Ireland transformed: Peace, prosperity & the gospel's quiet advance

This month, I had the privilege of being invited to Southern Ireland to speak. It had been over a decade since I last visited the area, and I could not believe how much it had changed.

I met with a number of Baptist ministers seeking to plant churches in working-class estates around Cork, and I was asked to advise them accordingly. I was so encouraged by what I saw.

Ireland has gone through a huge transformation in recent years. Peace has brought prosperity. If you are a business seeking to trade in the EU through a native English-speaking country, post-Brexit, Ireland is your best option. House prices have boomed. They are building everywhere. Everything is so clean and beautiful and new.

Cork has become a technology hub with Apple’s European headquarters famously based there, among other software giants, as well as the main distillery for Jameson's Whiskey. There is high employment, and the jobs are innovative and well paid. Such prosperity has created a strange dynamic within the churches that I met with. They welcomed tough working-class men who used to be in the IRA alongside hipster computer programmers and senior executives. It was wonderful to see how the gospel can unite old and new Ireland.

The challenge is great and fascinating. Dominated by 1500 years of Roman Catholicism, entire regions of Cork, filled with tens of thousands of souls, have never heard the gospel before. There is no legacy of evangelical faith, no hymns of revival, no tradition to leverage. The many scandals and abuses of the Roman Catholic Church have given justification to the abandonment of religion altogether. Within a generation, the people have become secular and bitter towards God.

For this reason, any endeavour to reach out to the community is often met with hostility. Any attempt to distance yourself from Roman Catholicism as a “Protestant" denomination stigmatises you to the violence of the past. It is hard ground to work on, yet the church is on fire, committed and resilient and knowing growth. Economic migrants have come with their faith and supported the local church in community outreach programs, helping the poor and those with vice. They are seeing many conversions and are planting more churches.

I attended a prayer meeting and met with approximately 20 Baptist ministers. One had been serving Cork for 60 years, through The Troubles, and had witnessed the cultural changes in his mission field. To hear him pray for the lost was a special moment.

The evangelical witness in Ireland is in a minority but strong and growing. A new generation is rising up. Be encouraged.