Behind the Scenes of a Resident Pioneer Church Planter

Simon and Abigail Donohoe (Crosslinks Mission Partners), along with their 5 children, moved to Dublin in June this year to ‘incubate’ in Immanuel Church Dublin and train in ICM while they put their plans for starting a new church in Cherrywood (south Dublin) into action. Here, we interview Simon about his plans for a new church community.

Tell us about the reason you are seeking to start a new work in Cherrywood?

Simply put, because here in Cherrywood there are thousands of people living without an established gospel witness in the area in which they live. Cherrywood is a new residential development in the suburbs of South Dublin, the largest in the history of the Irish state. Soon, it will be home to about 30,000 people (that’s a population larger than most towns in Ireland).

The area has been designated by the government as a “Strategic Development Zone”, and will include a new town centre, three village centres, six schools, and lots of housing. However, there is currently no established Christian church of any denomination in Cherrywood. Already, the area is home to thousands of people from a diverse mix of cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. Most residents have little family or friendship connections locally and are hungry for community, but have little or no experience of what it is like to be part of Christ’s new community, the church.

Whilst, the developers and local government have been eager to build a new community in which residents have everything they need accessible locally, they have not considered the deep spiritual needs of men and women made in God’s image. This means that there are thousands of people facing an eternity without Christ, and little opportunity to hear of Him in the area in which they live. Our desire is to meet this desperate spiritual need through planting, establishing and growing a healthy local Anglican Church in the heart of this new, diverse and fast-growing community. It is our prayer that the Lord would establish here a local church committed to the Great Commission: to making and growing disciples of Christ, and training them to be disciple-makers.

ICM is seeking to catalyse your plans for starting this new work. In what way has ICM and its family of churches been a help?

ICM has been huge encouragement and support to us right from when we first started thinking and praying through plans for Cherrywood a couple of years ago. David Martin and others have walked with us through the process and given us much needed wisdom, and support from the start.

ICM has given our family a home. When we moved to Cherrywood in June, Immanuel Church become our new church family. As a family, we have been truly blessed to be part of Immanuel. Moving to an area like Cherrywood to work towards a church plant from scratch can feel overwhelming and potentially isolating, so it is an invaluable encouragement in the Lord to be part of a loving church family who keep us as a family looking to Jesus.

ICM has also given the embryonic church plant a mother and some midwives! I’ve been licensed to Immanuel as ‘Pioneer Minister’, and shall serve as one of the ministry team in Immanuel until the new church launches. This means that Immanuel shall be the mother church for the new church plant in Cherrywood, through this current embryonic stage through its gestation and after it comes to the day of its birth on the Sunday we have our first gathering as a new church. None of us would dream of sending our newborn baby out into the world to fend for itself, it needs the care and nurture of its mother. So it is with a newborn church plant. So it is wonderful for us and the new church plant to be under the care of a mother church until such a time as the church plant is able to stand on its own two feet.

Alongside this, it has truly been a huge encouragement and support to be able to work alongside others from ICM as we move towards establishing a new church in Cherrywood. The church plant now has a steering group who are working with us as we gather a lunch team and work towards launching. This is a vital encouragement. It is so much healthier to be working in a team towards church planting, and gives us the necessary accountability, support and wise counsel.

What challenges have you encountered so far?

Possibly the first big challenge has been getting here! (No, we didn’t get lost on the M50!) Dublin is one of the most expensive cities in Europe to live, and so the funds needed for us as a family of 7 to simply to get on the ground here in South Dublin were huge. It has been a daunting task! Yet, it has been spiritually good to be faced with something that is beyond our ability or control. It has kept us praying, and the Lord has wonderfully answered those prayers and provided somewhere for us to live right in the heart of Cherrywood.

The next big challenge will be gathering people for the launch team of the new church plant. Since there are no established churches of any kind here, we don’t have the luxury of what many church plants might have: a large church who can send a sizeable group out with them to form the core of a new church. We are muchmore starting from almost nothing. A lot of our focus will be on evangelism. We want the church to grow primarily, not through Christians transferring from other churches, but through people coming to new life in Christ. However, we do need a small core of committed Christians to start with. So far the Lord has begun to gather a small handful to people and we now have a small Bible study meeting in our home. We are praying that the Lord will be gathering a small team of gospel-hearted Christians committed to being part of a launch team for the new church plant here in Cherrywood.

Cherrywood is a highly multicultural area. This beings both opportunities and challenges. Positively, it means that often people can be much more open to talking about spiritual things. However, it does mean that many people have very little knowledge of the Christian faith (if any), and because of the diversity of religious commitments in the community, people are very suspicious of anyone trying to share what they believe in case it upsets the “harmony of the community”. This calls for great wisdom as we seek to engage people with the gospel.

How can we pray for you and your family in this particular stage of your church plant?

Please give thanks for:

• The Lord’s provision that has enabled us to get here

• The opportunities to get to know people in Cherrywood

• The small Bible study that’s started meeting in our house.

Please pray for:

• Every person living in Cherrywood might know at least one Christian who can point them to Christ

• More opportunities to get alongside people in Cherrywood and point them to Christ

• The Bible study group to become established and grow

•Gathering the launch team: for more gospel-hearted Christians to join us.