Donna Jennings has stepped down as the Church and Mission Co-ordinator for the Evangelical Alliance in Northern Ireland. She is leaving to pursue a PHD with the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies.
In her role, Donna sought to equip the church in Northern Ireland to be strategic, creative and bold as they proclaimed the gospel. She served faithfully for four years as the world experienced the challenges of the pandemic, several global humanitarian refugee crises, and the cost-of-living crisis. She wrote several mission resources for the church during this time, including Walk, Pray, Talk a resource to encourage small groups and prayer walks. One church leader who used this said that it had catalysed their church into missional concern for the local area.
‘It has been such a privilege to walk alongside the wider church, praying, teaching, training, lamenting, imagining, responding in faith and faithfulness as God’s people in crazy times,’ Donna reflected.
While with the EA NI, she had a particular emphasis on helping the church remain both relevant and Biblically faithful, something which was impressed on her during her Masters in Missiology, and several years of church planting work in Bangladesh. It is this that she will continue to explore in her PHD.
She shares, ‘I believe robust theology and the church's missional practice work best when they come together to ask serious questions, and dig deep for meaningful answers. I have a research project that seeks to support the local congregation's faithful witness within our western context and the cultural quest for “equality, diversity, inclusion”. My research project will work alongside evangelical churches exploring the authority of Scripture and marginalised lived experience. All prayer appreciated!’
