeral was a breath-taking acknowledgement of the reality of heaven above us, hell below us.
The fact that seating arrangements were such as to ensure warring nations were kept apart, and ancient enmities acknowledged, shows how porous reality is. Hell has leaked upwards. It may be around for some time yet.
And the whole ceremony was a counter to the dreadful opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics – the high point of immanence in our public life – in which John Lennon’s Imagine was the opening hymn. Right in the midst of a pandemic we were told to look within ourselves and be happy. Imagine that indeed.
Imagine too if the Queen had died during the pandemic. We would have not witnessed what we did. Perhaps this was a gift from God to us, to give us one last look at something that publicly pointed to something – to Someone – beyond itself and beyond herself. Am I over-egging the cake?
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When we see the failings of our brothers and sisters, let our first inclination be to believe the promises of God for that saint, and to watch out for our own souls. Let us be willing to have the hard conversations, but let it be with clear eyes and a humble heart. Let our own forgiveness cause us to walk in holy fear, and let us extend the same grace that we have been so freely given.

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
Psalm 130:3
Sometimes I get frustrated. I often see it as a holy frustration. (Of course I do). I find someone who is somehow unable to see what I can see so clearly, and I say to myself, “I can’t believe that those people would do/think that thing.” Sometimes I say it out loud. (Of course I do). Early on in my marriage was one of those times that I said it out loud.
I was perusing Facebook, sitting on the couch with my wife, and I saw a post from a Christian friend. Let’s just say it was less than Christ-like. My immediate reaction was, “I can’t believe so-and-so would post something like that. I just don’t know how this person can say this stuff with a good conscience. I don’t think this person will ever change.” And on-and-on I went I’m sure. My wife sat listening for a moment and said, “If the LORD should mark iniquities, who could stand?” Silence. “I’m gonna go take a shower now,” she said casually, as if she hadn’t just hit me with a healthy dose of theologically solid, gospel rich, humility-inducing truth.
When I got married, I realized that I was marrying up. Every now and then the Lord makes that abundantly clear.
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