Forge 2022/2023
18 August 2023
We had a great year with Forge Ireland!
The Pioneering Course saw 8 participants, from different parts of Ireland, complete the 5 session course. We kick off the course in the autumn with the first residential in Ballyards Castle.
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- Starting the course off with a residential
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- Getting to know each other and hearing from a few speakers
Those who take part in the Forge Ireland Pioneering course from varied backgrounds and contexts. This past year, there was a woman working with young adults in Dublin, a team engaging with the surf & skateboarding culture on the north coast, a woman serving in Belfast estate communities, and more! We wrestled with missional questions around what church is like in today’s culture, how we can live more missionally, how we build team and lead other plus how discipleship intersects with mission.
We have a few site visits throughout the course. We visited the team at Ballynafeigh Methodist Church where we enjoyed seeing the garden, eating yummy soup and hearing about their missional initiatives.
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- Visiting Ballynafeigh Methodist Church
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- Enjoying the lovely soup & fellowship
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- David sharing about the garden
We visited Neil at Grace Community Church near Belfast and at the end of our time together, we visited Fair Play Cafe in Dublin where they’re engaging with the local community through a cafe, garden, and training courses.
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- Neil sharing
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- Joe sharing at Fair Play Cafe
And we wrap up the course by coming together again in person for a final residential. We meet in the Lucan Centre to explore leadership and how to build team. Throughout the course, we have practitioners share their expertise, advice, stories, and wisdom.
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- Sean sharing about his leadership lessons
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- Lucy sharing her wisdom about leadership and power
We are delighted to have finished up with such a great group pioneering across Ireland. We pray for their continued journeys and will keep in touch with each one of them. If you’re looking to rub shoulders with others exploring fresh expressions of church or thinking of starting a new iniatitive with your church community, do have a look into the course and join us this coming term. Read more about it at www.forgeireland.com
The people and the down to earth nature of it, the emphasis on context & not one size fits all was most impactful to me during the course.
Forge encouraged me to keep thinking critically & showed me that there is a community thinking about these things alongside me.
Forge massively helped me. It can be quite lonely as a creative / pioneering person especially in traditional church settings and I think it can dampen the pioneering spirit in us. It was so helpful to be around people who are willing to think outside of the traditional / normal bubble.
There are a lot of models, strategies, and examples of mission out there but the best is Jesus' life! We can learn from the ways and rhythms of Jesus to better ourselves for mission...his prayer life, his communion with others, ... [Continue Reading]
