News & stories EMM workers support new models of church in post-Christian Wales YNYSYBWL, Wales – It’s a little Welsh town with a seemingly unpronounceable name, but for the past seven years it’s been home for Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM) workers Alan and Carol Wert and their three young children, Dylan, Cerys, and Brenin. Alan had led EMM’s first Youth Evangelism Service (YES) team to Wales in 1992. That’s when the spiritual coldness and intolerance of Christianity hit him. He ached for the people of the Welsh valleys to experience the warmth and joy of an intimate relationship with Christ that he had first come to know as a young adult. Ynysybwl (rhymes with municipal) has never recovered from its coal mining boom days. (The mine closed in 1988.) The huge Welsh revivals that swept through the valleys in 1904-06 are now only a very distant memory. Leaders in the United Kingdom say that the Welsh-speaking population is especially antagonistic to the gospel, turned off by generations of hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Ironically, it seems the great revivals of 100 years ago “helped to produce” this antagonism; less than half a percent of people living in the Welsh valley communities attend church. “Hardly anyone under 60 considers the church to have any relevance,” Carol said. Yet for seven years, the Werts faithfully attended Tabernacl Welsh Congregational Church in Ynysybwl, a church of less than 20 older people, with a handful of children. “But when you do the same things for seven years and see little impact on the community, you start to ask questions. What is the core of the gospel, and how do we communicate it? Are we just keeping something on life-support?” Carol wondered. “We really began to question the way we were doing things,” Alan said. “We knew something had to change.” This year, feeling scared and inadequate, the Werts found themselves stepping out and inviting two other young families to a home-based church on Sunday evenings. It wasn’t real church – or was it? As seven adults and nine children began gathering around the Werts’ kitchen table on Sunday evenings for games, songs, and discussions about the meaning of life, a new sense of hope and community began to develop. One man began to read The Message – and brought his questions. It was informal and chaotic, but had a growing sense of excitement. Carol says, “Someone on our Missionary Support Team (MST) had a vision of us as a coal fire that takes a long time to ignite – but then burns long, deep, and warm.” There’s no better image for a young household church – just getting started in an old coal-mining town that’s lost its fire. -Jewel Showalter Back to news and stories