The Link is Porth United Reformed Church's quarterly newsletter. Much of the content is available on other pages of this website. On this page we publish online the articles and news which are not already elsewhere on the website.
This edition was published in June 2010. We also have the Minister's Annual Report for 2009 for the AGM on 22nd March 2010 - please scroll down to read it.
Look out for the next edition in September 2010.
Minister's letter
"Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration." Thomas Alva Edison (inventor of the phonograph, cine camera and light bulb, amongst other things)
Dear friends,
First – the inspiration. It's a great pleasure for me that three regular worshippers at Porth URC have felt that God is calling them to be baptised as Christians and to come into membership of our church – the first new members for six years. Their joy in coming to know Jesus and their enthusiasm to know him better, to learn more about the Bible and the church, has been a great inspiration to me.
I hope that we will all wish to be inspired by this sign of the goodness of God and the endurance of Christian faith by joining Tracey and Leanne in being baptised by immersion at Bethlehem Baptist Church, Mount Pleasant on Thursday 1st July at 6pm, and also by joining Marilyn in being baptised by sprinkling in the URC on Sunday 4th July at 11am, when all three will then be received into membership. For many of us being part of a baptism by immersion will be a new experience. Don't miss this opportunity to be part of a wonderful occasion.
The inspiration doesn't stop there. We have all, I think, loved having children in our church services once again, and we hope to re-launch a Sunday School (almost certainly with a different name) in September, so that more children can join us. When the Sunday School came to an end five years and more ago, in faith the church said that it had been only "suspended", and the Sunday School funds remained on deposit in the belief that they might be needed. Well, they are now needed, and the suspension will shortly come to an end. Praise God! And thank you to all those who have kept praying and kept faith in our children's work, especially to Pat Carpenter as Treasurer, and to Ruth Purnell and the Brownies' and Guides' team in keeping up traditions such as the Nativity Service and enabling us to hold Family Services even when no children attended regularly on a Sunday.
And now, the perspiration. I attended a meeting with the URC denomination a few weeks ago in which we looked at financial figures about the support of ministry. We were told that it takes, on average across the URC in Britain, 129 members to pay each minister. In a church with few wage-earners such as ours, the figure is likely to be higher. The Elders at their meeting in June will be looking at detailed figures prepared by John Attwood which suggest that, with just 32 (soon to be 35) members, we are likely to be able to afford just one-quarter of a full-time minister. This is exactly what the URC's own figures would suggest. Castle Square is doing a similar calculation, which is likely to reach a similar conclusion.
This means that Porth and Castle Square together could employ at most just half a full-time minister after July 2011 or, at the latest, July 2012. How have you afforded to pay me up until now, then? Firstly, by both churches using up reserve funds - £45,000 of reserve funds have been spent on this and on maintaining the buildings at Porth over the past five years. Secondly, by the URC denomination agreeing to pay half of my salary from its own central funds for five years – later extended to six years, and the denomination may offer us one further year if we are willing. It was always clear – to me, to the Elders and, I hope, to the whole congregation – that the reserve funds could not last for ever, and that the URC could not subsidise us for ever, either.
As you know, I and the Elders discussed and brought to Church Meeting a scheme which would have allowed full-time ministry to continue by selling the church building and using the proceeds. This was decisively rejected by Church Meeting in March. That inevitably means that the two churches, and I, need to plan ahead on a new basis.
The Church Meeting called for Tuesday 22nd June at 7pm will therefore be asked:
whether you are able and willing to finance one extra year of full-time ministry in partnership with Castle Square, taking us forward to July 2012. To do this will mean either using up all our remaining reserve funds, or making an extra financial commitment as members – or both;
whether you wish to apply to the URC for a quarter-time ministry after July 2012, presumably by sharing with other churches who can make the post up to full-time;
what you would like a new minister to do in the limited time available each week, and which tasks which I currently do other people are willing to take on.
It will take time to sort all this out, and especially to form a new group of churches who can, together, call a new minister. The new group will need to decide all kinds of things, not least where a new minister should live, and how his or her duties should be apportioned amongst the group.
We also now need to look for a new Treasurer, or perhaps a team of people to take on the work that Griff did so faithfully for the church over the past sixteen years. The work could be shared, but we will need at least one computer-literate person to produce the annual accounts in the form now expected of us.
I know that all this change is coming as a shock to some members and friends of the church. But it was the realisation that we were bound, sooner or later, to lose key leaders, and that the money would sooner or later run out, that led to developing the Plaza scheme, which members rejected. We now have no option but to plan to live within our means as a church and to find other ways of continuing to serve God in the Lower Rhondda.
This will involve perspiration – hard work and hard thinking. I know that some of you feel tired and burdened by some aspects of church life and may face what now lies ahead with trepidation. But the experience of many churches is that it is just such a time which brings more inspiration. People find that they can do so much more than they thought before. The church finds that some things no longer need to be done at all – and that new things are possible.
So, in this season of the Holy Spirit in the weeks after Pentecost, please pray that we can be inspired by God's Spirit, and that we will have the courage to perspire a little in God's service. I really do believe that it will be worth it!
Gethin
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Social events with other churches
It is good to share the company of other Christians, and we have two opportunities over the summer:
Monday 28th June, 7pm in St John's Church, Cymmer – Barbecue organised by Lower Rhondda Ecumenical Christians, including "Poems and Quotes" – bring something serious or humorous to share after we have enjoyed the food. Friends and family welcome.
Friday 2nd July – Coach outing with Castle Square URC to Brecon. Depart 9am, return 5.30pm. Sign-up sheets are in the vestibule, and Pat Carpenter will take payment of £15 each, to cover the cost of the bus and a gentle barge trip on Brecon Canal in the afternoon.
A Country Minister
A country minister took as the text for his sermon a line from St. Matthew: "And Peter's wife's mother lay sick of a fever."
The following Sunday he continued on the same theme, and again the next week.
On Monday, two elderly members of the congregation were walking past the church when the bell began to toll. "Who's that for?" asked one. "I don't know," replied the other, "but I expect it's for Peter's wife's mother. She's been lying sick these past three weeks!"
(The Friendship Book) Mair Healy
Griff Evans (1925 – 2010)
Griffith Thomas Evans, but everyone knew him as Griff, was born in November 1925 in Caersws, Montgomeryshire. His father, John, was the local blacksmith, and he and his wife Mary had three children – Nancy, Griff and Betty.
When Griff was aged 5 the family moved to Ynysybwl. He did well at Trerobert Primary School and Pontypridd Boys' Grammar School. He went to work in the ticket office at Pontypridd railway station, where he met Mair. From 1943 until 1948 Griff served with the Royal Engineers in the Far East, rising to the rank of sergeant. Griff and Mair corresponded throughout, and they were married on 4th June 1949, moving to Mair's family home, 21 Bryn Eirw, Trehafod.
Griff worked as a clerk in the offices of Thomas & Evans, rising to become a manager with Corona, which was bought out by Beecham's. In 1971 Griff became the village postmaster of Trehafod, an occupation in which he remained for twenty years, and meant that he knew everyone in the village. It was a job to which he was ideally suited, being patient, kind and even-tempered, and he made many friends. In his spare time he was an accomplished carpenter, and he made much of the furniture in the house.
Griff and Mair had two sons, Craig and Ian, and family life was always important to Griff. He and Mair were a devoted couple. She would help him cash up at the end of each day in the Post Office, and they were always together. When Griff retired in March 1991 he did not wish to be idle, and he worked with Craig and Ann on their new bungalow in Trehafod, putting his carpentry skills to good use. He and Mair had always intended to travel the world together. They did indeed go on some holidays, including a memorable visit to Jerusalem together, but Mair died very suddenly in 1998, so from then on he had to do the travelling for the two of them – always taking a photograph of Mair with him. He went on safari in Kenya, sailed down the Nile in Egypt, visited Jerusalem a second time, India, travelled through Canada by rail, and finally visited China, where he won an award for being the best tourist in the coach party – and from where he as usual sent all his friends a postcard, expressing some surprise at the amount of Chinese food being served and the number of Chinese people he had met! In fact, Griff always made friends on these holidays, and kept in touch with many of them.
Shortly after Mair's death, Griff suffered a stroke, but he always remained positive and cheerful. He loved walking in the hills above Trehafod – and anywhere else he could. On church holidays he would be up early in the morning for a walk, most recently in Trefeca, a place which touched his deep spirituality.
Griff, Mair and her mother became members of Porth URC in 1983. He was elected an elder in 1990 and Treasurer in 1994. Griff's mental arithmetic was remarkable – he never possessed a calculator (still less a computer!), but he could add up the whole year's accounts in his head. He supported all the church's events (except the Pancake Tea, as he didn't like pancakes) and threw himself even more into its life after Mair died. At the Prayer Meeting he overcame an inhibition stemming back to school days, when a slight stutter had prevented him from speaking in any kind of public gathering, and always chose and read out a hymn.
As an Elder he was a faithful visitor to the housebound, calling on a fortnightly rota basis on each of the housebound members of the congregation. Latterly, he did spend some of each visit asleep on their sofas, but people didn't mind, as he was such an easy person to welcome into the house. He had a particular love of children. He was the ideal Father Christmas for Trehafod school year after year, and the children of the church had a great affection for him and will miss him.
Griff's Christian faith shone through not only in church life, but in his generosity towards his neighbours, his constant giving to numerous charities of all kinds, and his unshakeable belief that he would one day be reunited with Mair – symbolised by the single red rose which each week he placed next to her photograph on the mantelpiece.
That day has come, though not in quite the way we expected. Following the tragic accident last month, we have lost not only our Treasurer, but a true friend. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
Church News
It is with deep regret we record the passing of Mr. Lionel Rees and Mr. Cecil Watts. Our sympathy goes out to Mrs. Lorraine Rees, Mrs. Eirwen Watts and their families at this sad time.
David Young
Marilyn would like to express her sincere thanks to Gethin for his funeral services at Church and Glyntaff, also for his regular visits and pastoral care during David's long illness. Thanks also to the Church friends for their attendance at the funeral and for their donations to Velindre hospital and Macmillan nurses.
Letters
What a wonderful bridge a letter can be,
A link between friends whom we rarely see.
It's a bit of us we gather and send,
As our thoughts and news are happily penned.
And while we wait for letters from friends,
We could read some of the letters God sends.
He has them written and they're in His Book,
They are certainly worth a really good look!
Megan Isaac
Minister's Report for 2009 to the AGM - 22nd March 2010
When the definitive history of Porth United Reformed Church is written, 2009 will be associated with just one phrase – "Porth Plaza". It all began at an Elders' meeting in 2008 as a vague idea, "thinking outside the box" about how the church might be better placed to find new life when the old ways of being church were clearly not working. It then grew and developed during the year to be a definite proposal, supported by a majority of the Elders and myself as Minister, to move the church across the road and do something new and different, using the proceeds of selling our current building to fund it all.
We held a "trial service" in the Plaza in May 2009, attended by all our regular congregation, as well as monthly café services throughout the year, although most of the people attending these were from the Porth Newydd parish rather than the URC. A church meeting in December voted by 13-12 in favour of the idea (with adherents voting much more decisively, 6-1 in favour) and further explorations took place in early 2010, culminating in March 2010 with a decisive vote against the proposal (24-8 against amongst members, although adherents were still in favour, by 6-4).
As I said in the December 2009 church meeting, developing this proposal fulfils the commitment I made, in accordance with the Pastorate Profile which you prepared, to develop new ways of being church alongside pastoral care for the existing congregation and outreach into the community. The Eldership and, since the AGM a year ago, the whole church has been involved at each stage – nothing was done behind your backs.
In rejecting the proposal in March 2010, several speakers at the church meeting said that they were not only rejecting the Plaza proposal, but any suggestion that we should move from the existing building "until we absolutely have to". This means that you have now decided to tie your future as a church to this building. You will have further decisions to make. The accounts for 2009 show the Building Fund standing at £18,583, but in fact we spent well over £4,000 early in 2010 on eradicating dry rot, so we have less than £14,000 remaining. In 2004, in preparation for the arrival of a new minister, you split the then Building Fund – which contained £60,000 – into two separate funds of equal size, the Building Fund and the new Contingency Fund to be used for funding ministry and other aspects of the mission of the church apart from the building. This was a bold move, and your courage in taking that step was one reason why I felt God was calling me here to work with you on developing your mission. Your decision now to commit yourselves to the building after all may mean that you wish to put your money where your mouths are (so to speak) and move some or all of the remaining Contingency Fund back into the Buildings Fund, making that your financial priority.
Even if you decide to retain the Contingency Fund at its current level, you will be aware that it cannot last for ever. Although the 2009 accounts show a deficit of less than £4,000 – and a better result than in 2008 – this is only because of two exceptional factors:
as already stated, the bills for work relating to dry rot were paid only in 2010, so will show in the 2010 accounts, although the work was done in 2009;
due to the hard work of John Attwood and Gwenllian Thomas and the generosity and understanding of members, we were able to reclaim Gift Aid for the past six years amounting to over £4,000, on top of the regular annual payment.
Because of these two factors, we are expecting the 2010 accounts to show a deficit of about £11,000 – and that's assuming there are no unexpected large bills later in the year. At this rate of attrition, the Contingency Fund will be used up in two to three years from now. Carrying on as we are is simply not an option.
Having decided to recommit to this building, the only other large area of expenditure is paid ministry, to which you are committed until July 2011. You will need to decide soon how much paid ministry (if any) you wish to ask for from the URC after that date, when the current arrangement with Castle Square URC and the denomination comes to an end. It is already clear that neither church in the pastorate could commit to more than an extra year or two at current levels of expenditure. I know that this is a cause of anxiety in the church, so I can inform the AGM that I will not seek renewal of my ministry in the existing full-time pastorate beyond 2011. You are therefore free now to decide your own path for the future without any personal embarrassment and with less financial worry. I will help you as best I can in this process, but the future is now in your hands.
Well, in your hands but above all in God's hands. Remarkably, he has shown faith in our future by calling at least four of our regular worshippers to consider becoming full members of the church, and we have begun a series of discussions working towards that. I hope that our next church meeting will be asked to approve a number of applications for membership and that, for the first time in my ministry here, I will have the honour of receiving new members on your behalf. There is also the possibility of restarting the Sunday School in the near future. Whatever difficulties the institutional church may have, God is still moving in the lives of people of all ages and generations here in the Rhondda, and people are still choosing to commit their lives to walking with Jesus and trying to live as he calls us to live.
Because in the wider world, 2009 will not be remembered for Porth Plaza, but for the failure of the Copenhagen Summit and the decision of world leaders to endanger the whole future of this planet, created by God, for their short-term political and economic interests. Beside this, the apparent danger to the future of one local church pales into insignificance. As Christians, we are not called to spend our time navel-gazing, but to proclaim and, as best we can, live out God's purposes of love, justice and compassion for all humanity.
So in our own community the rise of prejudice and the growing hostility of some people in the Rhondda to those who come here from other countries, especially those who are black or brown skinned, is also far more important than anything happening within Porth URC. So is the fact that the recession is hitting this area so hard that Food Banks have been launched by ACTS (Tylorstown Community Church) to help feed the hungry – an uncomfortable echo of the soup kitchens which churches once provided in the Rhondda. I hope we may be led to partner with ACTS to help those amongst our neighbours who are in danger of being left behind by the economic situation and the swingeing cuts in public services which appear inevitable in the next few years.
I am glad that during 2010 we will challenge another prejudice, too, by conducting our first blessing of a civil partnership in this church. God's love knows no bounds, and is for all people. Jesus never turned anyone away, and neither should we. Which, funnily enough, is going to be one of the national United Reformed Church's advertising slogans in 2010-11. The campaign will be called "God is still speaking," Indeed he is. And that is reason enough to rejoice and recommit ourselves to listening and serving him and our neighbours in the name of Jesus.
God bless you all
Gethin