30.03.2015
ICON Community Launched in Dublin – Historic Day for New Church Plant
ICON Community is an invitation and an opportunity placed in our path by God, the Archbishop of Dublin stated at its launch service on Saturday afternoon (March 28). The service, during which the community’s leader, the Revd Eoghan Heaslip, was commissioned by Archbishop Michael Jackson, took place in the Methodist Centenary Church, Leeson Park, where members of the community gather twice a month.
A large number of family, friends, Eoghan’s clerical colleagues and well wishers joined ICON members for the celebration. Eoghan’s wife Becky, who helps lead the community, and their daughters, Rachel, Abigail and Evelyn took part. Also present was Fr Kieran McDermott, Episcopal Vicar for Evangelisation and Ecumenism with the Archdiocese of Dublin and former President of the Methodist Church in Ireland and now the Church’s Home Mission Secretary, the Revd Dr Heather Morris along with Methodist Minster, the Revd Andrew Dougherty.
In his sermon, the Archbishop explained that ICON is a community of God, a community of networks and a community of hope. “ICON seeks to share and to spread the holiness of God through relationships of faith, hope and love, relationships that are unconditional and at the same time are demanding,” he suggested.
The network of communities lives with the discipline of letting go – that is letting people in the existing community go to form a new community. “This is new to us in the Church of Ireland,” Archbishop Jackson said. “Much of our energy in recent decades has gone into preservation and conservation as ends in themselves. They are not; they quickly become the engine–room of fear and withdrawal. God places invitations and opportunities in our path and will continue to do so. We are called to wakefulness and watchfulness. ICON is one such opportunity and invitation and I want many to grasp it.”
He described Eoghan as the chaplain to the community who would enable members to live and flourish within the diocesan family of Dublin and Glendalough. “Chaplaincy is a ministry of accompaniment and this is the ministry more and more people need today. ‘Getting alongside’ may sound rather clichéd but I am not sure where else you might start to befriend those who are de–churched and un–churched. The church can scar as well as heal. It is our frailty and our failure. It is my prayer that ICON will do planting and sowing, watering and harvesting and more, in the earthly and heavenly spirit of Jesus Christ who moved from community to community – and nobody was ever quite the same thereafter,” he said.
He concluded by thanking the Methodist Church in Ireland and the Revd Andrew Dougherty for giving a warm and generous home to ICON for worship.
ICON is an Anglican church plant whose members believe that the Christian life is best experienced by being part of a family – a family with the unique purpose and mission of engaging in the adventure of following Jesus and living for him.
More information on ICON can be found at
iconcommunity.ie, @icon_community, facebook.com/iconcommunitydublin
Photo captions:
Top – The Revd Eoghan Heaslip is commissioned by Archbishop Michael Jackson. Also pictured is Fr Kieran McDermott.
Middle – Clergy at the launch of ICON Community – Canon Horace McKinley, the Revd Andrew Dougherty, Fr Kieran McDermott, the Revd Eoghan Heaslip, Archbishop Michael Jackson, the Revd Stephen Farrell and the Revd Dr Heather Morris.
Bottom – Eoghan and Becky Heaslip and their daughters at the launch of ICON.