‘Bonkers’ step of faith for Welsh church
Milla Ling-Davies
In a ‘bonkers’ step of faith, last September Llanelli Evangelical Church in West Wales decided to buy a local police station. With the purchase now complete, they’re excited to plan ‘how best to use it for the Lord’s glory’.
As they’ve grown in size over the last few years, Llanelli Evangelical Church have been searching for the right home, and one that would allow them to better connect with the local community – they’ve met in a local school and, more recently, an old synagogue. ‘We were looking for a larger building for a long time,’ said pastor Phil Swan, ‘I happened to Google commercial properties in the area and saw that what had been the divisional police station was up for sale.’ Just two weeks later, the church had put an offer in and by October, they heard that it had been accepted.
Tearfund accused of treating Wales ‘as a colony’
Milla Ling-Davies
Evangelical charity Tearfund is being urged to reconsider a decision to axe its final paid employee in Wales and oversee ministry there from London – prompting a former director to accuse it of treating the country like ‘a colony’.
This year, for the first time since 1987, the organisation won’t have a staff member promoting their mission in the nation. It is the fourth and final role to be cut from Tearfund Wales in the last three years.
culture watch
Missing the mark on Moses
Milla Ling-Davies
At the end of March, Netflix released a three-part docuseries called Testament: the story of Moses. A mix of re-enactment and commentary from Jewish rabbis, Bible scholars, Muslims and Christian pastors, it racked up 13.5 million views in the first five days of its release.
I was curious to see it. It had become the second most-watched show on Netflix – and the fifth most-watched here in the UK. However, its acclaim was short-lived, and reception mixed. The audience score on the popular film reviewing platform Rotten Tomatoes sits at just 33%.
Why is everyone crying after watching Wicked?
What do you do when a friendship goes wrong? Do you call them up and explain how you were hurt - or do you stop replying to messages and remove them from your life entirely?
If you are a part of Gen Z, you might do the latter. Sociologist Jenny van Hooff recently published a paper exploring how our culture views ‘toxic friendships’[1] and found ‘dispiriting’ results. Toxic behaviour was described as anything ‘unsympathetic or simply negative’ and ending a friendship like this was seen as a ‘desirable… even courageous’[2].