Last night our church hosted its annual ladies meal, which we used to have in December but eventually realised it worked better in January after the Christmas rush is over. We had a great turn out, and Jessica had the opportunity to share with everyone about the ultimate New Year’s resolution: to know Christ, as Paul said his goal was in Philippians 3. Of all the goals you could have for 2017, that is the greatest!
Category: our ministry (Page 4 of 36)
Sunday evening our church hosted our annual Christmas Carol service. As usual, the building was packed to capacity and a bit more with many friends, family and neighbours joining our church family to celebrate the coming of our Saviour. We certainly do have a lot to celebrate!
This Sunday afternoon a group of guys from church went go-karting just for fun. We ended up going on the fast track, with go-karts that can get over 35/mph – which may not sound like a lot, but it certainly feels like a lot when you are in a small go-kart and nearly sitting on the ground! I (Seth) went along and talked a lot beforehand about how I was going to beat everyone (as you do) even though I have very little experience with such things. But it turns out I’m not all talk – my go-kart ate up the pavement in style, drifting around corners and passing its way to a first place finish. Maybe I should look in to going pro… or maybe not.
The last several years, Youghal has celebrated Halloween in a big way with a festival that includes opening and closing ceremonies preformed by real witches summoning spirits, casting spells and celebrating ancient legends and ghost stories about our old town. But that’s not all that’s been happening in town – this last week we had a team from a Bible college in Northern Ireland helping us share with the community that the Light of the World has come! This week our family will also be helping with a Christian youth camp that runs during school breaks. “…In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” – John 1:4
Typography is becoming a bit of a side hobby for Seth, and this is his latest project, which he’s been working on in little bits for a long time (even though the final product is quite short):
Being on committees and boards for every thing from the local primary school and Munster Bible College to youth camps and the local church means that Seth attends a lot of meetings. But there are several notable and important differences between Irish meetings and their American counterparts:
1) Irish meetings always involve a cup of tea – which usually comes with a little something to eat, which is why our kids used to say ‘Dad is going to an eating’.
2) The lingo is different – For example, if you ‘table’ a topic in America, that means you put it off for later. In Ireland, to ‘table’ a topic means that you bring it to the floor for discussion.
3) Decisions are made differently – In America, votes are taken quickly and the majority rules. The emphasis is on being efficient and moving forward. In Ireland, votes are rare. Topics are usually discussed until there is a feeling of consensus, and once that is reached the decision is considered to be made without ever needing to explicitly say so. The emphasis is on working together, but the adjustment for us was trying to figure out what had actually been decided.
4) No ending times – If you think the point above sounds like meetings would take longer in Ireland, you’re right. And maybe that’s one reason why they never have a set time to end. The meeting lasts as long as the discussion, although some discussions end up being tabled at multiple meetings. This doesn’t just apply to meetings, though – our church services have no definite ending time, either, and social visits also tend to last a lot longer than they do in America.
At the end of the day, every culture has unique values, strengths, and weaknesses. The Irish way of doing things certainly has it’s own problems, but we have learned to appreciate the way the Irish culture values relationships over tasks. Yes, it does make some projects less efficient to focus so much on the people involved, but after all, what is the real goal anyway?
Last week Munster Bible College held a week of Church History classes, followed by an open lecture on “The Church In Contemporary Culture”. As always, Seth did the live broadcasting for all of the above, and you can see the open lecture here:
This year’s medieval festival was postponed one week because of bad weather, but the new date turned out to be a very nice day. Thousands turned out for the event in the authentically medieval Collegiate Garden, which is surrounded by medieval town walls. Our church’s photo booth themed after the Book of Kells was well received, and our children had an absolute blast!
Soccer camp went extremely well this week, and after the awards ceremony last night we got to join in celebrating the wedding of a couple from church. The celebrations had a lot of Irish flavour, as you can see from this short video clip:
Wedding Dance from sdlewis on Vimeo.
Seth recently put together a couple of short interviews on helpful topics with Dr. Stephen Wellum, who was recently in Ireland as our Munster Bible College theology lecturer. Both videos are roughly 2 minutes:
