Hi There, I'm Rob Atkins and I'm delighted to be pastor of this exciting church in the border country between Wales and England. Raglan may still be a village but it's beginning to behave like a small town and we are happy to be part of all the growth and new life here.

I've been married to Catherine since 1982 and we have three children who are fortunate to have access to the excellent schools here.

Catherine and I are both from Abertillery in the South Wales mining valleys but we went to London in 1985 to train for the Baptist ministry and then spent 13 years serving with the Baptist Missionary Society in France. We had a lot of work with international francophone students including many Africans and West Indians and with the homeless.

We both enjoy all kinds of music and are currently building up a repertoire of songs in the folk style which we are performing at BBQs and picnics. We are open to offers. We are both songwriters as well as performers. Some of our recent work can be heard at www.myspace.com/frostatmidnight

Since coming back to Britain in 2002 I have been fortunate enough to have many opportunities to broadcast both speech and song on the BBC and I find this keeps me constantly on the lookout for new material to talk and write about.

In 2005 I graduated PhD from Cardiff University and here is the abstract of my thesis. It still makes sense to me - just about!

Summary of doctoral thesis


ATKINS, Robert Anthony

PhD 2004, University of Wales, Cardiff

The notion of servanthood in the permanent diaconate reactivated by the Second Vatican Council with a special focus on France



Is it possible to rebuild the diaconate in Roman Catholicism with a distinctive character of servanthood? Examination of its origins suggests that this is possible, notwithstanding some negative factors which have been taken into consideration, notably the textual critique of diakonia as servanthood currently being undertaken by John N. Collins. From a historical perspective, several experiments in servanthood on the part of the Church in France proved inconclusive, including the mouvements of Action Catholique and the worker-priest initiative. In addition to this, there was some confusion in the reasons which brought about the reactivation of the diaconate at the Second Vatican Council. Only one of these reasons was the desire to emphasise servanthood. Sustained study reveals a consequent lack of focus in the Vatican II texts on the diaconate particularly in terms of the expressed desire to create a diaconate for the missionary Church. Much ambiguity resulted in the reactivated diaconate with regard to the specificity of diaconal identity and action. Nonetheless, it can be shown that a servant diaconate can be expounded on theological rather than lexical grounds in terms of diaconal kenosis, the acceptance of vulnerability and the espousal of the Franciscan ideal of minimism. Women may appropriately be ordained to such a diaconate although the danger of sexual stereotyping should be avoided. It is possible to argue for iconic diaconal servanthood from a christological perspective as well as by more pragmatic considerations centering on first-hand observation of today’s deacons particularly in France. These men are usually motivated by an ideal of servanthood. Consequently, they function as servants at the crucial interface which is the threshold of the Church. In conclusion, there are strong grounds for holding that the reactivated dynamism of the diaconate operates both within an ‘economic’ sacrament of order and in the wider world.