On 26 October last year, I was privileged to film the decommissioning service at Bethany Presbyterian Church, a Welsh-language church in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire.
I was privileged not only because of the church’s rich legacy, but also because Bethany was my father’s home church. I have fond memories of visiting my grandparents in Ammanford as a child and attending Bethany on Sundays.
It was a sad occasion, of course, but also a blessing to record the wonderful history of what God had done there for over a century, researched by Steffan Jones and read by Lynda Thomas.
When Bethany opened in 1881 it had 33 members, and by the time Nantlais Williams retired in 1944, after 44 years of ministry, it had over 500 members with 650 attending.
The 1950s and 60s in towns like Ammanford saw the last period of ‘Christian Wales’. My father said that, when he was growing up at that time, everybody worked in the coal mines Monday to Friday, went to watch the rugby on Saturdays, and went to chapel on Sundays. Bethany would be packed.
By the time I was born, the spiritual decline throughout Wales was evident. In the 1990s, whenever I was there as a child, the gallery was always empty (I remember wondering why it was there), although the ground floor was still relatively full.
