Minister’s Message – December 3, 2023

Bible reading: Isaiah 64:1-9.

As you drive along the M4 towards Newport, you will see a sign which reads: “For Forest Drive, leave at junction 28”. If this piques your curiosity, you’ll leave the motorway and follow the Ebbw River past Rogerstone, Risca and Crosskeys. The valley steadily narrows and, shortly before you reach Abercarn, you’ll see another sign pointing you up a road to your right. For the next mile or two you will pass through woodland until you finally arrive at the Cwmcarn Forest Drive. You can now pay a toll and continue along a narrow road along hillsides, above deep gorges and past picnic places where you can stop to admire the views. It’s all very peaceful, sylvan and (you might think) unspoiled. Yet this was once the site of the Prince of Wales colliery which, at its peak, employed well over 1000 people, and which in 1878 was the site of a terrible disaster which killed at least 278 men and boys. The colliery closed in 1968 and today you’d hardly know that it ever existed.

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Minister’s Message – November 26, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 25:31-46.

According to an article in the “Nairobi Sunday Standard” (a newspaper I’d never have heard of without the Internet!), there are several things which you must never do when you’re visiting someone ill in hospital.

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Minister’s Message – November 19, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 25:14-30.

“Double Your Money” was probably the most successful TV game show of the late 1950s and early 60s. It was famous for its presenter Hughie Green, who constantly interrupted contestants in order to put them off, for its perky young Cockney hostess Monica Rose, and for the soundproof box in which participants could follow the “money trail” to win £1000 – over a year’s wages for most people. Hughie Green wasn’t, I think, a very nice man (although he had a large model railway in his flat above Baker Street station); he was renowned for his many affairs and was a heavy smoker, drinker and drug user. Nevertheless his huckstering style added sparkle to British television at a time when it was all in black-and-white. And here’s some trivia you might not have known: one of the hostesses before Monica Rose was Margaret Smith, who went on to become the famous actress Dame Maggie Smith; and one of the £1000 prize-winners was Bobby Carlton, who answered questions on pop music – would you believe that he flouted the rules by refusing to go into the soundproof box!

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Minister’s Message – November 12, 2023

Bible reading: selected from Jeremiah 6.

The Second World War was very much a living memory when I was growing up. There were derelict air-raid shelters in the local parkand, bombsites which had yet to be developed. Films such as “The Dam Busters”, “The Wooden Horse” and (a bit later) “633 Squadron“ and “The Guns of Navarone” filled the cinemas. My comics featured stories of plucky Brits fighting dastardly Germans who called their enemies “Schweinhund”. Boys enjoyed assembling (and then destroying) Airfix kits of Spitfires and Messerschmitts. War was made to seem exciting, heroic and even rather fun; perhaps that was a way of helping grown-ups to work their way through the trauma that so many had suffered.

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Minister’s Message – November 5, 2023

Bible reading: James 3:1-2, 13-18.

My friends, not many of you should become teachers. As you know, we teachers will be judged with greater strictness than others. All of us often make mistakes. But if a person never makes a mistake in what they say, they are perfect and able to control their whole being.

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Minister’s Message – October 29, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 22:15-22.

I don’t really know Crickhowell. I’ve driven through it on the main A40 and crossed its famous old bridge, allegedly the longest stone bridge in Wales; but I’ve never stopped to look around. However the town has won the “Best High Street in Wales” award more than once, and it’s regarded as a desirable place to live. According to its tourism website, “Crickhowell is a picturesque town nestling in the beautiful Usk Valley and lying to the south of the Black Mountains, the eastern range of the Brecon Beacons National Park, Bannau Brycheiniog. The town and surrounding villages have attractions that are enticements for all visitors to this wonderful corner of Wales”. I’ll take their word for it!

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Minister’s Message – October 22, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 22:1-14.

The first church I served, back in the late 1980s, had a thriving Scout Group – the 221^st North London. Apart from the traditional activities such as camps and the Scout Supper (fun, games, potato and mash for all), one big event in 221’s calendar was its annual Dinner Dance for leaders, supporters and friends. It was held in a hotel or wedding venue..The food varied – we’ll never forget the year of the half-done chicken – and music was provided by a Cub leader who had his own band. To be honest, it wasn’t my kind of event, partly because the noise level made it difficult to chat with people. I usually made my excuses and left by midnight, wondering how many would be in church the next morning, and in what state!

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Minister’s Message- October 15, 2023

Bible reading: 1 Samuel 4:1-11.

Message (i).

I want to draw your attention to two well-known Bible stories which have an extraordinary resonance today. The first is the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt, miraculously crossing the Red Sea, travelling through the wilderness, and finally arriving at the River Jordan prior to cross into the Promised Land. After centuries of harsh slavery in Egypt and decades of wandering around the desert, they are about to have a land of their own, a fertile land overflowing with milk, honey and other good things, a land which (they are told) had been promised to them by God, hundreds of years before. But there’s just one tiny problem confronting the eager Israelites: that land is inconveniently occupied already by pagan Canaanites, and they have no intention of moving out. So the story we read in the book of Joshua is of battle, bloodshed, carnage and destruction. Ultimately the land is secured as the Jewish homeland – at a terrible cost to its former inhabitants.

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Minister’s Message – October 1, 2023

Bible reading: selected from Genesis 3.

I’ll be honest with you: if it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have held a Harvest Thanksgiving service this year. And I certainly don’t have it in my heart to feel in the slightest bit jolly. That’s because the last few months have seen an appalling level of distress and disaster around the world, caused by hurricanes, flooding, wildfires and earthquakes. Communities and livelihoods have been wrecked, the landscape has been devastated, thousands have died. It almost seems patronising and cruel for us in Britain, still a relatively bounteous country, to be thankful – although even our own farmers have had a tough time with scorching heat and torrential rain coming at unexpected times. So we might well be wanting to ask, “Where has God been this year?” and say, “How can we celebrate when it seems that our so-called loving Father doesn’t really care about people?” Even though we know some of the answers to these questions, they still challenge our faith.

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