On July 5th 2009, I went to Alltwen to dedicate what had been a rather dilapidated church hall as the new church and community centre for the parish of Cilybebyll in Alltwen. As this book points out, the old church had become financially unviable, structurally unsound and the approach to it difficult to negotiate even for relatively fit people. The transformation of the existing hall into a multi-purpose building is a parable and symbol of the transformation that has happened in the parish as a whole over the last eleven years. New life has emerged from the old, on the foundations of all that had gone on before. For just as the structure of the old church hall forms the basis of the new centre, the new life of, and in the parish, has been built on the witness of previous generations of Christians.
Many parishes could learn from the example of Cilybebyll. There is always a temptation in believing that things will not work in our parish in the way they have in Cilybebyll because our parish is different, more difficult, or has not got the same resources. In fact, of course, what is needed is the gift of faith and the willingness to take risks which is what this parish did. When it set out to look at the way it worshipped, stewarded its resources, ministered to young people, used its buildings and tried to take the ministry of all the baptized seriously, it had no real idea of how things would work out or the direction the parish would take.
Led by the rector, the people of God set out like Abraham, not quite knowing where God would lead them but determined to trust in his care and providence. Everything the parish undertook was under girded with prayer and the knowledge that what it was doing was not attempting to become modern or successful, or reorganizing its own life, but seeking God's will for his mission and ministry in this particular community. All of that required openness to God and to new insights that the diocese was offering and a willingness at times, to get things wrong. This book tells the story of how it tried to do all that and my hope is that in reading the story of this particular church community, others will have the courage to pick up on some of the ideas and insights and be willing to do new things as well as old things in new ways. And the journey for Cilybebyll is not over because the journey is never over for any of God's people, for the God we believe in is "such a fast God, always before us, and leaving just as we arrive" as R. S. Thomas, the greatest priest poet of the twentieth century puts it.
The Most Rev Dr Barry Morgan. Archbishop of Wales.