Dyffryn Clwyd

Well another week is flying by with plenty having happened and plenty more coming up…

We celebrated Ascension properly on Thursday, 40 days after Christ’s glorious resurrection he led his disciples up to Mount Olivet and from there ascended back to heaven, carrying our humanity with him back into the heart of God. We had 2 wonderful services, in the morning in Llanarmon and in the evening at the Old Church in Llanbedr. I know with these mid-week gatherings not everyone can come so as we celebrating on the proper day we will also celebrate the ascension this Sunday so no one misses this key part of the story, part of the bedrock of our faith that we declare each week in the Nicene Creed.

As the story goes, after Christ left the disciples they turned to each other and with Christ’s mother, Blessed Mary gathered once more in that upper room to devote themselves to unity and prayer. In recent days I’ve been reflecting on this and contrasting it to earlier in the Easter season… at first the disciples gathered and the room was locked, they were lost and scared and Jesus came to them and whispered his words of peace, Jesus came to them a second time, this time they were still in the upper room but it was no longer locked, they were lost and unsure of what to do but a little less scared…

Now after the ascension they are once more in the upper room. They know that Jesus will not appear to them again, but they are no longer afraid, they are no longer lost. They devote themselves in this time to building unity. They are building themselves into the body of Christ and preparing themselves, waiting in prayer for discernment as to what God wants them to do with all this new and wonderful knowledge they have gained through their experiences of the resurrected Christ… a few more days and they will find out what they are meant to do, the Holy Spirit comes upon them and they are driven out of their confinement to tell the world the good news they know and share the love of God that is beyond our comprehension.

How does that compare to us? Maybe we should use this time in the same way, to come together praying for our unity across Dyffryn Clwyd, building ourselves as the One Body Of Christ that when the Holy Spirit moves we act together, using all our collective resources of time, skills and money, to ensure it leads to the fruition of God’s mission to make his love known and bring new people into relationship with their creator.

Tonight I’ll be joining our youth group round the fire pit in Llanbedr and then on Saturday morning we’ve got a coffee morning up at The Barn on Llanbedr Drive before our usual round of Sunday worship…

This next week, apart from our usual mid-week services, I’ll be spending quite a bit of time over in Denbigh for the Urdd Eisteddfod. If you haven’t been before then do try and make it over, it’s a wonderful celebration of our youth and national culture, identity and language and is rooted in Christianity (the Mr Urdd is made of 3 colours, the Green and Red standing for the land in which we’re rooted and the unity of our people (Cymru means a brotherhood) and the white is for heaven, our true home and Christ who leads us there). 

Next weekend there will also be various celebrations of the Jubilee both in our churches and our communities. There is a Camanfa Canu in Nant Clwyd Y Dre and a special service of Evensong followed by cheese and wine at 6pm in Llanychan (flyer attached). 

And then lots more coming up in June, details are on the newsletter. 

Just before I sign off this week just a little update following on from last weeks story about the Liverpool shirt… We’ve now got it up on Ebid, an online auction site. The auction is running until next Tuesday, so if you know any Liverpool fans then please do point them in it’s direction….