On Sunday morning, the Christ Connect Youth Group felt far more alert than they did the day before - having had hot showers, hearty meals, and eight plus hours of sleep. We traveled to Raheny via the Luas, bus, and Dart, and were in place for the 11 AM joint worship service with All Saints Church, Raheny, and St. John the Evangelist Church, Coolock. The liturgy consisted of a mix of evangelical free church elements and traditional Anglican ritual. It was an enriching experience for all in attendance. Terry from Christ Connect delivered the 10-minute homily, and we all discovered that we have a potential bank robber in our midst (you'll have to ask him about that!).
After our worship service, we were given a tour of the All Saints building by Seamus, one of the parishioners. The church was built by Arthur Guinness, Baron Ardiloun, the great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the founder of the Guinness Brewery. He and his wife, Olivia are buried in a crypt within the church building, which our teens found to be very strange. Despite our unfamiliarity with having burials within church buildings, we were all greatly impressed with the architecture and beauty of this elegant structure of worship. Our youth group will spend some time doing some refurbishment on the church grounds this Wednesday afternoon.
After our impromptu tour of the facilities, we joined our co-worshipers for some hotdogs and tea and cake. The teens then spent the rest of the afternoon decorating the church hall for our Bible camp and I must say that they did a fantastic job! They created the designs and did 95% of the setup. While they were busy at work, I took a few adults over to the Raheny Inn (one of my old Arsenal viewing pubs) to watch the All Ireland Gaelic Football Final. County Mayo, who had not won the title since 1951 and had supposedly been suffering from a curse delivered by a priest for the past 75 years, upset County Kerry and delivered the trophy to the northwest of the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment