Dr John Coulter ✍ When my late dad took over as minister of Clough Presbyterian Church, near Ballymena, in 1963, I shared a church pew with a retired missionary to Africa - Nancy Alexander - affectionately known to me as Miss Nancy.

On Sundays before morning worship, Miss Nancy would share her tales of working in that challenging continent as a Presbyterian missionary. My dad was only in Clough a short time when she sadly died, but I always fondly remembered the tales about her evangelical witness to the Africans.

Ireland, north and south, has always had a rich history of sending Christian missionaries to Africa over the centuries.

If I take a visit several years ago to Kenya as a benchmark, the African Christian Church - of whatever denomination - is both growing and thriving in spite of the hunger, thirst, civil unrest and disease challenges which that mighty continent faces.

Contrast that with the present day geographic island of Ireland where liberalism, secularism and pluralism seems to be the order of the day. Dedicated evangelical Christian missionaries like Miss Nancy would be spinning in their graves at the religious state of the island they once called home.

Given the buoyant state of the Christian Church in Africa, maybe the time has come for Africa to send its missionaries to ‘save’ Ireland? Every year seems to bring new laws which clearly undermine the Biblically-based moral fibre of Irish society which Miss Nancy left in her prime to bring the Gospel message to the Africans.

With falling attendances at Sunday worship across many denominations and the perception that fewer people want to become clerics, how soon will we reach a position when in a future census Ireland is no longer classified as a Christian island?

That is not to decry the terrific work which many Christian missionaries still do in Africa and in other parts of the globe.

But the time has clearly come for the Christian Church in Ireland to face some bitter medicine in the form of the Biblical New Testament advice - take the mote out of your own eye before you take the beam out of someone else’s.

Put bluntly and practically - there is a huge mission field on our front doorsteps here in Ireland without having to trek all the way to Africa to find converts. Again, this is not to decry those who feel called by God to serve as missionaries in foreign soils.

Surely there are enough folk in Ireland who need spiritual counselling and Christian help without having to look overseas? The time has surely come, too, for the African church to return the serve in terms of missionary callings and send its Christians to this island to convert people to Christianity.

While many folk still designate themselves spiritually as Christian, there is a perception that many folk in today’s Ireland are really nominal Christians - that is, Christian in name only.

Indeed, that perception is fuelled by the concept they only darken a place of worship for baptisms, weddings and funerals - bluntly branded as ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ with an occasional Christmas and Easter service attendance thrown in for an image sake.

Is it a case in terms of evangelical outreach that our churches in Ireland cannot see the wood for the trees. They are so busy organising missionaries for foreign lands that they cannot see the increasing needs of people on this island.

This is an issue I have often wondered about since my teenage years. During the summer months, our youth fellowship would hold a Sunday evening open air witness on the greens of the housing developments in the local communities which the church served.

One Sunday evening, the youth fellowship went to Portrush to hand out Gospel tracts and chat to people. But why did we need to travel all the way from the north Antrim hills to Portrush when there were clear spiritual needs in the local community?

It has since baffled me why churches need to travel many miles away from their local bases to evangelise when there are spiritual needs in the communities in which they are located.

The time has now come to have the main focus on missionary work on the home mission field in Ireland rather than foreign shores. The falling numbers in the pews have a knock-on effect on the number of volunteers for home mission outreach.

If that is truly the case, then the Irish-based churches need to call on reinforcements from the African churches - come to Ireland where the need is most!
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online.

Maybe African Missionaries Need To Evangelise Ireland?

Dr John Coulter ✍ When my late dad took over as minister of Clough Presbyterian Church, near Ballymena, in 1963, I shared a church pew with a retired missionary to Africa - Nancy Alexander - affectionately known to me as Miss Nancy.

On Sundays before morning worship, Miss Nancy would share her tales of working in that challenging continent as a Presbyterian missionary. My dad was only in Clough a short time when she sadly died, but I always fondly remembered the tales about her evangelical witness to the Africans.

Ireland, north and south, has always had a rich history of sending Christian missionaries to Africa over the centuries.

If I take a visit several years ago to Kenya as a benchmark, the African Christian Church - of whatever denomination - is both growing and thriving in spite of the hunger, thirst, civil unrest and disease challenges which that mighty continent faces.

Contrast that with the present day geographic island of Ireland where liberalism, secularism and pluralism seems to be the order of the day. Dedicated evangelical Christian missionaries like Miss Nancy would be spinning in their graves at the religious state of the island they once called home.

Given the buoyant state of the Christian Church in Africa, maybe the time has come for Africa to send its missionaries to ‘save’ Ireland? Every year seems to bring new laws which clearly undermine the Biblically-based moral fibre of Irish society which Miss Nancy left in her prime to bring the Gospel message to the Africans.

With falling attendances at Sunday worship across many denominations and the perception that fewer people want to become clerics, how soon will we reach a position when in a future census Ireland is no longer classified as a Christian island?

That is not to decry the terrific work which many Christian missionaries still do in Africa and in other parts of the globe.

But the time has clearly come for the Christian Church in Ireland to face some bitter medicine in the form of the Biblical New Testament advice - take the mote out of your own eye before you take the beam out of someone else’s.

Put bluntly and practically - there is a huge mission field on our front doorsteps here in Ireland without having to trek all the way to Africa to find converts. Again, this is not to decry those who feel called by God to serve as missionaries in foreign soils.

Surely there are enough folk in Ireland who need spiritual counselling and Christian help without having to look overseas? The time has surely come, too, for the African church to return the serve in terms of missionary callings and send its Christians to this island to convert people to Christianity.

While many folk still designate themselves spiritually as Christian, there is a perception that many folk in today’s Ireland are really nominal Christians - that is, Christian in name only.

Indeed, that perception is fuelled by the concept they only darken a place of worship for baptisms, weddings and funerals - bluntly branded as ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ with an occasional Christmas and Easter service attendance thrown in for an image sake.

Is it a case in terms of evangelical outreach that our churches in Ireland cannot see the wood for the trees. They are so busy organising missionaries for foreign lands that they cannot see the increasing needs of people on this island.

This is an issue I have often wondered about since my teenage years. During the summer months, our youth fellowship would hold a Sunday evening open air witness on the greens of the housing developments in the local communities which the church served.

One Sunday evening, the youth fellowship went to Portrush to hand out Gospel tracts and chat to people. But why did we need to travel all the way from the north Antrim hills to Portrush when there were clear spiritual needs in the local community?

It has since baffled me why churches need to travel many miles away from their local bases to evangelise when there are spiritual needs in the communities in which they are located.

The time has now come to have the main focus on missionary work on the home mission field in Ireland rather than foreign shores. The falling numbers in the pews have a knock-on effect on the number of volunteers for home mission outreach.

If that is truly the case, then the Irish-based churches need to call on reinforcements from the African churches - come to Ireland where the need is most!
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online.

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