A much-loved minister in Pontypool has recently celebrated three decades in the role.

Reverend Beverley Morgan, who first became minister for Merchant’s Hill Baptist Church in Pontnewynydd, Pontypool, in the spring of 1994.

He first became interested in becoming a full-time minister in the early 1990s when he first “felt a calling” to ministering after a period of lay-preaching, meaning he was not yet officially ordained at this time. 

As a result of this calling, Reverend Morgan resigned his job as a police officer within the Ministry of Defence and enrolled at Cardiff University, reading a diploma in Theology in 1991.

Around a year later, on St David’s Day in 1992, the current deacon of Merchant’s Hill Baptist Church, Ken Roderick, asked Reverend Morgan to preach at the chapel.

Reverend Morgan has recalled how it was “a curious choice” for him to be asked to preach at this Baptist church as he had never visited it before.

Within two years, in April 1994, Reverend Morgan was officially ordained at his local church in Griffithstown, where he was a member and the current serving deacon.

During the service, he was presented with his own Bible a specially selected Bible passage from the text of Ephesians 4:1-13.

Reverend Morgan has remained at Merchant’s Hill Baptist Church ever since and is now the longest-serving minister in the entire valley.

On celebrating his long serving time as a minister, Reverend Morgan said: “It has been wonderful to serve this community for such a long time, and I am proud of what we have achieved as a community and continue to do so.

“It was a calling all those years ago that encouraged me to become a minister, and I am so proud to be marking 30 years in the role – it’s not every day that happens.”

Reverend Morgan’s sister, Gill Taylor-Williams, said she is “so proud” of her brother for celebrating three decades as a minister.

She added: “Bev has been such an inspiration to us as a family, and we could not be prouder of him.

“We are delighted that he has reached this milestone, and hope for many more to come.”

This year is also a time of double celebration for Reverend Morgan, as he has recently also celebrated twenty-five years as a moderator at Mount Zion Baptist Church, Glascoed, Monmouthshire.