Church Planting in Belfast
David Varney writes about church planting work in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It’s great to see Union’s missional ecosystem being a source of support here.
If someone told me 20 years ago that I would step aside from a career in surgery to become a church planter in Belfast, I’d have probably laughed it off. I’ve since learned to expect the unexpected when it comes to taking God at his word and simply following him wherever he takes me.
My wife and I met at medical school in Aberdeen and moved to Northern Ireland in 2007. I started training in paediatric surgery whilst Marion trained in general practice. We served in a new church plant and saw it flourish. After four years of training I decided to take a career break to study the new Cornhill course in Belfast. During the year of learning how to read and teach the Bible, I experienced a fundamental shift in my understanding of the need for God’s Word and the centrality of the gospel in the local church. More profoundly, the Word had a transformative effect in my own heart and mind.
Armed with this new passion, I knew hospital medicine was not where I could be most useful to God. I enjoyed my work and training in the medical world, but came to the conviction that even the most sophisticated medical treatments in the world are insufficient to deal with the most pressing need for all humankind – the need for a restored relationship with God through faith in Christ.
Through reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones around this time (especially the wonderful two-volume biography by Iain H. Murray) I found someone who had trod the same path before me. Lloyd-Jones’s example played a huge part in my decision to leave surgical training and pursue gospel ministry in the local church. (After the recent Reformation Fellowship conference at Union, I was privileged to visit the Sandfields church in Aberavon where Lloyd-Jones began his ministry!)
So in 2010 I took the decision to step aside from a career in surgery in order to follow the call of God to plant and pastor churches. After serving in several senior leadership roles, I planted Foundation Church Belfast in 2017. Over these years I have been working in a bivocational capacity – serving the church alongside working a weekly 24-hour shift in the hospital. Bivocational ministry has been incredibly challenging, and I’ve learn much about the pros and cons (that’s for another blog post), but undoubtedly God has enabled me to establish and serve the church, whilst being on mission for him in the workplace.
Context
Belfast is a brilliant city to live in. I love welcoming visitors and showing them all that the city has to offer – the culture and the craic – great music, stunning scenery, and packed with history. Even as a ‘blow in’ (that’s what the locals call people like me, being English) I am proud to call Belfast my home. But it hasn’t always been this way.
Many people point to ‘religion’ as one of the chief causes of the Troubles. This was the period of sectarian violence across Northern Ireland (and beyond), beginning in the 1960s and claiming over 3,500 lives. Whilst the cause of the Troubles is complex, it was often viewed as a struggle between Protestants and Roman Catholics. As a result, many people are disillusioned with religion in Northern Ireland, and others hope for a functionally secular society without the thorny issues of religious divisions.
However, what is being rejected is a harsh, sectarian form of religion, which prioritises our differences and our politics above the saving work of Christ in the gospel. It is alien to what James understands as the true religion – that which results in humility, servant-hearted love, and living counter-cultural lives (James 1:26-27). People in Northern Ireland are not rejecting true religion, only the false, heartless and proud form they have seen play out in our divisive society among previous generations.
Vision
Our vision at Foundation Church is to catalyse the gospel transformation of our city and nation through resourcing, renewal and replication.
Right now, an urgent need exists in our city for healthy, gospel-centred churches in working class communities. These areas are often overlooked and under-reached by traditional evangelical missions. At Foundation, we have recently moved from a middle class setting to a permanent building in an inner city working class estate called Clarawood. As we work towards our launch Sunday early September 2023, we’re eager to establish a worshipping, missional, Christ-centred community where none currently exists.
Right now, an urgent need exists in our city for healthy, gospel-centred churches in working class communities.
There are many such estates across the city that are in the grip of a gospel famine, especially in nationalist, republican, and Catholic-majority areas [1]. With church attendance in decline, church buildings will become increasingly vacant. As sad as this is, we are hungry for a fresh movement of the Holy Spirit into this context. We have long been praying at Foundation Church: Give us empty buildings and we’ll fill them with people. By God’s grace we shall be used to bring gospel renewal in a dry land, by seeing dead and dying churches come alive across the city.
We have long been praying at Foundation Church: Give us empty buildings and we’ll fill them with people.
Furthermore, we believe that a strong Church in the North must be good news for the South [2]. For various historical, religious and political reasons, the Republic of Ireland has never experienced the same historic level of gospel impact as the North. The Republic is infamously regarded as the least evangelised English-speaking nation in the world .
At Foundation Church we are also establishing links with like-minded churches across Ireland so we can link arms to plant and strengthen churches together. This includes launching the brand new Union MTh learning community starting September 2023 hosted by Foundation Church Belfast. This will support the growth of many gospel-centred leaders who can be sent out on mission across the island of Ireland.
Our vision as a partnership is to plant 32 churches across Ireland in the next 30 years. Why 32? This is the number of counties in Ireland. We are believing for one church in each county. With God, all things are possible.
Teacht Spiorad Naomh! Come Holy Spirit!
We are believing for one church in each county. With God, all things are possible.
Please give to Union Mission to enable us to walk alongside more church planters like David.
[1] Nationalism, Republicanism and Catholicism are all distinct concepts but there is notable overlap.
[2] For readers from a non-UK or Irish background: Northern Ireland (‘the North’) is part of the United Kingdom and is known as ‘Ulster’ or ‘the North of Ireland’ (depending on who you ask). The Republic of Ireland is a separate country (‘the South’) and yet North and South are separated by an invisible border.