22.10.2025
Diocese and Parish: A Way of Life and a Way of Mission
Archbishop of Dublin’s address to Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Synods
The mission of a church is to encourage people of different age ranges and life experiences to find believing in God as an event, an activity that is life–positive, life–changing and life–enhancing. So said Archbishop Michael Jackson in his Presidential Address to Dublin and Glendalough’s Joint Diocesan Synods yesterday evening (October 21). The mission of a dioceses, he continued, is to encourage new people and existing people of the church to stay, to be refreshed and to show in everyday life that they have been changed positively by God and that others will enjoy this transformation.
Synods took place in the King’s Hospital School in Palmerstown as part of the school’s 350th anniversary celebrations. Members of Synods were given a warm welcome by the Headmaster Mark Wallace, Chaplain Canon Peter Campion and Synod member John Aiken. Students took a prominent role on the evening in both welcoming members, guiding them around the building and serving dinner, and the school choir sang during the Synod Service of Holy Communion which took place in the chapel.
As the Synods took place in a school, Archbishop Jackson explored the theme of church and school and how they reflect the mission of a diocese and parish, in his Presidential Address. He said the King’s Hospital motto, ‘A school and a way of life’, was helpful in this regard.
“There is every good reason for us to dwell on this motto and to celebrate it with the school community of today. It means that a place, a location that creates and carries memories is at the same time a way of living, how you experience and understand a life that is yours to enjoy and a life in which you are encouraged and facilitated to flourish. Old structures constantly house new ways of living. Being welcomed here today reminds us of the connection in our own work as a diocesan synod between faith and learning,” he said.
He pointed out that a school forms its community organically and newly every year with fresh hopes and different takes on old buildings. In the same way church cannot happen solely inside the church building or inside the meeting room. “An imbalanced understanding of static life as an end in itself is a distorting factor in the defining and the developing of a way of life. Church, like school, has to be on the move, not least as it seeks to present Jesus Christ the way, the truth and the life,” he explained.
There are more and more people today who are curious about religion and Irish society is more diverse than it has ever been, the Archbishop said. He added that there was also enormous need for people in parishes to speak up and advocate for people who are being targeted by ‘native’ Irish people for ill. This, he described as a “ tragedy and a scandal” and said that members of parishes could shift the culture forwards by exercising goodness in the changing character of our living neighbourhoods.
He said there were was a broad sweep of types of churches in our dioceses to encourage us in our discipleship, our witness and our worship to be a broad church with invitational mission at its heart: parish churches, two cathedrals, two Pioneer Ministry projects with hopes of more, Trustee Churches of a broad range of traditions – in all of which spiritual needs can be and are being catered for differently. “These are not novelties, these are not vanity projects; these are established, confident communities of faith. The parish and the diocese remain the key building blocks of our ecclesiastical structure. In no way is this to diminish other authorized forms of life and ministry. In fact it is to protect them. We are a diocese not a hypermarket,” he stated adding that choice is about the deliberate decision to commit to the local presentation and expression of parish and church life, to work at it and to invite people in. In this way, church and way of life come together.
Referring to the Dublin and Glendalough Mission Subcommittee’s 2025 Prayer Movement and its ongoing work to develop a mission plan for the dioceses, Archbishop Jackson encouraged members of Synods to give it their energy. “What we urgently need to do through The Prayer Movement 2025 is to release local energy. I will support and encourage these initiatives in and through my own ministry; and I want to be able to celebrate them with you as they emerge and develop. But I need you to tell me what they are in order to do this and in order to pray them forward,” he stated.
He presented the idea of Camino to illustrate the energy and movement which is needed to progress prayer and mission in the dioceses. Diocesan Synods, he said, were an invitation and commissioning for active engagement with the Mission Subcommittee in their period of consultation and for every parish in the diocese to dig deep to build a programme of mission “not for but by the diocese”.
Referring to the sermon of Archbishop Dermot Farrell in July in which he suggested the characteristics of Camino were: service and acceptance, spiritual, and togetherness, he said these ideas could feed into discussions and conversations with the Mission Subcommittee. The subcommittee is focussing on five areas: Worship and Prayer, Care and Service, Teaching and Nurturing, Mission and Evangelism, and Fabric and Finance. He said that Archbishop Farrell said that on the Camino you are never alone, you are always in community, and this was so in a parish also.
Archbishop Jackson concluded his address by addressing the issue of Gafcon. He read the statement the Archbishop of Armagh and he issued earlier in the week and he urged all members of the United Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough to stand with them. You can read their statement by clicking here.
You can read Archbishop Jackson’s Presidential Address in full by clicking here.
