Spotlight on location, Powys

Paul Smethurst

If you have ever driven the eighty odd miles along the A470 from just above Merthyr Tydfil to just south of Dinas Mawddwy, you will have witnessed the County of Powys in microcosm. Though you will only have travelled through a small fraction of the county’s two thousand square miles, virtually all the aspects of its unique character is on show. The A470 emerges from the hinterlands of the once industrial valleys in the south to what has sometimes been called the ‘Green Desert’ of the north; it meanders from the borderlands with England on the east to Y Fro Gymraeg to the west. You will drive through (and bypass!) some of the several major towns of Powys. And you will wind through countless numbers of smaller villages and hamlets with their Pubs, Schools and Chapels… many now appearing to be consigned to history. And you will be struck by the awesome and remote majesty of this sparsely populated expanse of land in the middle of the nation of Wales. That is what you will see, but what does God see… and what may He be doing in this place?

The heavens still declare the glory of God. And few who live here have failed to hear Him whisper at some point through His creation. Some, presently, ignore or misinterpret this whisper. But for others, it is the beginning of a search to hear more. In various parts of the County, Christian women and men are rediscovering how to use this incredible visual aid of our stunning landscape to point people to the God of creation who has revealed himself fully in Jesus.

As you pass by the many empty chapels and churches that pepper the Powys highways and byways, you would be forgiven for forgetting that it was this county that was the womb of the Great Evangelical Awakening in seventeenth century Wales. Against the backdrop of church ‘as it always had been’, we can be forgiven also for forgetting the radical nature of the moving of the Spirit of God at that time. From the preaching of the Gospel outside of the Church buildings to the discipling of believers inside people’s homes, there are lessons to be learnt. Lessons that are being learnt by God’s People here today. There continue to be some vibrant Christian communities worshipping and witnessing to Jesus in and from their buildings… often located in the larger towns of the county. But also, there is the recognition that God is also moving His people towards a more localised and deeply incarnational sharing of the Good News. From church communities being birthed in new ways and in new places to those whom God is sending to pioneer His work contextually amongst particular groups of people, slowly (at times seemingly very!), often quietly, God is doing new things.

Yet the challenges remain immense. Powys is a county that grapples with the vulnerabilities of an uncertain future for its dominantly rural economy. Consequently, Powys faces the highest youth migration anywhere in Wales. The needs of an aging population are often frustrated by the limitations of an overstretched care sector. Hard working farmers continue to try to navigate their way through complex contemporary issues.

If the A470 offers the observant traveller a microcosm of the county of Powys, I suggest it also offers a metaphor for the County. The journey along the A470 is never fast and rarely tracks the shortest distance between two points; so it seems for so many seeking to serve God’s purposes in the County today. Yet, for those who have eyes to see, whether in one of the many remote barely visible farmsteads or the various hubs of population along the way, there are people who God sees, and loves; for whom He has died and to whom He is sending us.