Wales On Sunday

Gower church to close its doors

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PRAYERS will be offered for a final time at a Gower church today.

The congregati­on at Tirzah Baptist Church in Llanmorlai­s has dwindled to just five, and two of them are said to be in a residentia­l home.

Pastor Robert Barnes will lead the 3pm service before closing the doors on 112 years of history.

“It is very sad because obviously there has been a lot of love and devotion put into the cause over the years,” he said.

“People think of their parents, grandparen­ts and all the other people involved in Tirzah Baptist Church since its inception.”

Mr Barnes said the church was built in 1905 as a Sunday school for Trinity Baptist Chapel in nearby Penclawdd before becoming a church in its own right in 1931. From then on it served Llanmorlai­s village.

It has some land around it but not the manse – or clergy house – that was originally intended for the site.

Mr Barnes added: “Over the past 10 to 20 years numbers (of worshipper­s) have been declining. Membership has fallen to five. Two of them are elderly and in old people’s homes. That left three keeping it open.”

The decision, he said, was then taken to merge with Trinity Baptist Chapel, and seek advice from the Carmarthen-based Baptist Union of Wales. Mr Barnes said he believed Tirzah Baptist Church would probably be sold.

Mr Barnes, who lives in Mumbles but has been pastor at Trinity Baptist Chapel part-time for nearly 30 years, said Tirzah’s fate was being repeated across Wales.

“I think we are becoming more and more familiar with church and chapel closures,” he said. “There is a certain amount of inevitabil­ity about it.”

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