Making Christ Known and Loved / Gwneud i Crist Gael ei Adnabod a’i Garu
April 2026 Services and Events: A number of services and events are scheduled during Holy Week (see below) in addition to our usual Sunday service and mid-week services in our churches, which are as usual throughout April.
Pattern of April 2026 Sunday Services:
9:30am Holy Eucharist at Coelbren
9:30am Holy Eucharist at Clydach
9:30am Holy Eucharist at Ystradgynlais
11:00am Holy Eucharist at Pontardawe
11:00am Holy Eucharist at Trebanos
3:00pm Evening Prayer 1st & 3rd Sundays, Holy Eucharist 2nd & 4th Sundays at Callwen
Pattern of Mid-Week Services:
Wednesdays:
10:30am Holy Eucharist at Ystradgynlais
10:30am Holy Eucharist at Clydach
8:00pm Compline Online from Coelbren via the Ministry Area Facebook page
Thursdays:
10:15am Morning Prayer at Abercrave Welfare Hall
Ministry Area Mothers’ Union: Cwm Tawe Ministry Area Mothers’ Union is welcoming Rev’d Margaret Blake from the Brecon area, who will be talking about the work of her committee supporting refugees in South Wales. An interesting talk that may interest several outside our congregations. This talk will be held in St Cynog’s Church Hall, Ystradgynlais, at 2:00pm on Monday 13th April. All are welcome. Tea and cake! The Mothers’ Union meets on the second Monday of each month at 2:00pm, in St Cynog’s Church Hall.
Church Services and Events
Ministry Area Bible Study: The Bible Study will take a Holy Week and Easter break until Monday 20th April when it will recommence to look at the last chapter of the Letter to the Galatians on Monday 20th and then Monday 27th, both meeting at 7:00pm. During April there will be the opportunity to look at ideas of what to study next.
Meditative Service: Rev’d Sue Northcott will be conducting our monthly Meditative Service, which takes place on the third Friday of each month. The next of these services takes place on Friday 19th April at 5:00pm in St Michael’s Trebanos. The services use the structure of Evening Prayer, with some meditation and mindfulness exercises.
Holy Week and Easter Services: The services planned during Holy Week and Easter Services across the Ministry Area this year are as follows:
Tuesday in Holy Week, 31st March:
12:00pm Chrism Eucharist in Brecon Cathedral, where Holy Oils for use through the year in the churches of our diocese are blessed, and lay people renew their baptismal vows and clergy renew their ordination vows. All are welcome to attend. A buffet lunch follows the service, but those wishing to have a buffet lunch do need to register via Eventbrite by searching for Chrism Eucharist at Brecon Cathedral.
Maundy Thursday, 2nd April:
6:00pm Agape Meal in St Peter’s Pontardawe (see below for details).
7:00pm Holy Eucharist and Stripping of the Altar in St Cynog’s Ystradgynlais.
Good Friday, 3rd April:
9:00am to 5:00pm Devotions throughout the day at St Michael’s Trebanos;
12:00pm Devotional Service in St John the Baptist, Callwen;
12:00pm Livestream from Ministry Area Facebook page by Rev’d Jon Howard;
2:00pm Devotional Service in St Cynog’s Ystradgynlais.
Easter Eve, Saturday 4th April:
7.00 pm Easter Vigil Service in the evening at Capel Coelbren.
Easter Day, Sunday 5th April:
Services in each of our churches at the usual Sunday times.
Agape Meal: St Peter’s Pontardawe will be holding an Agape Meal on Thursday 2nd April at 6:00pm, for £8 per person. Everyone is welcome. Please contact Rhian (07828697428) or Chris (07592029629) with numbers from your church, so everyone can be catered for. Bring wine to share with individuals at your table.
Leaflet Working Party: We are setting up a working party to devise a ‘Welcome to our Church’ leaflet for visitors arriving for the first time at one of our churches. We are looking for two representatives from each church. Our first meeting will be at St Cynog’s Ystradgynlais on Tuesday 14th April at 2:30pm; if you are interested, please do attend. If anyone has any examples that they have either used or found in other churches, please do bring them along.
Remembrance Service: Capel Yorath in Cwmgiedd have extended our churches an invitation to a bilingual Remembrance Service for loved ones who have passed away, that they are holding on Sunday 26th April at 3:00pm. All are invited to this thoughtful service.
Community Events
Singalong: Pontardawe Heritage Centre holds their next Singalong event on Wednesday 1st April at 10:30am. Entry is £3 per head including refreshments, with music from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. This event is held on the first Wednesday of each month.
Pop-Up Coffee Shop: Pontardawe Heritage Centre will be holding their weekly pop-up coffee shop every Thursday throughout April, from 10:00am to 12:30pm. Tea, coffee, cake, and a chat will all feature!
Pontardawe Repair Café: The Repair Café returns to Ty’r Gwrhyd, Library Building, Pontardawe on Saturday 11th April from 10:30am to 12:30pm. Come along for free repairs of home and garden tools, electricals, textiles, etc.
Church Notices
Side By Side: When Ramadan and Lent overlapped this year, Rev’d Sue Northcott found herself breaking bread – and breaking fast – with an old friend. Sue reflects on sharing a powerful experience of faith, friendship, and community.
“I took home some wonderful memories, but also a physical reminder of the strong links between the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths.”
Read about her experience here: https://www.swanseaandbrecon.churchinwales.org.uk/side-by-side-at-community-iftar
Brecon Women’s Refuge: St Cynog’s is continuing to collect for this very important sanctuary and refuge, and if you feel you could invite your congregation to start a collection of toiletries and kitchen equipment, we would gladly collect offerings from you. The ladies who run the refuge have said that they would love to talk to us all about their work, and perhaps later on we could jointly host this.
Thank You: A huge thank you from Rev’d Sue Northcott to those who supported and helped out at the Easter Experience days recently held at St Mary’s Clydach for local schools.
Sacrament of Confirmation: Please let the clergy know if you would like to be confirmed, as requests for Confirmation are occasionally made and we can look into how best to prepare people for Confirmation and where and when it might take place either within the Ministry Area or elsewhere holding a Confirmation Service.
Ministry Area Treasurer: We are currently looking for a Ministry Area Treasurer. This role involves managing the Ministry Area bank account and working with our church treasurers to prepare Annual Financial Returns for submission to the Diocese of Swansea & Brecon each year. This person does not need to be a churchgoer. Free online training for the role is available. If you or anyone you know is interested in this position, please contact Bethan Hewitt (contact details below) for more details.
What to do if you have a Safeguarding Concern: Anyone with safeguarding concerns can contact a member of the CinW Safeguarding Team via the Church in Wales website by web (https://www.churchinwales.org.uk/en/safeguarding/reporting-safeguarding-concern/) or by phone (02920 348200).
Alternatively, Safe Spaces is a free and independent support service, providing a confidential, safe space for anyone who has been abused through their relationship with either the Church of England, the Catholic Church in England and Wales, or the CinW. You can contact the Safe Spaces team by web (www.safespacesenglandandwales.org.uk), phone (0300 303 1056; answerphone available outside of opening times), or email (safespaces@firstlight.org.uk). If a child or adult is in immediate danger or requires urgent medical attention, please call the emergency services now on 999 – DO NOT DELAY.
Safeguarding: Safeguarding Training courses are available to book onto, both in-person and online courses are available. Details can be found on the Ministry Area website (Church Policies > Safeguarding). If you are unsure which Safeguarding Training you are required to undertake as part of your role, please contact Bethan Hewitt.
The Church in Wales is committed to safeguarding as an integral part of its life, mission, and ministry, and will promote the wellbeing of children and adults at risk. Therefore, if you are a volunteer for any church within our Ministry Area, or the Ministry Area itself, the CinW requires you to undertake Safeguarding Training.
Pastoral Care in Ystalyfera and Ystradgynlais: If anyone needs to arrange baptisms, weddings or funerals in Ystradgynlais and Ystalyfera, as the first step please contact the Ministry Area Leader, Canon Tim Hewitt about these matters so that responding to such requests can be dealt with in a co-ordinated way. This will help avoid the risk of confusion or misunderstanding or unnecessary concern about these things. Please note that such things as baptisms, weddings and funerals can only be arranged on dates and at times which are possible for all concerned.
In terms of pastoral care generally, please contact Canon Tim Hewitt as the first port of call. Experience has taught us in the past in this Ministry Area in times of transition that hoping somebody will respond to a need without a specific person being contacted can lead to the stated need falling through the floorboards, as the saying goes, which is not the wish of anyone to see happening.
What’s Ahead
Ministry Area Vision Day: Following on from the Vision Days that we’ve held over the last two years, we’ll be holding a Vision Day for the church people of our Ministry Area again this year. It will be held on the morning of Saturday 16th May from 10:00am to 1:00pm at St Michael’s Trebanos. This year’s theme is ‘Anticipating the Future’. The idea of this year’s theme is to go beyond simply imagining what things might be like for us in five or ten years’ time, but giving some thought as to how we might think now about how we would respond to a Church, society, nation and world that might be different in the years to come. Do think that we’ll have the same strong points or not? What kind of things do we think that we will need to address by giving them more time and attention than we do at the present? Will there be more or less opportunities to witness to our faith? What do we think the landscapes of faith, culture, community identity, wealth and poverty, work and leisure might look like in five or ten years’ time and what the shape of church life might look like as part of these various landscapes? There’s always an impossibility about looking into the future, but if we’ve tried to imagine possible futures, then we might be able to meet them with some sense of readiness and therefore confidence. If you would like to attend, do let the clergy know so that we have an idea of possible numbers. If you’ve got thoughts about anticipating the future, do let the clergy know and these thoughts can help with planning the day.
Healing Services at St Cynog’s Ystradgynlais: We are planning to hold a Healing Service in the evening on the first Sundays of both May and June, at 6:00pm in St Cynog’s Ystradgynlais.
Choir Concert: Cor Dathlu Cwmtawe and Cor Cariad y Cwm along with various artists will holding a concert in St Cynog’s Ystradgynlais on the evening of Saturday 20th June in aid of the local Breconshire fundraising for the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show.
Sunday Services: Generally speaking, Sunday services will be as usual in the months ahead but there may be some occasional changes according to the availability of the clergy.
Needlework Group: Following on from creating a set of clergy stoles from an old Altar frontal in recent years, the Ministry Area Leader has had the idea of having another needlework group to create some banners suitable for the various seasons of the Church Year. In particular, these could be placed behind the Altar in the Galilee Room in St Mary’s Clydach rather than everyone looking at a blank wall. If you enjoy needlework, please let Tim Hewitt know. This need not be an exclusively Clydach or church people group.
Looking ahead: Our next newsletter will be our April edition. If you would like anything to be included, please contact Bethan Hewitt with the relevant details by 12:00pm on Thursday 30th April.
Ministry Area Contact Details
Ministry Area Leader & Priest in the Ministry Area:
The Rev’d Canon Tim Hewitt
01792 946948
TimothyHewitt@cinw.org.uk
Priest in the Ministry Area:
The Rev’d Gary Green
01792 862003
GaryGreen@cinw.org.uk
Assistant Clergy:
The Rev’d Jon Howard
07810 820593
JonHoward@cinw.org.uk
The Rev’d Sue Northcott
01792 863814
SueNorthcott@cinw.org.uk
Ministry Area Administrator:
Bethan Hewitt
07398 647399
BethanHewitt@cinw.org.uk
General queries:
CwmtaweMAA@cinw.org.uk
Ministry Area website:
http://www.cwmtawechurches.org
Ministry Area Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/CwmTaweMinistryArea
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Cwmtawe Churches 