Koinonias Kairoi (‘Fellowship Times’)
According to the BBC Business web-page (29 June, 2012), the Governor of the
Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, has called for a ‘change in the banking culture.’
In light of the third major banking scandal this year, he said that bank leaders have
manipulated lending rates and mis-sold financial products to small businesses,
treating shoddily and letting down many honest and hard working people in the
financial sector. He demands immediate and far-reaching action to reform the
structure and culture of the UK banking industry.
In an interview following, on Radio 4’s ‘The World at One,’ Nobel economic
laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, said the problem, in essence, was the system’s lack of
transparency. He believes that the problem is not simply a case of a few rotten
eggs corrupting the system, but that the system itself and its rules are not
sufficiently transparent; and we have allowed things to be ‘not transparent.’ The
lack of transparency, he says, leaves bankers prone to manipulate. The Prime
Minister, David Cameron, said, ‘British people are crying out for a return to good
old-fashioned banking...’ – presumably, he means to the transparency of which
Joseph Stiglitz speaks and to the trust that Sir Mervyn King believes is lost.
And we wonder when the Olympics begin on 27th of this month just how ‘clean’
from drugs competitors will be. Performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) have been in
use, apparently, from Ancient times, and detected as far back as 1904. Their use
has become rife throughout the world of sport and so the World Anti-Doping
Agency (WADA) was set up in 1999 to counter the problem. With related bodies,
the WADA constantly seeks ways to detect the ever more ‘sophisticated, potent and
transparent’ drugs (‘transparent’, here, meaning ‘passing without detection’, of
course!).
How great a contrast is all of this to genuinely transparent bankers and to properly
transparent sportsmen! At our last Men’s Meeting some of us joined to watch the
life story of the well-known Scottish missionary to China, Eric Liddell, who
happened to win bronze in the 220 yards and gold in the 440 yards (in what was
then a new world record time), in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Whilst the DVD
almost certainly portrays Eric Liddell in too-faultless-a-light, it nevertheless reveals
the clear integrity and transparency of his character.
He died young, in a Japanese prison camp, aged 43. A P Cullen said, ‘We are here,
first and foremost, in this Memorial Service, to give thanks to God for the life so
finely lived, the fight so nobly fought, the race so cleanly run, and to find renewed
inspiration for ourselves in the example that Eric Liddell left us.’ It is quite a
testimony for a sportsman to have someone say that our race was ‘… so cleanly
run.’ But the reference was not primarily to his running, of course, but to his life as
a whole.
Not many Christians are Olympiads, but the crown for which they ‘go into strict
training’ is one that does not fade and which lasts for ever (1 Cor 9:24)! Might we,
then, as believers, and as a church, ‘… run with perseverance the race marked out
for us? Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…’ Let us
run a clean race and live as transparently before everyone as we can, and might
we seek to do so this summer, and, indeed, throughout our lives!
For His glory,
Gareth


For Home Group details, please contact one of the elders, or if you wish to join
the Welsh-speaking Group, Ioan Davies (01678 – 521086), or the Dolgellau
Group, Alan Woodbridge (01341 – 423218).
For Coffee Morning information, please contact: Carolyn Perrin, 01678 –
540614, and Edith Roberts, 01678 – 520274.
DIARY / DYDDIADUR : JULY / GORFFENNAF 2012
PM = Prayer Meeting; BS = Bible Study; LBS = Ladies’ BS; YM = Youth Meeting
HG = Home Groups; CM = Coffee Morning; SS = Sunday School;
CE = Christianity Explained / Explored; Dol. = Dolgellau
(All meetings in Canolfan Bro Tegid, unless stated otherwise)
Sun
1
Tue
Thurs
Fri
Sat
3
4
6
7
Morning Worship (+ Sunday School)
Preacher: Gareth Williams (Matt 17) + pm
Ioan Davies is in Zion, Penycae (10 am) +
Tabernacl, Ponciau (2 pm)
5.50 pm
Lord’s Supper
6.30 pm
Evening Service
7.30 pm
Prayer Meeting (with Rob Burridge, AWM)
10.00 am
Ladies’ BS
10.30 am
Coffee Morning (+ 4.30 pm Youth Group)
12.30 – 5.00 pm Churches ‘get together’ at Betws y coed
Sun
8
10.30 am
10.30 am
6.30 pm
As arranged:
Fri
13
Sun
10.30 am
Morning Worship (+ SS)
Preacher: John Gough (Bangor; am)
Ioan Davies is in Tan y coed (11 am)
Evening Service (PM, 6.00 pm)
Preacher: Dave Wilmot
HG
CM (+ AECW Youth Volleyball, C’s Quay +
Flint, starting 7.00 pm; leave Bala ~ 6.00 pm)
20
7.30 pm
10.00 am
7.15 pm
10.30 am
Lord’s Supper
Morning Worship (+ SS)
Preacher: Gareth Williams (Matt 17)
Ioan Davies is in Betws y coed Presb. Ch. (10 am)
Evening Service
Preacher: Emmanuel Durand (Brittany; UFM)
PM
Ladies’ BS
Men’s Meeting (Bryn y groes)
CM (+ 4.30 pm YM; last of academic year)
22
10.30 am
Morning Worship (+ SS)
15
9.50 am
10.30 am
6.30 pm
Tue
Thurs
17
19
Fri
Sun
6.30 pm
As arranged:
Fri
27
10.30 am
Sun
10.30 am
29
6.30 pm
Tue
31
7.30 pm
Preacher: Dan Owen (Newtown; EMW Camp)
Ioan Davies is in Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant (10
am) + Sardis, Llanwddyn (2 pm)
Evening Service
Preacher: Gareth Williams
HG
CM
Morning Worship (+ SS)
Preacher: Paul Gamston (South Craven,
Keighley; EMW Family Camp); Ioan Davies is
in Llansanan: Sardis (10 am) + Peniel (2 pm)
Evening Service
Preacher: Dyfan Williams (Northwich; EMW
Family Camp)
PM
BALA EVANGELICAL CHURCH
EGLWYS EFENGYLAIDD Y BALA
JULY
LLYTHYR NEWYDDION
2012
NEWSLETTER
GORFFENNAF
‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great crowd of witnesses, let
us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and
let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes
on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…’
(Hebrews 12:1+2a)
Photo: International Eisteddfod, Llangollen
‘Am hynny, gan fod cymaint torf o dystion o’n cwmpas, gadewch i ninnau
fwrw ymaith bob rhwystr, a’r pechod sy’n ein maglu mor rhwydd, a rhedeg
yr yrfa sydd o’n blaen heb ddiffygio, gan gadw ein golwg ar Iesu, awdur a
pherffeithydd ffydd…’
(Hebreaid 12:1)
Elders:
Gareth Williams
David Wilmot
01678 (Bala) 521527
01678
520752
Website:
www.balaevangelicalchurch.org