About Glúnta
Planting The Gospel Across Ireland
Glúnta is a ministry endeavour that seeks to catalyse, support and resource churches across Ireland to see healthy and sustainable Gospel presence. 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.
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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.
What Do We Seek To Do?
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Encourage the raising, training, and support of leaders by providing training, resources and support. As well as this, we want to connect churches and leaders to others who can catalyse their work in their context.
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Coordinate a collective of church leaders who can provide peer-to-peer support in our journeys of ministry in an Irish context, to think practically about ministry in Ireland.
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Produce materials that are contextualised to Ireland, but also building an expertise in sustainable churches, church planting, and local leadership development across Ireland that can benefit other church planting globally.
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Develop church connections to support and resource the work of ministry in Ireland, ultimately leading towards self-sustainability.
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Through research, identify unreached areas within Ireland where no current Gospel preaching churches exist, and with other like-minded organisations, think strategically in how to reach these for Christ.
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 these unreached areas, develop connections for supporting leaders, and develop generational leaders, who will in turn plant new churches.