We enjoyed supper with Seamus and Jenny O'Callaghan and their three kids. Seamus is the pastor of Carlow Community Christian Church and Jenny oversees the worship ministry. After we had eaten, the worship team members began to show up.
Until recently, CCCC had been going through a season without a worship team and Jenny led worship on her own. They are now blessed with a group of people who have committed to the worship ministry and they asked us to come and do a workshop with them for vision-casting and to help them to focus on their task as worship leaders.
It was a great evening and we really enjoyed our time with everyone.
The next evening, back in Dublin, we got together with some friends of ours who have started a church plant in the Blackrock area. They are traditional Irish musicians and we try to meet up when we're in town for an evening of music and worship. We love sitting around the living room, instruments in hand, playing and worshiping together. It's always a highlight of our trip.
Friday it was off to Galway on the west coast of Ireland for our conference with Aontis, formerly known as The Association of Evangelical Irish Churches. We were a bit concerned that the turnout may be low, in part because Galway is in the midst of a water crisis and you can't drink the water. This is all due to a little critter called cryptosporidium, a nasty parasite that has contaminated the entire water supply from an unknown source.
This conference was to include people from churches from across Ireland. We ended up with about 15 people from about 4 different churches -- not quite what we had hoped for. But even though we were few, it was a really good weekend, none-the-less.
It was great to have Jay and Rachel with us to help lead worship and Jay was still able to do a guitar workshop which ended up being a big hit with those who participated.
We finished early enough for us to make it back to Dublin at dusk. Sunday morning we went into the City Centre and attended services at Core Church. Ravi and the team did a great job leading worship and we enjoyed the rest of the service as well. Core is very unusual as Churches of Ireland go. The Church of Ireland is Anglican and generally very conservative regarding liturgy and worship service forms. Rarely, if ever do you find a CoI congregation that is as charismatic and progressive as Core.
We made it home safe and sound Monday evening. Molly picked us up and she ended up spending the night.
Good to be home with Molly, but our hearts are still in Ireland and we look forward to returning this fall.
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