Ireland has a rich history of faith, which made it all the more surprising to find our church community in a mall cinema.
We stumbled into City Church Dublin with little planning, but it has become one of the defining parts of our life in Dublin. We are not generally the kind to do much in the way of advanced planning or background research. Our move to Ireland, like our typical method of travel, involved minimal arrangements to get established in the city and an open mind to see what happened next. Our search for a church community was similar: after a few Google searches, we chose City Church Dublin because it ranked near the top and was close to our temporary accommodation.
After arriving in Ireland on a Friday, we showed up Sunday to our first service at City Church Dublin, held in a cinema theatre on the top floor of a mall in Dublin’s docklands. Despite the unusual setting, we found a welcoming, Christ-loving, Bible-teaching community that we have made our own over the past two years. With so much of our Irish life shaped by this church, this post is a way of reflecting on that experience.
Getting Involved
In our first few weeks we joined a community group, and I signed up for the membership class and the hospitality service team. The leaders took us out to lunch with a group of other new congregants joining that autumn and invited us to join a Parkrun group on the weekend.
The church is quite young, both in its history and its congregation. It was founded about ten years ago and was originally attended largely by students; as those members have grown older and others have joined, the church now has a mix of young professionals and new families. This year I joined the City Church leadership cohort, a year-long programme in Christian leadership, doctrine, and living, which has been a great chance to grow in faith and build deeper relationships within the church.
Retreats and Festivals
On a few occasions I have been able to spend extended time with the church community. Each year the church holds an annual retreat, renting out a large manor house for a weekend and bringing in an external speaker. We learn, sing, and pray together, and we also eat, play games, and spend time getting to know one another; the weekend I attended last year was an amazing opportunity to build community, make friends, and grow together.
For the past two years I have also attended Kinfire, one of the few Christian festivals in the Republic of Ireland. The festival takes over a college in Kilkenny town, drawing around 1,000 people from Ireland and abroad for workshops, community, and teaching, and I volunteered on the youth team as I did for many years at my home church in Oregon.
Building Community
Religion, particularly outside of the Catholic church, has not been common in Ireland for a few decades. Our church is primarily composed of expatriates from around the world (England, Africa, South America, and the United States like us) alongside a smaller number from the Republic and the North, where church has not faded as much. Being a church of immigrants brings challenges, from the transience of study programmes and work rotations to the work of integrating different cultures, but we have come to love the diversity of the church and to accept its transient nature, just as others will one day accept our own departure.
City Church is clear that church is more than a Sunday service with music, teaching, and prayer. It is also the community that forms in small groups, member meetings, and midweek prayer and worship nights. Often it is even more about the unstructured moments: lunch after church, a pub quiz on a social night, or playing ultimate frisbee in the pouring rain.
Looking Ahead
Joining City Church, getting involved, and building community has been one of the highlights of our time in Dublin. The church has been incredibly welcoming and nurturing and has offered an encouraging example of a strong community of faith.
When we eventually take our leave, as many before us have, it will be very hard to say goodbye to this community. We will leave deeply grateful for the time we have had together.