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President's Address
Crossing the Bridge with Christ.
“He got into a boat with His disciples. And He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.”
(Luke 8 v22)
Let me take you back to 1990. 22 years ago. I know that most of you are too young to look that far back but to the rest of you what were you doing then?
When I started my teaching career the headteacher of my first school, gave me some tools to use. He gave me a register, a red pen, a text book to teach English Grammer another for maths. A third book was to teach the children about Wales and its history and culture, it was a copy of the Mabinogion. The children loved the stories, one in particular about Bendigeidfran, Branwen and Matholwch. Here is found a saying that I have tried to live throughout my teaching life, ‘A fo ben, bid bont’. Without realising it, this became central to my work and indeed my life. I aimed to live the essence of that saying: 'He who would be a leader, let him be a bridge.' ‘A fo ben, bid bont’.
I’ve taught in some challenging disadvantaged areas, with children, and yes I am old fashioned enough to call them children, I have always thought a kid is a young goat, though modern dictionaries tell a different story. I have looked at where the children have come from, both socially and educationally, I have looked at where they are now asked myself, ‘Where can I take this child’. ‘A fo ben, bid bont’, it dawned on me that I am the one to lead this child over the bridge of learning and into the challenges of life.
I mentioned 1990, let’s return there. I was invited for interview as the head teacher of Glyn Neath Primary School. I didn’t know too much about Glyn Neath, it was a mining community that had been hit by the 1984 closure of mines and, of course, it is the home of Max Boyce. Prior to the interview, as was my habit, I walked the streets of the town, wearing my suit, to gain an understanding of the community. I think many avoided me, a strange man in a suit, in case I was someone they didn’t want to meet. I sat down and prepared for the interview and decided that I would use ‘A fo ben, bid bont’ as a central theme to my philosophy of the role of the headteacher. I got the job and just a few weeks later, whilst sitting in the Town Hall, the towns crest was written on it ‘A fo ben, bid bont!’
We live in a time when leaders are expected to be visionaries, in that case surely the ability to build a few bridges would come in handy, because it involves the often painful and fraught challenge of connecting with people. Deliberately, often at some inconvenience, even awkwardness, being a bridge, not just a bridge-builder is challenging but when successful it is immensely rewarding.
It seems to me that today too many leaders get detached from those around them … or those they are leading … it is a challenge for us as ministers in an ever evolving and changing society, to take the gospel into the communities, we can’t expect the community to miraculously come to us.
People often need time, and need us to go to them. The last 30 months has seen the emergence and success of technological evangelisation, the use of Zoom, Teams, Facebook etc. Successful as these have been, they are no substitute for meeting face to face. I was asked recently, in my role as Chair of the Multiple Sclerosis Society in Wales, to meet a person from North Wales. Zoom was suggested but we agreed Aberaeron sounded so much better.
I will tell you what is needed in Wales today. Wales needs churches, churches that will be the bridges within our communities, our country and indeed within the world itself. Churches that bring people together that take Christ out into the community. Being a bridge means stretching out over the gap and only when we succeed in doing that will the church get to where Christ needs it to be.
Where does this understanding of mine come from? I thank Robert for the reading, where we hear the following words “He got into a boat with His disciples. And He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.
What do I see here? Jesus had had a busy day, busy yet successful. Perhaps he was feeling really positive, the adrenalin flowing. With his disciples and a large crowd around him, he had told them a parable, one which has lived vividly in the minds of believers down through the centuries ‘A sower went out to sow…’ He spoke to them, they listened and without doubt His teaching was heard and dare I say accepted by his listeners.
How easy it would have been for Jesus to think to himself, ‘how good it has been to be here today, it is nice and comfortable. I think I’ll stay and just keep things ticking over as they are, perhaps with a little bit more teaching.’
Can you see the temptation? This is the way so many people would like things to be, to dream of a better society and a better world but in essence not to want anything to change for themselves, to keep the comfortable lifestyle.
This is 2022, the world has changed, society has changed and the church must make sure it moves with it. Let me be clear about this, I don’t mean to move by watering down the teaching of Christ or by being lax in our religion or our way of life. Neither does it mean to keep things as they are, to have that attitude of my life is good thank you, I don’t need to change.
Jesus sees this, he sees the problems that can arise by staying where he was. Here in this passage he shows us, you just can’t stand still in life. We read that he turns to his disciples and says ‘Let us go over to the other side of the lake.’
So the journey continues and it is no easy journey. This is the picture of the journey of life with Christ. We may like the comfort of what we know and how we live, but moving with Christ is not and never will be about being comfortable
Staying as we are is never the right option, we have to take that journey with Christ, we have to cross that lake with Him. It is a bridge that we as a church must cross.
As a teacher I taught the children many ‘songs’ in school, one of them has these words, and please, don’t worry I am not going to sing for you:
One more step along the world I go,
one more step along the world I go;
from the old things to the new
keep me traveling along with you:
Refrain:
And it's from the old I travel to the new;
keep me traveling along with you.
Let me tell you about this boat we are travelling along in with Christ, it is rocking today, just as it rocked that day on that lake. I don’t stand here today with a depressing message but the truth is that COVID has accelerated the closure of many churches. I congratulate the vision of Penuel and Seion Noddfa in that they recognised it and have come together as a new Church, Penuel Newydd, with the vision and hope for the future. But across Wales today the boat is rocking violently now and, as an Association, we have a role to play here in our own communities.
Our Annual Report shows us that we now have just 44 chapels, with just over 1000 members, that is an average of around 23 members per chapel. In the last year we lost 80 members and gained 20. You do the maths and it doesn’t take a mathematician to realised that: Yes the boat is rocking violently in Wales today.
But, listen to these words in Luke: ‘The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Master, Master, we’re going to drown!’ He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. ‘Where is your faith?’ he asked his disciples.’ (Luke 8: 24-25)
My father once told me, no, the truth is he told me more than once, that ‘Christ is the hope of this world.’ As a young person I didn’t really understand this but then one day I saw it: “Christ is THE HOPE of this world.’ With faith, we must have faith in Christ and he will not just steady the boat but lead us to the other side. Christ the leader is that bridge and that bridge fills us with that HOPE. If we have faith and be led by him he will take us forward.
Luke continues and tells that the boat reached the other side and when they got there what did they find. For the disciples, their greatest nightmare, Legion, a mad man. A man with the name of a thousand and the one person that they knew would never follow Christ.
How easy it is to misjudge people! How easy it is to form a first impression. My first impression on meeting Legion would have been quickly followed by my first action, to run in the opposite direction, back to the boat. Where is my faith? But here lies the story of Christ’s ministry, he met Legion face to face, and this is the story of the Christian church throughout the last 2 thousand years, it met Legion face to face.
We too must meet Legion face to face today but where is Legion today? I’ll tell you where you will find him, he is on the streets, you will find him in the shops, you will find him in the clubs, you will find him in Parc Y Scarlets, you may even find him in the Liberty Stadium!! In truth you will find him wherever you go. As you leave here tonight he is there outside of this door waiting for you, waiting on the other side of the lake. Christ asks us ‘Will you cross the lake with me? Will you lead with me?
‘A fo ben, bid bont’
What is the name of this person today? Who is it that we will meet and tell us that ‘we are many but you are few.’ It is not Legion, in 2022 the name has changed but the challenge is just as great, he and in a world of equality, she, has a new name, it is called APATHY and INDIFFERENCE.
It isn’t that the world doesn’t show great care and compassion for people today, it certainly does in communities up and down Wales. There are so many examples that we can quote but what is the basis on which this compassion is founded? You will find the answer only in the teaching and life of Christ.
“I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Matt 25:35-36
It is so sad to say that there are still very many areas where this compassion is seriously lacking, be it in the bullying of a super power today over a potentially weaker neighbour or, and to a teacher that has lived for the well-being of children, the increasing numbers of instances where children and indeed women are violated, hurt and even killed within our own communities.
This APATHY, this INDIFFERENCE lies at the heart of all problems that exist in our society today. It is the APATHY and INDIFFERENCE towards the church today, to Christ and to God. Towards God whose message from Moses to Jesus underpins our very moral and social being and underpins the laws of this country. How can people be so indifferent?
The challenge of Christ is huge to today for the Legion of APATHY and INDIFFERENCE stands before Him.
Christ needs help, He cannot do everything alone, he needs help born out of faith in him. He will steady the boat for us in a storm, he will challenge us there and he challenges us now. He doesn’t call us servants but friends, friends that lead with him.
‘A fo ben, bid bont.”
For the church to lead we must be that bridge with Christ, to take Him over into our communities of indifference, to stand in the face of apathy before the world and declare our faith in Him. Listen to that last verse that Robert read for us, Jesus told the healed Legion:
39 “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you.” And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.”
Tell the whole world about this Christ of ours and theirs.
Let me finish with the remainder of the words of that song I quoted earlier:
Round the corner of the world I turn,
more and more about the world I learn;
all the new things that I see
you'll be looking at along with me:
Give me courage when the world is rough,
keep me loving though the world is tough;
leap and sing in all I do,
keep me traveling along with you:
Lets us today take up the challenge and travel with Christ today that we may have that faith to go over to the other side of that lake with Christ and to lead mankind to Him. ‘
‘A fo ben, bid bont’.
In His name
Amen
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