New Moderator: churches losing their voice

Churches must rediscover how to speak, according to the new Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Wales.

On being installed as Moderator, Reverend Gwenda Richards said that Welsh churches are losing the ability to speak to each other, to their communities to God.

"I would like to see churches' relationships with each other being nurtured, and the sense of belonging to one Connexion growing," she said. She emphasised the need to listen to each other and to understand various viewpoints and needs.

She also said that churches need to reconnect with society: "In an age full of difficult questions about the value of life, the right to live, war and terrorism, the environment and the future of the planet, we have a Gospel to offer and a Saviour to present.  We must rediscover how to speak to our society.”

"And finally I must also stress that worship has always been central to the life of the Church. It remains wholly esential, to confirm our life in God." To close, she called for a greater emphasis on Sunday schools and for their influence to increase all over Wales.

Reverend Ifan Roberts, General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Wales, said that it will be an honour to work alongside the new Moderator: “Gwenda is very hardworking and I know that she will fully commit to moving the Church forward over the next year, building on the good work of her predecessor, Reverend Haydn Thomas.  I fully support her ideas and aims,” he said.

Gwenda Richards was brought up in Caernarfon, where she is now minister of Seilo Church.  On leaving the local Grammar School, she completed a BEd degree at Bangor University before being appointed to a teaching post in her old primary school.

In 1984 she was ordained as an elder in her childhood chapel, Capel Engedi.  But although she enjoyed teaching, it gradually became clear that other paths were opening for her.  To her great surprise, she felt the doors opening, and God calling her to the ministry.

She left her teaching job and started a BD course at the Theological College in Aberystwyth.  There, she met Elwyn, and they were married in 1987.  On leaving Aberystwyth, she was called to a pastorate of three churches in the Porthmadog district.  She spent 14 year there.  In 2001 accepted a call to return home, to be minister of Seilo.  “It is an honour to minister to my own people,” she says.  She is by now also minister of a small church in nearby Waunfawr.

Among Reverend Richards’ interests, who admits that she is a “collector by nature”, are collecting books and postcards, photography, gardening and card-making.