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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Minister’s Message- September 24, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 20:1-16.

I wonder how many of us knew that last Monday, September 18th, was “United Nations International Equal Pay Day”? No, nor did I! But in fact the principle of “Equal pay for equal work” has been enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights right from its start in 1946. Article 23 of the Declaration states, in part, that “Everyone has the right to just and favourable conditions of work; the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring an existence worthy of human dignity for themself and their family; and has the right to equal pay for equal work”. Equal pay is a founding principle of the European Union and it has been a part of British employment law since 1970.

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Minister’s Message – September 17, 2023

Bible Reading: Matthew 18:21-35.

I’ve never been to St Gwynno’s church in the village of Vaynor. It’s a quiet, rural place within the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, yet only about three miles, as the crow flies, from the industrial world of Merthyr Tydfil. In the churchyard there is a huge gravestone, reputed to weigh ten tons and surrounded by railings. It’s the last resting place of Robert Thompson Crawshay, who inherited his family’s Cyfartha ironmaking business after his brother drowned in the River Severn.

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Minister’s Message – September 3, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 16:13-28.

John McEnroe was one of the greatest male tennis players of his day. He won seven Grand Slam titles including three at Wimbledon and was No.1 in the world for 170 weeks. Today he is a respected senior commentator on the game, but back in 1981 he was just 22 years old and known as known as “Superbrat” because of his fiery temper. For many people he has always been defined by one brief moment during that summer, when he argued with the umpire over a line call and said, “You cannot be serious!”. He was fined £750 and narrowly escaped disqualification. In later life he said, “I’d call it a mixed blessing but more positive than negative, ironically. it was the only time I said it in my 15-year career; then all of a sudden when I played on the Seniors’ tour, I got paid a bonus if I said it!”

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Minitser’s Message – August 20, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 15:21-28.

When I was a child, playing “Cowboys and Indians” was all the rage – probably fuelled by Wild West comics and television programmes. We loved to dress up in cowboy clothes or Indian feathered head-dresses, we’d brandish (and shoot) our cap guns and bows and arrows. And, if we couldn’t play outside, there were always model cowboy and Indian figures to arrange on the kitchen table – although the horses had an annoying habit of falling over! It was pretty innocent fun.

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