IRELAND — Like most countries in Europe, Ireland has been a magnet for nationalities from many world regions. Nick and Janice Park are attracting and winning them, and training them to multiply churches and ministries across Ireland and connecting them back home in missions ministries to their countries of origin.
I have a childhood memory of a church watermelon feed in our family backyard one hot summer night. It seemed that the whole church attended and filled the yard. As the visitors moved around for fellowship, the watermelons – and watermelon seeds – were everywhere! Within days, the combination of the hot, dry Central California sunshine and the early morning dew produced hundreds of new plant sprouts from scattered seeds.
In New Testament times and again in our day, God is spreading His people everywhere and the seed of the gospel is being scattered through the modern day “Diaspora.” The Greek word “diaspora” is translated into “scattered” in the scriptures referenced above. It conveys the picture of seeds (“spora”) that are blown in the wind, take root and develop into reproducing plants. Many missions observers are making much of today’s “diaspora missions,” the evangelization of peoples on the move, and the planting and multiplication of churches among them.
One of the special highlights for Janice and me in September was to experience today’s “diaspora” in the country of Ireland. We were invited by our friends, Nick and Janice Park, to be the guest resource speakers at the annual missions conference for the Solid Rock Church of God in Drogheda, just north of Dublin.
We ministered in a Portuguese-speaking Brazilian immigrant church plant, in a French-speaking (Francophone) African congregation and in multiple services during the missions conference at Solid Rock, a multicultural congregation packed full of native Irish, as well as scores of newcomers from around the world. The Sunday worship team was from eight different nations. We met Irish representatives from IMAP – the Irish Mission Agencies Partnership, and spent time encouraging expatriate missionaries from various nations.
Like most countries in Europe, Ireland has been a magnet for nationalities from many world regions. Nick and Janice Park are attracting and winning them, and training them to multiply churches and ministries across Ireland and connecting them back home in missions ministries to their countries of origin. The Solid Rock church is typical of every “leading edge” local congregation that we have visited in Europe – urban, multi-cultural, interracial, international, and missional.
It was a tremendous blessing to be invited to speak into this kind of “sending” congregation, encouraging them in their missions work at home and around the world.
Remember to pray for the Parks, and for pastors, missionaries and national leaders across Ireland and Europe. Commenting on the exciting opportunities in Europe, a fellow Pentecostal leader told me: “We have so many open doors among the ‘four C’s’: cities, children, campuses, and culturally-diverse communities.”
Grant and Janice McClung
Missionary Education
Project Number 0650853
© 2009 Church of God World Missions