Who we are

There has been a Baptist Church at Hebron Chapel, Caeharris, Dowlais for over 150 years. During this time Dowlais has seen massive changes: the railways and their stations have gone, the coal and steel industries have disappeared, the population has halved, hardly any Welsh is spoken, a close-knit community has fragmented, and religion is generally out of fashion. Yet week by week a large number of people of all ages and backgrounds continues to gather at Hebron to worship God.

The people at Hebron believe the same truths as those who built the chapel in 1846, because there are some things that never change. The Living God, our Creator, does not change or go out of fashion, The Bible is still up-to-date: its truth is completely reliable, and it is God's message to human beings today just as much it was 150 years ago, or 2000 years ago.

The message is the good news of how God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, came into the world to deliver us from our sins by His death and His rising again from the dead. He comes to restore us to a real relationship with God, to forgive our sins and to give us a solid foundation for life in this world and the next.

The marvellous thing about the Christian faith, which sets it apart from every other religion, is that at its centre is a living Saviour, Jesus Christ. The facts of His earthly existence, death and resurrection are amongst the most solid and dependable facts in human history. Dead politicians, dead prophets, dead religious leaders cannot help you to deal with sin: but a living Saviour can. Christians can testify to the reality of a living God at work in their lives. One of the purposes of this site is to introduce you to the same living God, who has shown us just how much He loves us by coming down to earth in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Those of us who meet at Hebron are ordinary Merthyr people who have found in Jesus Christ the key to life. For us He is "The way, the truth, the life". We really do want to share this Good News with you. We believe the Christian message is of the utmost importance for ourselves, our children and everyone else in the world.

The 1904 Revival in Dowlais – unpublished personal memories

Extracts from the Testimony of Price Davies, 1881-1966, kindly sent by his grandson, Roy Davies, St Luke's Campus Librarian, University of Exeter, who has given permission for the material to be included on our site:

THE WELSH REVIVAL

So the Revival went on, like a mighty Prairie Fire all over South Wales and Monmouthshire and in three months one hundred and seventy five thousand souls were converted.  Bendigedig fyddo Duw yn Oes Oesoedd Amen (Blessed be God for ever and ever Amen).  Wonderful days, wonderful meetings - commencing at six or seven in the evening and going on all night.  The meeting at Brynteg Gorseinon commenced at six in the evening on Sunday and went on until seven Monday morning, and then much pressure had to be brought to bear on the people to bring it to an end, and afterwards the people stood in groups about the street talking about the wonder of it all. Two hundred and fifty members were added to Hebron Baptist Chapel, Caeharris, Dowlais where the meetings were going on all night.

GOD DEALING WITH SEVERAL MEN INDIVIDUALLY IN ANSWER TO PRAYER.

T. E. Lewis and I were brought up together on Dowlais Top, and only a few Years ago, (not long before he died) while we were standing outside Woolworths Stores in High Street Merthyr he related to me how and where he was saved.

Every Saturday night he and his friends spent, their time drinking in different pubs until eleven-o-clock Stop Tap; after this they used to take drinks with them to one or another of his friend’s homes, and drinking until the early hours of Sunday morning.  He told me he never went home until about two-o-clock in the morning.  He was going home drunk one Sunday morning alone along Gwernllwyn Road , with a railway along one side of it.  This was a lonely road.  He told me he was brought down under an awful conviction by God of his sinfulness and guilt; and there alone on the solitary pavement he cried to God for mercy and forgiveness for some time.  T. E. Lewis was saved there and went home a changed and sober young man and became a faithful member of Hebron Baptist Chapel for more than fifty years.  He said that the Lord Jesus Christ took that appetite and thirst for drink out of him that night for ever, for it never returned. Praise the Lord.  T. E. Lewis was well known as a Coster in Twynrodyn and Merthyr. 

Sam Brown, another friend of mine, was converted down in the Colliery - Number two Pit Bedlinog - there alone between two ventilator doors.  Praise God!

I had an adopted brother, married and living in Dowlais Top, his hobbies were drinking, gambling and fighting.  Many of those he knew, who had lived the same kind of life, were at this time converted and he used to go with them to the meetings in Hebron ; but he came out time after time saying “They are not going to have me.”  But the more he was coming and going out defiantly, the more an even greater volume of prayer would rise from the congregation to the Throne of God in Heaven that the Lord would have mercy on him and bring him to His Feet.  Not long afterwards some of the members of Hebron were coming home at midnight one Saturday night after attending a Revival meeting at Pantywain, a village on the mountains above Dowlais Top.  Before they came to the houses in Dowlais Top they could hear somebody moaning and groaning on the side of the road, and Glory to God it was him; brought down under awful conviction and crying to God for mercy.

Two of the men picked him up, one under each arm, and took him down past his house to the meeting in Hebron where the meetings were going on all night. There, that night, or rather Sunday morning, D. R. Williams, commonly called "Dai Ruth" was converted. Oh, what a change! He became a member of Hebron Baptist Chapel.