About Glúnta
Planting The Gospel In Rural Irish Towns
Glúnta is a ministry endeavour of Calvary Church Loughrea to catalyse, support and resource rural church planting across Ireland. Ó ghlúin go glúin in Irish means “from one generation to the next.” However, the literal translation is more poetic: “from knee to knee.” Think of a child sitting on a parent’s or a grandparent’s knee, listening to them recount their stories, passing wisdom from one generation to the next. This is how stories are shared, how love and faith are shared.
Our vision as churches should be to see the gospel impact lives and communities from one generation to the next—this is the heart of glúnta.
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What Do We Do?
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Through research, identify 10 key rural Irish towns where no current Gospel preaching churches exist.
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Recruit church planters, youth and children’s workers, administrative staff, to begin to strategically plant churches in these towns.
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Encourage the raising of indigenous leaders by providing training, resources and support.
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Coordinate a collective of rural churches to launch coaching and the sharing of resources, to establish church planting churches, and an infrastructure to establish business as mission.
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Produce materials that are contextualised to Ireland, but also building an expertise in rural church planting across Ireland that can benefit rural church planting globally.
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Develop church partners to support and resource our work, ultimately leading towards self-sustainability.
Why Is It Needed?
Ireland is the least evangelised English speaking country in the world, with less than 0.5% of the population knowing Christ as Saviour. Due to this the church in Ireland, particularly in rural areas, is under resourced and lacks the ability to both reach local rural towns, and plant further churches. In addition, the lack of infrastructure for church planting support means that it is difficult to recruit and resource leaders, in particular indigenous leaders. Around 60% of the evangelical churches in Ireland have been planted in the last 40 years, and many are struggling to transition to the next generation due to a lack of leaders, vision and resources.
It is our vision that glúnta would be able to both identify rural towns, raise support for leaders, and develop generational church planting and leaders.