Sligo Centre of Mission
Sligo, County Sligo
The Sligo Centre of Mission is a partnership between Church Army and the Diocese of Kilmore, Elhpin and Ardagh. In 2021, Drumcliffe Centre of Mission was relaunched as Sligo Centre of Mission, reflecting a change of direction to better represent the vision of the project and the area which it serves on the west coast of Ireland.
A significant part of the work is Recentre Community Church, a fresh expression of church. Evangelists Hannah O’Neill and Andrew Williamson are working together to create a welcoming worshipping community for the local area. With 67 different languages being spoken in the area, sometimes making connections can be a challenge and Hannah and Andrew hope to be able to bridge the gap.
Social deprivation and exclusion are constant barriers for people in the area as numbers of single parents, unemployed people and older people have increased which makes the work of the Centre of Mission even more important.
meet Alan
Our church meets in a shop front on a terraced street in an area which struggles with a lot of social deprivation. It’s a vibrant local community. If we were in Northern Ireland, we could get a grant for being an interface area (former area of violence during the troubles).
Drug dealers live close to our premises and their kids are often on the streets. They kind of tortured us at the beginning, but as we exercised kindness, we’ve started to build good relationships – some of the kids even come to our things now.
We’re quite small and we take time to make our gatherings as welcoming as they can be. We have some Ukrainian refugees attend our church. At first, we translated everything into Ukrainian but slowly realised that though they spoke Ukrainian, they mainly read Russian, and so we changed our slides into Russian and moved our own translation into the New Living Translation because there’s an NLT in Russian and we wanted everyone to be reading the same.
One of our ladies came to us through finding us on Facebook. She struggles a lot with her mental health and is heavily medicated. At first, she couldn’t even speak to us. But happily, as time has gone on, she has been able to chat and join us for tea. Recently, she even offered to do our reading, which she performed with gusto! It’s now become a thing that she reads our bible passage, because it is obvious how much she enjoys doing so, and how it brings her alive.
WE KNOW THIS COMMUNITY IS BRINGING HER OUT OF HER SHELL AND HELPING HER RE-DISCOVER HERSELF AND WHAT SHE CAN DO.
Alan Williamson, Sligo Centre of Mission
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Type of Work
Church Planting /
Fresh Expressions
Building Community
Poverty alleviation
Recreation activities
Youth/Kids
Family work
Bible Study
Evangelists & Leaders
Alan Williamson
Hannah O’Neill
Partnerships
Diocese of Kilmore Elphin and Ardagh
The united dioceses of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh include parts of three Irish provinces: Ulster, Connacht and Leinster. The diocese of Kilmore covers most of County Cavan, north County Leitrim and small areas of the neighbouring counties of Fermanagh, Longford and Donegal. Elphin covers most of County Roscommon, north County Sligo and a small part of east Galway. Ardagh encompasses most of County Longford, the southern part of County Leitrim and a small area of County Westmeath.
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