Of Churches
Irish Councilof Churches2011Annual Report
ANNUAL REPORT 2011ContentsCore ReportsPresident’s—Observations04.Most Rev. Richard ClarkeHonorary Treasurer— Report Year 201106.Robert CochranExecutive Officer—Report07.Mervyn McCullaghIICM —Report20.Philip McKinleyBoards and ForumsOverseas Affairs—Board Report16.Rev Colin CampbellChurch in Society—Forum16.Eileen GallagherTheology —ForumProjectsEcumenical Officer— Project10.Philip McKinleyIntegration Officer—Project13.Adrian CristeaAssociated OrganisationsWomen’s Link—Update22.Joyce BondAICCMR— Story and History24.Sr. Joan RoddyChristian Aid—Update26.Margaret BodenCTBI— Update28.Canon Bob Fyffe18.Gillian Kingston 01
ANNUAL REPORT 2011ICC CONSTITUENT COMMUNIONS 2011Year Joined ICCChurch of Ireland1923Moravian Church, Irish District1923Methodist Church in Ireland1923Presbyterian Church in IrelandNon-Subscribing Presbyterian ChurchReligious Society of FriendsSalvation Army (Ireland Division)Lutheran Church in IrelandGreek Orthodox Church in Britain & IrelandCherubim & Seraphim ChurchRussian Orthodox Church in IrelandRomanian Orthodox ChurchAntiochian Orthodox Church1923192319231965197219972001200320042005 03
Irish Council of Churches“We are to connect with one another in Christ, and soserve with others in the great commission of connectingthis island of Ireland with the glorious hope held out tous all by God in ChristPresident’s—ObservationsWRITERMost Rev. Richard ClarkeThe term “re-branding” has asomewhat commercial resonanceto it. For any organisation connected to the Christian Churchto make the radical decision tore-brand itself sounds misguided, cynical or just desperate.Many of us involved centrallywith the work of the Irish Council of Churches and the IrishInter-Church Meeting may haveindeed felt this way as we weregently encouraged to think ofre-branding ourselves.A great deal of work and timewent into the enterprise of rebranding the ICC and the IICM– or, in some respects, of beingre-branded - but those of us whowere involved in the decisionmaking around the exercise havehad no doubts but that we haveenlarged our vision and ourperceptions of what we are, andwhat we might become. This wasnot, we discovered as we wentPage 04along, an exercise in improvingpublic relations policies, or indeveloping a glossier public image. Instead we were led to graspfully that what we are about- what we are called to do byChrist - should take precedencein our minds as in the publicmind, over whatever the titlesof our organisations might happen to be; hence “Churches inIreland - Connecting in Christ”takes priority over the details ofthe organisational titles. Whenwe are confident in what weare doing, the labelling of theinstitutions takes a deserved secondary place. Without makingtiresome, costly or complicatedconstitutional changes to our twogroupings - ICC and IICM - wewere able to see with new eyesthat there is in fact a far moreimportant task with which wehave all been entrusted. We areto connect with one another in”Christ, and so serve with others in the great commission ofconnecting this island of Irelandwith the glorious hope held outto us all by God in Christ.On behalf of the Executive Committee and the entire Council ofChurches, I would like to thankMervyn McCullagh, Karen Kelly,Philip McKinley and AdrianCristea for their commitment,energy and sheer panache infurthering and, it must be said,accelerating the work of the IrishCouncil of Churches. They bringencouragement to us all, andthey richly deserve our encouragement and our gratitude.As I prepare to leave office asPresident of the Irish Councilof Churches I now thank all mycolleagues and friends of theIrish Council of Churches fortheir support, guidance, inspiration and - most of all – for theirtolerance and forbearance. Iwish for my successor-designate,Fr Godfrey O’Donnell of theRomanian Orthodox Church,every blessing as he begins histasks as President of the ICC. Ialso hope that he will enjoy it all,and to the amazing degree thatI have been fortunate enough toexperience.In my own life and ministry Ifind myself reflecting constantlyon the title of that remarkable painting of Paul Gauguin,“Where have we come from?What are we? Where are we going?”. Yes, at one level it appearsfull of existentialist anguish. Butat a gentler and simpler levelit invites each of us to re-focusconstantly on what we are reallydoing with our lives on earth,and on whether we perhaps needat this moment in our life tore-vision, to re-focus, or even tore-brand. 05
Irish Council of ChurchesHonoraryTreasurer— ReportYear 2011WriterRobert CochranStaffFirstly, I wish to pay tribute tothe enormous amount of workput in by Karen Kelly throughout the year in the day-to-daymanagement of the financialfunction, along with MervynMcCullagh’s oversight. Thishas allowed the many changes,touched on below, to be handledefficiently and effectively, ensuring that we have ended the yearin a very good position, bothorganisationally and financially.Financial StructuresThe 2011 year was the first fullyear in which we operated astraightforward set of accountsin accordance with the new morestreamlined layout, and takingaccount of the way in which theauditors would wish to see thedata presented. This process hasnow bedded down, and it willbe somewhat simpler to keep itgoing in that way, rather thanhaving to be concerned withmanaging changing scenarios.As can be seen from the accounts, we now have a cleardemarcation between the incomeand expenditure which is specificto ICC (and IICC) and the costsof running the Inter-ChurchCentre and of the core staff. Thislatter cost for the Inter-ChurchCentre is then of course charged50/50 to each of the two ecumenical entities involved. Ourspecial projects – the Dublinoffice and the two staff employedthere – are also shown separately.It is still expected that we willneed to be registered in duecourse in accordance with thenew Charities legislation, bothin NI and in RoI. These newPage 06In the past 8 days over 90 millionpeople have watched a campaignfilm called Kony2012 on eitherYouTube or Vimeo. The campaign aims to set a precedent forinternational justice by raisingsupport for the arrest of JosephKony who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for warcrimes. While the campaign hasits critics one cannot deny theirefficacy in getting the messageout. The video is 30 minutes longdefying traditional precedentsthat viral videos must be lessthan 2 minutes. But should international policy be determined bya viral video?pieces of legislation are howeverstill not fully in force in eitherjurisdiction.Financial SituationAs can be seen from the accounts, considerable progresswas made during the year inreducing the operational deficit.We ended the year incurringa deficit of about half of thebudgeted deficit, (which wasitself a reduction from the prioryear), which is very welcome,even if we still have a way to goto achieve our goal of breaking even. We are therefore stilleating into our reserves, albeit ata slower rate. We would preferto be able to use these reservesfor extra relevant ecumenicalactivities but at present this isstill not feasible to any significantextent. The proposed increasesin subscriptions from MemberChurches will help in this process of moving to a break-evensituation, and in addition, weremain hopeful of welcomingnew, compatible, tenants into thebuilding before too long.The Dublin office, and the twostaff employed there (PhilipMcKinley – Ecumenical Officer,and Adrian Cristea – IntegrationOfficer), are funded by meansof special arrangements. In thecase of the Ecumenical Officer,this is through a special fundingarrangement set up between theIEC and ICC, while in the caseof the Integration officer this isbeing funded by external projectfunding. Both of these arrangements finish during 2012, so weare seeking to devise appropriate means to continue the veryvaluable work done by them intothe future.ExecutiveOfficer—ReportWRITERMervyn McCullaghUsing social networking to affect foreign policy would haveseemed absurd 18 months ago.Facebook was a place to sharephotos of weddings, holidaysand favorite cafes. That was ofcourse until the 18th December2010 when protests began inTunisia and the political map inNorth Africa was dramaticallyreshaped. Like it or not socialmedia is a very present technology which has the ability todramatically create change.When Fintan O’Toole, assistant editor for the Irish Times,addressed our Annual meetinglast year, some of our memberswere keen to learn how to raisethe profile of religious affairs inthe newspapers. But as Fintanpointed out, newspapers areundergoing many of the samedifficulties as churches.As institutions which hold to theauthority of truth we are challenged by declining subscriptions, reduction in revenue anda fragmented public squarewhere truth is dispersed thoughthe blogosphere and not locatedin one central editorial office.Though difficult, Fintan arguedANNUAL REPORT 2011that churches nevertheless have amoral obligation to engage courageously in this public squarebringing humility, love andspirituality to the debate.The challenge for ICC in developing and providing a voice forIreland’s churches to connectthrough a common belief inChrist is whether to seek onevoice or many. Intuitively wehave sought to speak with onevoice but the lesson of socialmedia is perhaps to unleash allof our members to fill socialmedia spaces with a multitude ofvoices. There are strategic decisions about the digital churchand postmodern unity that we allneed to consider many of whicharose during our rebrandingprocess.When we began the process ofrebranding ICC we thought theprocess would be complicated aswe believed that we were complicated. In fact it turned out to bedelightfully simple. We quicklyrealized that we all shared aninescapable attraction to Christand a desire to connect bothinwardly with each other andoutwardly to the public square.We are Churches of differentsizes with different priorities andemphasis but we all share a unitythat comes not from being thesame, but instead comes throughconnecting in Christ. We nowhave a brand that reflects thissimplicity, that we are very proudof and that has, as an unexpectedby-product, put many of ourstructural questions in perspective. I would like to offer mythanks to all the members of theJoint Management Committeeand the Executive for all theirwork in this process.The variety of activity that isexpressed in this report is indica- 07
Irish Council of Churches01We have worked hard financiallyto arrest the decline in reservesthat has been taking place since2004. This year we halved ourpredicted deficit and we hopeto bring significant reductionsagain next year. This we havedone whilst at the same timeimproving the quality and profileof our activities. We have revisedour membership subscriptionsto bring clarity to them and toassist us in calculating subscriptions for new members.020304Page 08tive of the energy and enthusiasm and quality of relationshipsthat are in ICC at present. We areconstantly trying to balance ourwillingness to engage with ourcapacity to deliver.We have spent time consolidating our activities and bringingfocus to priority areas. We havewound up the Churches PeaceEducation Project and ECLOFIreland (Ecumenical ChurchLoan Fund) and AICCMR hasdecided that it too has reached aconclusion. At the same time wehave launched the Dublin CityInterfaith Forum for integration with Dublin City Council,worked hard to connect withthe many new and migrant-ledchurches on the island and wehope that 2012 may finally seethe start of the Inter ChurchPeace Project.The Church is Society Forumis undertaking important workin church policy on EthicalInvestment, the Theology Forumafter running an extraordinarilysuccessful Inter Church Meetingis reflecting on how to appropriately remember the past and theBoard of Overseas Affairs is trying to keep abreast of changes inthe Middle East. Women’s Linktoo are seeking new ways to raisethe profile of women’s ecumenical engagement.It has been a privilege to attenda range of church conferencesand to be invited to contributeon a whole host of discussionsacross our member churches.Seeing first hand the realities ofour Christian life and witness ishumbling.A tangible manifestation ofthe church being literally inthe public square was when Iattended the Kirchentag in Dresden where over 300,000 peoplegathered throughout the city,in every available public spaceto worship and discuss issuesfacing the church. Such an eventhighlights the possibilities thatare being presented by this summer’s International EucharisticCongress which is being hostedby the Archdiocese of Dublin. Itwill be the first large festival offaith in Ireland for many yearsand comes at an important timein the life of the Catholic Churchin Ireland.We are dealing with a changing church. Traditional churchbuildings can be used as gatelodges to apartment blocksand high end cafes, industrialestates are in demand by newand migrant-led churches forworship spaces and theologicalcolleges. Together we need to seethese changes and adapt accordingly while staying true to ourcore values.As I present this report, after avery successful year in the life ofthe ICC, can I thank the Executive for their support in everyaspect of the organisation. Can Iparticularly thank our outgoingpresident Most Rev Dr RichardClarke for his inspirational leadership. He has been a constantsource of encouragement andback-up while critically appraising us each step of the way. I amblessed with an excellent staffteam, the work of each is clearlyseen in their reports and in thequality of the events that we asa team have run. We are excitedto welcome Rev Fr GodfreyO’Donnell as our first Orthodox President at a strategicallyimportant time, as we draw evercloser links to the many Orthodox churches in Ireland.Our prayer is that our work inthe Council would assist bringing about a higher profile for thework of the Churches in Irelandas we connect together and seeka voice to engage through allavailable media, for the glory ofGod and the extension of Christ’sKingdom.01020304050607CaptionsFintan O’Toole at the 88thAnnual Meeting of theCouncilICC Staff, Adrian Cristea,Philip McKinley, Karen Kellyand Mervyn McCullagh at atraining day in CarlingfordRev Tony Davidson,Bishop Richard Clarke,Fintan O’Toole and MervynMcCullaghAn Industrial Estate inDublinApartment block anddisused church in southDublin.The Interchurch CentreCommunion service duringKirchentag, DresdenANNUAL REPORT 2011050607 09
Irish Council of ChurchesANNUAL REPORT 201101“Ecumenism works best not at the theoreticallevel, but rooted in real life places and momentsEcumenicalOfficer— ProjectPrefacePhilip McKinley is workingpart-time for the Irish Councilof Churches (ICC) and the IrishInter Church Committee (IICC)to strengthen local ecumenismin Ireland. He is based in ourDublin office.WriterPhilip McKinleyMy grandfather served 56 yearsof ordained ministry in Co. Tipperary.in the days before Irishecumenism!Despite this, upon his electionas a Canon of Cashel Cathedral,the first note of congratulationshe received was from the localCatholic priest in Templemore,himself already a Canon, butliving at the opposite end oftown to his Church of Irelandcounterpart.The note simply read,‘Congratulations, now with twopieces of ecclesiastical artillerymounted at either end of thetown, no doubt all advances of hisSatanic majesty will be successfully beaten off ’.This remarkable one line card,written well before the SecondVatican Council or the IrishInter-Church Meeting, highlightsthree timeless and fundamentalelements of ecumenism: Relationship, Context and Cause.Page 10The quality of the relationship between the two men isexemplified in both the offeringof sincere congratulations andsupport, but also in the ability tocrack a joke and laugh together.It also shows that ecumenismworks best not at the theoretical level, but rooted in real lifeplaces and moments.And finally it embodies the factthat ecumenism works bestwhen focussed on a commoncause (even if that cause may bea common enemy, in this case,‘his Satanic majesty’).It is with these three strands,that the role of EcumenicalOfficer has initiated, developedand supported a wide range ofecumenical activities, across thefour provinces of Ireland, engaging with a broad range of IrishChristian denominations.This past year, two significantprojects have been formed;Blanchardstown ChurchesTogether and a Young AdultEcumenical Forum.The context of Blanchardstownin West Dublin is fascinating. Itis very much a Celtic Tiger suburb, with its population growingto 100,000 during the years ofthe economic boom, 21% ofwhom are foreign national.An ecumenical church leader’ssteering group was formed in2010 to identify the number ofChristian churches now worshipping in this new area. Theyidentified 46 churches, covering the full spectrum of WorldChristianity, many of whom weremigrant-led and were worshipping in some of Blanchardstown’snumerous industrial estates.Fingal County Council thereforeprovided the group with funding to explore how Christianchurches could promote dialogue, interaction and understanding between immigrantsand the wider community. Thegroup held a leaders’ meeting inOctober 2011 and a very successful conference entitled ‘Churches”Creating Cohesive Communities’in February 2012.At the conference, the groupfacilitator Fr Alan Hilliard madereference to a common causethat could unite and mobilisethe varying Christian churchesof the area. ‘It is unusual thatthe efforts of churches are notreferred to in local action planssuch as the Blanchardstown AreaPartnership Strategic Plan’.Fr Alan attributed the exclusionof local Christian churches fromlocal processes such as planningand community development, bysaying that ‘one of the results ofthe decline of religious practicein the secular west is a notableshortfall in literacy surroundingthe understanding of mattersreligious’.The decline of religious practice,felt most strongly in youngergenerations, proved a commoncause that motivated the creationof a Young Adult EcumenicalForum.In partnership with the IrishPeace Centres (Corrymeela,Glencree Centre for Reconciliation and Co-operationIreland) and the Roman CatholicArchbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, the EcumenicalOfficer project organised twodialogue events with youngadult representatives from theCatholic Church, Irish Councilof Churches member denominations, non-member Churchesand church-based young adultorganisations, to discuss thefuture of faith in Ireland.With the first event taking placeover a meal in Archbishop Martin’s residence in Dublin and thesecond event being a residential conference in CorrymeelaCentre, in Co. Antrim, the groupdiscussed what faith voices canoffer to the key issues of ourday and how young leadership isor is not facilitated within eachChurch’s structure. 11
Irish Council of Churches02ANNUAL REPORT 2011structures for dialogue in placethat ensure the successful integration of all. Dublin City Council was conscious of this needand asked us to help facilitate aresponse. We secured fundingfrom the European IntegrationFund and additional co-fundingfrom Dublin City Council inorder to realise this vision to seewhat inter-religious dialogue canbring to the integration agenda.This project is an exciting interface between faith communitiesand civic authorities.040305The Ecumenical Officer projecthas therefore addressed areas ofweakness in contemporary Irishecumenism, by encouragingwork in demographically andgeographically weak areas.There have been regional visitsto counties such as Donegal,Galway, Sligo, Clare and Derry,which are areas out
to welcome Rev Fr Godfrey O’Donnell as our first Ortho-dox President at a strategically important time, as we draw ever closer links to the many Ortho-dox churches in Ireland. Our prayer is that our work in the Council would assist bring-ing about a higher profile for the work of the Churches in Ireland as we connect together and seek
Churches – First Methodist Church, 1886 3 46 Churches – First Parish Congregational Church, 1778-1852 3 47 Churches – First Parish of Bradford, 1765-1849 3 48 Churches – First Parish Society, 1761-1895 3 49 Churches – First Parish Sunday School, 1787-1891 3 50 Churches – First Presbyterian Church, undated 4 51 Churches – First .
6 Ethiopian Churches: The Ethiopian orthodox churches propose different shapes for churches. Since the 16th century ca., in Ethiopia, we can find round churches and rectangular churches. The round-shaped churches represent the more common form. This is a circular church. Inside, two concentric aisles encircle the central square sanctuary, the central part of the
Churches” [964], through the “Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches” [99] and the “Instruction for Applying the Liturgical Prescriptions of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches” [996] the Byzantine Catholic Churches have been called upon to return to its proper traditions lit
believed that Jesus and His Word should be all that is necessary to carry out His mission for the church. These churches sought to restore Christianity to New Testament practices and reject modern denominationalism. The churches, now called Christian Churches or Churches of
The Burke Library Archives, Columbia University Libraries, Union Theological Seminary, New York William Adams Brown Ecumenical Archives Group Finding Aid for National Council of Churches Records, 1948 – 1973 Source: National Council of the Churches Website, .
outdoor drama brings light to a community. presented free to all The sound of Christmas will fill the air on two December nights in the village nativity, near Dandridge, Tennessee. Each year, community churches of Sandy Ridge work together to present an outdoor drama about Christ’s birth. On the grounds of Hills Union UMC, sister churches
Great Commission Research Journal, 12(1), 1-17. Hussey, I. (2016). The big news on small churches: Re-evaluating the contribution of small churches to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Great Commission Research Journal, 7(2), 172-183. Moon, J. (2020). Alternative models for churches
Advanced Engineering Mathematics 1. First-order ODEs 25 Problems of Section 1.3. The differential equation becomes Advanced Engineering Mathematics 1. First-order ODEs 26 1.4 Exact differential equations Now we want to consider a DE as That is, M(x,y)dx N(x,y)dy 0. The solving principle can be
