Minister’s Message – July 30, 2023

Bible reading: Romans 8:18-27.

I’ve never found it easy to pray. Monks and nuns seem to spend entire days in fasting, prayer and meditation, John Wesley rose long before dawn so he could spend several hours in prayer before his busy day of ministry, Jesus sometimes went off to isolated places so he could spend an entire night praying to his Father. But I struggle: I soon find my mind drifting, I start repeating myself (or, alternatively, running out of words), or else I simply drop off to sleep. If you want to know what a good prayer life is like, don’t look at me! – although I do try.

Minister’s Message – July 23, 2023

Bible reading: Isaiah 44:6-20.

Every Sunday, millions of Christian around the world, perhaps using thousands of different languages, say these words as they recite the Apostles’ Creed in their worship; “I believe in God”. To be honest, most of them probably take the familiar words for granted and are unlikely to pause and think about them: they are simply the introduction to this great and ancient declaration of faith. (The complications come later, when they get to the bits about Jesus and the Holy Spirit). Yet those four simple words, which we find so basic and obvious, are in fact quite remarkable. Even today, huge numbers of religious or believing people would find them very strange.

Minister’s Message – July 16, 2023

Parable of the Sower, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

I doubt if many people these days remember Kenneth Horne, the radio entertainer. His first great success was “Much Binding in the Marsh” which began in 1947; he then went on to star in “Beyond Our Ken and “Round the Horne”. These were very daring programmes for the period, packed full of suggestive lines and doubles-entendres. Somehow they managed to evade the BBC censors – perhaps Horne’s posh accent lulled them into a false sense of security!

Minister’s Message – July 9, 2023

Moira and I made a pact with each other when we got married: she would come with me to steam railways and I would go with her to dance performances. I can say that, since then, Moira has consistently refused to learn about such fascinating subjects as locomotive valve gear, single-line working or facing-point locks (I can’t imagine why) while I have learned a lot about dance and have even managed to make some sensible or critical comments about it. However Moira has totally failed in one aspect of her ambition for me: she has never managed to persuade me to dance myself. That’s because I’m self-conscious, uncoordinated and find it impossible to remember even the simplest sequence of steps – saying that I have two left feet is only the start of my difficulties. So I prefer to leave dancing to the experts!

Minister’s Message – June 25, 2023

Jesus longed for his Church to be united yet there are many issues, trivial and important, which divide it. One of those issues is baptism, which often causes disagreement among Christians.  For there are some churches which believe that children should be baptised, and others which say, “No, no, baptism is for older people who have come to their own place of faith”. Some churches baptise people at a font, with just a small amount of water, while others believe that the candidates should be completely submerged (although stories of Baptist Deacons examining the hair of a recently-baptised person to make sure that every strand has got wet are, as they say, “greatly exaggerated”!) And then there are various understandings of what baptism actually means: some traditions say that it washes a person from sin, gives them salvation or confers the Holy Spirit, while others say that it is nothing more than a public witness to faith, a symbol of something spiritual that has already taken place within a believer. I could go on, and indeed finding out what some ordinary Christians in my own Baptist tradition thought about it was the subject of my Master’s dissertation many years ago.

Minister’s Message – June 18, 2023

I very much doubt that any of you follow the inner workings of the Church of England – after all, we’re in Wales! So you probably don’t know that the Church’s Liturgical Commission (which, according to its webpage, “prepares forms of service and promotes the development and understanding of liturgy and its use in the Church”) has a new project on the go. This is to consider whether it should develop new forms of liturgy – that is, the words which are allowed to be used in its services – which incorporate more inclusive or even gender-neutral language. A Church source suggests that it’s time for a change as its so-called “contemporary” liturgies are now over twenty years old and many people are interested in “exploring new language for worship”.

Minster’s Message – June 11, 2023

Jet aircraft revolutionised travel. Journeys which took weeks by sea, and days by noisy and uncomfortable piston-engined planes, can now be taken swiftly, smoothly and – yes – cheaply by jet. We think little (although we should, because of the environmental impact of air travel) about boarding a jet airliner as we journey for business, go off on our holidays, visit our families in distant lands or follow our favourite sports. Indeed, boarding an aircraft with whirling propellers (which may in fact also be jet-powered) feels like taking a step into the past. Jet planes are an amazing technical achievement, yet we take them for granted.

Minister’s Message – June 4, 2023

Many years ago, something I said led to a Pastor getting sacked. (Let me add straightaway that that wasn’t my intention!). I was a student in Glasgow at the time, and sometimes attended a small and rather obscure Pentecostal church. This church had recently called a new Pastor who was young and enthusiastic; they were very pleased with him although I personally didn’t much like his style.

Minister’s Message – May 28, 2023

Learning a language is a complex process which involves learning grammar, syntax, verb tenses, noun cases, intonations, sounds and, of course vocabulary. Children manage to do it naturally (some of them actually learn two or more languages at the same time); adults may well find it even more difficult. I studied Portuguese for eighteen months before going to West Africa; it was an enjoyable but sometimes frustrating task (and I loved living in Lisbon). Since we moved to Wales Moira has been determined to learn Welsh – she’s invested a lot of time and effort in it and folk say that she’s doing very well; however she’s aware that there’s still a long way to go before she’ll be reciting poetry at the Eisteddfod!

Minister’s Message – May 21, 2023

Have you ever been ticked off by an angel? Indeed, have you even met an angel? It seems highly unlikely, doesn’t it – although we must remember that the Bible tells us that people can encounter them without recognising them for what they are. However, the eleven disciples who’d witnessed Jesus ascending to heaven from the Mount of Olives definitely did receive an angelic rebuke! For, once Jesus had vanished into a cloud, they stayed rooted to the spot, gazing skywards and no doubt hoping fervently that their Master would soon reappear. According to the author Luke, what happened next was strange. For he tells us that two white-robed men appeared as if from nowhere, and “had a go” (as we might say) at the distraught disciples: “There’s no point in looking for him to come back, you know. He will return, as it happens, in clouds of glory and power – but that’s not going to happen today. What you need to do is remember his final words, and act upon them. So don’t just stand there: Move!”