I arrived in Dublin around 9:00 Wednesday morning, following an uneventful, though two hours late, flight from Greensboro via Newark. The Clerk of the Session of Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church met me, and he and another man, Stuart Ferguson (the Treasurer-Guardian of the church) treated me to my first Irish Breakfast. After sitting on a plane for so many hours I can’t say I was hungry, but the fried eggs, sausage, bacon, fried tomato, beans, toast and jam tasted good and the company was gracious and informative.
After breakfast I was taken around the corner from the restaurant to the church itself, then escorted up three flights of stairs to The Attic, one of four apartments in the church and what will be Nancy and my home for the next two months. The apartment is wonderfully light and airy, with a fully equipped kitchen, a living area, a bedroom and a bath. The Youth Worker of the church and his family (wife and twins), who had been living in the apartment, had vacated it on Monday and moved out to the larger empty manse, and in the short span between their move and my arrival the apartment had been completely painted, cleaned and the kitchen stocked with new dishes, pots and pans, cutlery, etc. The apartment has an internet connection, and two days ago Stuart rolled a television and satellite connector in—what more could you ask for!


Wednesday night, after dinner at the Clerk of Session’s home, I went to the mid-week prayer meeting where I was introduced to about ten members of the church for the first time. I also toured the church building and saw not only the worship center but the crèche (child-care area) where a full-time day care program operates and the area where the DoleBusters, a government sponsored program to help people become emotionally and financially independent, operates. Both of these programs are seen as outreach ministries of the church.


Saturday morning Nancy arrived and joined me in the apartment—so our Dublin life has begun. Sunday morning at 11:00 I led the first of nine worship services I will be leading, with a focus on the book of Philippians. Then Wednesday evening I began a mid-week series on the Parables of Jesus, a series that will also go on for two months.
Dublin is a very cosmopolitan city, and the church and apartment are in the center of it all. Just two blocks away from St. Stephen’s Green, the central park of the city, and just a few blocks farther along from the Liffey River, the church has defined its mission as ministering to the city and committed to that definition by a radical renovation of the entire facility. The pastor who completed that renovation left the church for a call in Belfast just last month, and in the Irish Presbyterian Church the call of a new pastor will take nine months to a year. I am here for the summer, taking his place, as part of that transitional period.
In the months ahead I will try to communicate some of the impressions I get of Ireland and some of the experiences Nancy and I are having. I will also try to reflect on the ministry of this church and the church of Christ in this part of the world. For today, however, I will just give this introduction plus post a couple pictures of this, now our, part of the world…


The first two photos above are photos of St. Stephen’s Green, the central park of Dublin. Given as a gift to the city by the Guiness family in the 1850’s…

The next ones are of a typical Dublin day on Grafton, the walking street on the south side of the Liffey…Note the umbrellas...