In 2011, we looked at the concept of Healthy Churches, which is found in The Healthy Churches Handbook by Robert Warren. The basic idea is that beyond the idea of large or small churches, growing or declining churches, there is the idea of a spiritually healthy church. Robert Warren describes the seven marks of a healthy church, and we thought about how these might apply for us in Ystalyfera.

In 2010, we looked at the subject of Christian Mission and what it means in its fullest sense. Then we went on to produce a new mission statement for our Parish and think of example of how we do what claim we do in our mission statement. This is now used in our Annual Reports.

In 2009, we looked at the subject of intercessory prayer - praying for others.

We looked at why we pray for others, how we pray for others and how we might make our Sunday intercessions more timely to currently circumstances, and how we might develop personal habits of praying for others.

During Lent 2008, we read our way through St. Mark's Gospel, reading a passage each day. Then once a week, we shared our thoughts about what we had discovered about Mark's Gospel and the Christian faith for us in the week past.

We also asked the Vicar a few unanswerable questions along the way!

Most of all, we got a feel for what it's like to be following Jesus along with the first Disciples.