Recreation, Reconvening, and a Trip to the North

These past couple of days the team and I went on a retreat into Northern Ireland to place a final stamp on our training/orientation. We stayed at a Christian Retreat center in a small village called Rostrevor (spoken like: ross trevor). The center was a converted manner house that sat on the shores of an Irish Lougue – (we know them by their Scottish spelling “Loch”). Over those couple of days we spent time in prayer, fellowship, devotion, and discussion on our purpose as a team here in Dublin as well as Abbey’s purpose in Dublin. Our team’s purpose is fairly plain, we are here to help the church and see to it that their work in the community of Northern Dublin is maintained. We want the people in the city to experience the love of Christ through social outreach. It is also our goal that we evangelize to this city and see souls won for the kingdom. Our hope and prayer is that through social outreach and evangelism we will be able to have 8 new people solidly planted in Abbey . When I say solidly planted I meant that they are involved and regular attendees of the church.

Eight people seems like a small goal for our team of nine, but what we are trying to accomplish is difficult on several levels. First, there is the spiritual state of this city/country/Europe. This area is spiritually dead – many people (most notably young people) have turned their backs on Christianity and the church. It is the sorry trend for much of Europe as the Western nations have moved into a post-Christian era. In Ireland specifically, church has historically been a political machine and so stating your church denomination is more likened to making a political stand instead of sharing personal religious experiences. So the very fact that Abbey is a Protestant church in a highly Catholic area puts it at a “political” disadvantage. The final level is the state of the church itself. Abbey is a dying congregation and it has been dying steadily over the last several decades. It was a church that once housed several hundred on a Sunday service – but now its attendance is barely 80 people. A solid portion of the congregation is elderly, and they are rather apathetic about the decline of their church. They are not happy with the state of things, but they see the decline of Abbey as something that is inevitable. These are barriers that are in front of us, and ones that with the help of God we hope to break through.

Tomorrow is our second Sunday here and we will be involved in the worship service. A group of us will be leading the congregation in worship. We are going to teach them a newer hymn – “O Church Arise.” This hymn has become the anthem for our team and we hope a song that the church will strongly embrace. It is a call for the embattled church to stand and follow “Christ our Captain.” Now that training is complete, we will go forth this week starting to work in the ministry we have been given for this summer – and as the hymn states our team also asks “Spirit come put strength in every stride/Give grace for every hurdle”

-Thank you for reading

God Bless,
Luke

First Week Here

Well.... I'm here in Dublin. It was a long road to get here, and it took many stops - Atlanta, North Carolina, London, and now I'm here at the Abbey Church. I had a short time of training at a camp in North Carolina where I met with other interns from Mission To The World - it was a worthwhile experience and it allowed me to meet other students going to places like Honduras, Kenya, Sweden, and Lithuania. After the 3 day training I flew out with my team from Atlanta and we had an 8 hour flight into Dublin. It was a unique experience to see the sun set and then rise within five hours since we left Atlanta at 6:30 pm and arrived in London at 7:00 am local time. We were delayed for a couple hours at Gatwick Airport in London, where we sat. We were a tired, lost looking group at the airport. We were a little confused on how to get through customs and we were running off of little sleep. From there we had a two hour flight across the Celtic sea into Dublin. At the Dublin airport, people from Abbey church were there excited to greet us and drive us to our new home for the next few months. We arrived at the Harvey House, the bed and breakfast that we are staying at, then we dropped off our stuff and walked two blocks down to Abbey Presbyterian. They had a dinner for us with a few of the members of the church. It has been wonderful getting to know Alan Boal (the minister at Abbey), his wife and children, as well as members of my team. Over the past few days here in Dublin we have been getting acclimated to the city, and have been receiving training about the culture of this city. On the surface, Dublin resembles America in many ways. At its heart, however, Dublin (and Ireland at large) beats at different rate than our culture at home. They know oppression and poverty much more nearly than we do. They have experienced class conflict at a more intensified rate. They are more willing to be friendly, but less willing to be open about their life experiences. I pray that God will be able to use me here and with these people - who desperately need Him.

I included several pictures. The first is of my team at Temple Bar - one of the cultural gathering places in the city. The second is off Cornell Street - the "Broadway of Dublin". The third is a picture of Abbey presbyterian - shot from The Garden of Rememberance. The last is a picture of a cricket game I watched at Pheonix Park.

I hope to update this again as soon as possible.

Take Care & God Bless

Luke