Making Christ Known and Loved / Gwneud i Crist Gael ei Adnabod a’i Garu
September 2026 Services and Events: Sunday and midweek services are as usual. While we aim to ensure that there is a service in each church at the usual time on a Sunday, it may be the case that the Sunday Morning Service is Morning Prayer rather than the Eucharist. Each week, what’s happening on the following Sunday will be announced in each church. A list of weekly activities will also be on the Ministry Area Facebook Page.
Pattern of September 2026 Sunday Services:
9:30am Sunday Service at Coelbren
9:30am Sunday Service at Clydach
9:30am Sunday Service at Ystradgynlais
11:00am Sunday Service at Pontardawe
11:00am Sunday Service at Trebanos
3:00pm Evening Prayer 1st & 3rd Sundays, Holy Eucharist 2nd & 4th Sundays at Callwen
Sunday Services are normally Holy Eucharist services, but occasionally Morning Prayer may be held.
Pattern of Mid-Week Services:
Wednesdays:
10:30am Mid-Week Service at Ystradgynlais
10:30am Mid-Week Service at Clydach
8:00pm Compline Online from Coelbren via the Ministry Area Facebook page
Thursdays:
10:15am Morning Prayer at Abercrave Welfare Hall
Mid-Week Services are normally Holy Eucharist services, but occasionally Morning Prayer may be held.
Church Services
Healing Service: The September Healing Service will be at Capel Coelbren at 6:00pm on Sunday 6th September.
The October Healing Service will be St Peter’s Pontardawe at 6.00pm on Sunday 4th October.
Harvest Services: We’ll be celebrating Harvest on the first Sunday of October. As you may remember, we support Food Banks up and down the Ministry Area, so this is something to bear in mind as you consider what gifts to bring to these services
Church Events
Friends of Capel Coelbren: The Friends of Capel Coelbren have another working day on Saturday 12th September from 10:00am until 12:00pm. Lots of jobs to do, big and small, with free refreshments!
Ministry Area Mothers’ Union: The Cwm Tawe Ministry Area Mothers’ Union branch meets on the second Monday of each month at 2:00pm, in St Cynog’s Church Hall.
St Cynog’s Men’s Fellowship Group: St Cynog’s has recently established a Men’s Fellowship group. The group is open to any man in the Ministry Area and meets every second Wednesday of the month at 7:00pm in Ystradgynlais Rugby Club for conversation on whatever takes their fancy. Alcohol consumption is optional!
Bible Study: Our Bible Study Group will reconvene on Wednesday 9th September at 7:00pm in St Cynog’s Ystradgynlais.
Community Events
Singalong: Pontardawe Heritage Centre holds their next Singalong event on Wednesday 2nd September 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 July and August, from 10:00am to 12:30pm. Tea, coffee, cake, and a chat will all feature! On Thursday 17th September there will be a special Pop Up with a raffle, and all funds will be donated to Tŷ Olwen. Please come and support our local hospice and the fabulous work it does in our town.
Church Notices
Gluten Free Wafers: If you need to receive Communion using a gluten free wafer, we have these ready in all our churches, but they are often kept in the vestry rather than at the Altar. It helps if we can be told before the service that you need to receive Communion using a gluten free wafer, rather than you coming to the Altar during Communion and there are none on the Altar which have been consecrated for Communion.
Christmas Services and Events: It may seem some months off, but the Ministry Area Council has been asked to consider in practical terms now, the amount of services the churches will be holding over the Christmas period, because of less clergy in the Ministry Area. Our amount and pattern of Christmas services may need to be different from the past and all churches will need to be accommodating to the wider picture of the Ministry Area in this respect.
Confirmation: We’ve had a couple of requests and queries about the Sacrament of Confirmation. We’re in the middle of looking how best to arrange sessions in preparation for this, so please tell the clergy if you wish to be confirmed.
Bible Study: In the last Ministry area Council Meeting, it was decided to continue the Bible Study based at St Cynog’s. If you’d like to be part of this, please let the clergy know. We’re looking at the practicalities of this in relation to other activities within the Ministry Area.
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.
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.
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.
What’s Ahead
Looking Ahead: Our next newsletter will be our October edition. If you would like anything to be included, please contact Bethan Hewitt with the relevant details by 12:00pm on Tuesday 22nd. September. If you don’t tell us, we can’t include it.
Please think ahead in terms of the months ahead and not just the next couple of weeks. This is the only real way to avoid short term planning and publicity, which can result in good things not happening, because there was a lack of forethought.
A Visit to the National Eisteddfod in Pembrokeshire
A reflection from the Ministry Area Leader:
The journey to Pembrokeshire was quite thought provoking for me because it is over thirty years since I lived and worked in Pembrokeshire. I found it hard to recognise the route at times even though the destinations had not changed. There is a simple reason for this: The road network is now much improved and travelling in places is easier. I was remembering the old roads now gone but the places are the same.
The journey is a metaphor for so many things in life, but especially, perhaps, in terms of the mission and ministry of the Church. We aim to reach the same points, perhaps, but the way in which we do this now is very different at points also. Deeper still is the realisation that how to make the journey is signposted still to guide us, and so we have to follow the new signposts, rather than the memories of the past. To rely only upon the memories of the past would leave only confusion and not knowing exactly where we are at specific points now along the journey.
It’s not a case of choosing the old ways or the new ways but being willing to accept that both exist along the one journey. However, there is no choice but to follow the road where it leads, whether familiar to us or not.
Of course, what I’ve said about a trip down Memory Lane to Pembrokeshire is very similar to life now in the Swansea Valley and how we have to negotiate travel in comparison to decades ago. Wisdom lessons are around us all the time, if we choose to be part of them.
Funding the Diocese
It’s been suggested that a document to be found in each church called ‘Funding the Diocese’ be circulated more widely in order to give everyone a better understanding of how the finances of the wider church work and how this then relates to the life of the local church. This particular document was produced early in 2026, so some of the details are now outdated, but here are some extracts that are still relevant and unchanged:
Firstly, there’s the finances of the central church based at Cardiff, called the Representative Body of the Church in Wales.
98% of the RB’s income is received from stock exchange and property investments. 90% of its income is spent on support for ministry, dioceses and local churches and church property. So when people say that the people in Cardiff should spend a lot more money locally, they can’t provide an answer as to what money they say should be spent and from where it should come. It is important to remember that this long-term financial aspect of the central church was what kept the clergy in their jobs and in their tied accommodation through things like the Pandemic rather than them losing their jobs, as happened to many people.
One of the ways in which the RB has been supporting local churches is by subsidizing and now taking over the cost of insuring our church buildings and their contents. Before we might want to criticize this supposed hoarding of money by Cardiff, ask yourself: Does anyone offer to pay your insurances in terms of your car or home? Probably not.
Secondly, there’s the week in week out costs of mission and ministry for the diocese. This is mainly paid for by the Ministry Share which is collected from the Ministry Areas to the diocese. The costs for our Ministry Area come to over £175,000.00 a year. Over £122,500.00 of that cost is spent on clergy stipends, pensions and housing. The rest is spent on the shared costs each Ministry Area pays due to being part of the wider life of the diocese.
Again, some people might say that this is unfair, and another example of us having to pay for things that are not ours. We can forget that clergy have to be trained properly before they are ordained and that the diocese provides support of different kinds to the local churches. We might find paying for these things on a case by case basis very expensive, as many people find out when they have to contract someone to do a professional job for them.
Unfortunately, our Ministry Area in unable to meet this local cost of over £175,000.00 and at the moment we have something like a quarter of a million pounds of arrears in paying Ministry Share. We can’t afford what we get by a long way. The truth of the matter is that we only pay a fraction of what we think we are paying for.
Yet the gap has to be met to pay and house the clergy each month. So if we can’t pay, who pays? It’s basically the diocese, which has to dip into any spare money and reserves which it is expected to have to ensure the continuity of its activity. Before long, there won’t be any spare money or reserves left in the diocese to bridge the gap. This is not a new problem, and we’ve all known about it for a long period of time. One response to this has been to reduce the number of stipendiary clergy and other church workers as time has gone on and special funding comes to an end.
This is the situation in which our own Ministry Area now exists, and this helps us all understand why it is that we have to change the way we do things locally. Do we honestly expect, and is it fair for the diocese, to send us stipendiary clergy when no one can pay the cost?
There are a couple of other points to bear in mind: When the Ministry Share bill arrives every year, the way in which it is divided amongst the church in our Ministry Area is by taking a count of what is called Regular Worship Numbers in each church. Apart from the fact that there are endless debates about this method, no one has come up with an alternative that is deemed to be fair and workable, hence this way of doing it.
The ability of each church to pay their apportionment of Ministry share is carefully monitored internally because it gives an insight into each church in relation to various aspects of its life. Also, as we can’t pay for what we get, questions are asked by the diocese, as has already happened, and will continue to happen, and saying ‘Dunnow’ about Ministry Share isn’t helpful with accountability.
Canon Tim Hewitt
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:
www.cwmtawechurches.org
Ministry Area Facebook page: www.facebook.com/CwmTaweMinistryArea
I’ve invested in one of those Smart Watches, but all it seems to do is tell me all the time how scruffy I am.
Cwmtawe Churches 