Among the Irish

2 comments | Jan 18, 05:34 PM | best-of-earl | by Earl Creps

Janet and I landed in Dublin yesterday for our first visit to Ireland.

We are here at the invitation of Gary and Wilma Davidson, American missionaries to this island nation. Gary serves as the national leader of the Assemblies of God Ireland, yet he and Wilma have opened their home to host us during our week-long visit.

After battling jet lag all of yesterday, we finally got some sleep last night in preparation for speaking at Liberty Community Church this morning.

Pastored by Noel and Sharon Kenny, LCC is located in an inner city neighborhood of Dublin not far from the projects where they both grew up.

The congregation meets in a building that has been both a slaughter house and a mechanics garage over the years, but now has been converted into a worship and training center.

After touring American churches for more than five years, I was curious to see how an Irish congregation functioned.

I don’t know if we helped them, but the LCC experience was rejuvenating for us.

The noise is the first thing you notice about the church upon entering the facility. There are voices echoing everywhere, people talking, laughing, children playing. It’s wonderful. The atmosphere is charged by the energy of people who seem glad to be there and glad to be with each other.

The absence of a “religious” atmosphere also struck us immediately. We found no evidence of LCC folk trying to impress anyone, or sound Christian at the expense of being Christian. Much of the church’s liveliness seems related to this sense that the Christian message is one of inclusion rather then exclusion. The physician comes for the sick, not the well.

The stories were a third impressive feature of LCC. On many occasions during our morning we heard first-hand accounts of Dublin citizens delivered from drug addiction, crime, and a life of near-desperation. In these narratives we saw how a life in Christ offers both the power to be set free and the restoration of our humanity in the process. Jesus isn’t just saving people in Dublin, He is making them people. We are complete in him.

Finally, we were struck by Noel and Sharon Kenny’s heart for their community.

While navigating through the changes that come with their first permanent facility and the need to build an infrastructure for the group, they have not lost sight of the ultimate goal: touching people in need. This heart for the mission of Jesus in Dublin is the engine that drives LCC. Perhaps the best evidence for this conclusion would be the new Christians traveling on missions trips outside of Ireland. They left heroin and went to Belarus.

Our experience at Liberty Community Church suggests that American church leaders could challenge themselves with some questions like the following:

1. When was the last time someone used profanity during a church service because they were too new to the faith to know any better?

2. How many heroin addicts attend our services weekly?

3. When was our last conflict with people who wanted to make the church more comfortable for insiders and less comfortable for outsiders?

Janet and I were so moved by our LCC visit and the “edge” that the presence of so many new believers and pre-believers give to what they call “the tribe of Liberty.”

We are just desperate to see this trait in our Berkeley church plant.

I am concerned that our (my) focus on the production values, branded sermon series, and studio quality worship music necessary to attract the kind of Christians who can supply our financial base runs certain risks. Among them is dulling the edge that newcomers bring to our ministry culture.

In visits to lots of good churches over several years I have often admired the level of execution in services, but not felt enough of the LCC edge.

Our experience this morning put me back in touch with just how wonderful/stressful it is to work in an atmosphere saturated with newness, and how easy it will be for us to sacrifice that newness for the sake of less pressure and less criticism in Berkeley.

Also, our LCC visit suggests that attractional and missional models of ministry are not mutually exclusive. LCC certainly is attractive, featuring passionate worship, quality ministry, and compelling preaching. However, the church is deeply invested in its local community in very personal ways. The two approaches have become friends that support each other.

I will begin praying for a ministry with “edge” in Berkeley and for the grace to survive it.