05.12.2014
ICON – A Community of Communities
Dublin’s fledgling church plant has begun to find its bearings. ICON Community was commissioned by Archbishop Michael Jackson and launched in September.
Led by the Revd Eoghan Heaslip (pictured right) and his wife Becky, ICON Community is gently starting to make connections. With the mission of bringing people in their 20s and 30s to know God, ICON’s vision is to be a community of communities. They are hoping to bring people who have gone away from the church back to introduce them to Jesus.
They want to plant a network of missional communities who, individually and collectively give a creative and faithful expression to the Kingdom of God. They hope that each missional community will be a place of training and discipleship where people grow in their faith, life skills, ability to lead and love each other.
WHO ARE EOGHAN AND BECKY?
Eoghan and Becky are no strangers to church planting. Becky, who hails from Canada, grew up in the Vineyard denomination and her parents were church planters too. They were part of the team that planted CORE (now St Catherine’s, Thomas Street) and Eoghan was on their senior management team.
Eoghan is a Church of Ireland Rector. His father is the Revd Jack Heaslip. He was a teacher in Mount Temple and was later ordained and served as Rector of Westport and St Luke’s Cross, Cork. Eoghan studied music and the music business in Ballyfermot and it was while he was a student that he became involved in CORE.
Eoghan met Becky in Canada and it is there that they were married over 17 years ago. They have three daughters, Rachel, Abigail and Evelyn. They moved to London in 2008 where Eoghan studied theology at St Mellitus College; a college which is at the forefront of contemporary theological education in England. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 2012 and served his curacy in the City of Worcester. The family moved to Dublin during the summer.
WHAT IS ICON?
It is part of human nature to try to pigeonhole things, but it is not easy to attach a label to ICON. Eoghan is a minister of the dioceses. ICON is a diocesan ministry but is not a parish. It is however a church and it is a community of people. While it is based at the moment in the family home, it is not a house church. Like many churches in the dioceses, it does not draw its members from the immediate vicinity in which it is based. It is an evangelical church and Eoghan points out that the strength of the Anglican Communion is its unity in diversity.
Like any church, ICON’s activities are based on prayer, the Sacraments, social action and Scripture. But how will ICON express this?
Eoghan points out that Dublin is Europe’s youngest city with hundreds of thousands of people under the age of 35, a generation almost entirely missing from the church in Ireland across the denominations.
“We have to adopt new shapes and expressions of church and ministry to reach out to these people. This is not a parish–based church. I’m not saying that parishes can’t be missionally focused or missionally shaped, but ICON hopes to do it differently by reaching out across networks,” he explains.
At the moment they are operating from their home in Clonskeagh. As such Eoghan is part of the Taney Rural Deanery. The community is developing with several people exploring and developing their faith already and journeying with the family.
ICON is a church which is gathered and scattered – they gather or meet up on two Sundays a month for gathered worship which involves the Scriptures, prayer and the Sacraments. They are scattered in that the members of the community are scattered servants in their places of work, education, interest groups, relational networks and on the streets where they live.
HOW WILL ICON DEVELOP?
Eoghan admits that they are on a massive learning curve but they have energy and patience and are prepared to take baby steps as they explore their new life in the city. Their starting point is to plant a pilot missional community in their own home, which will be a training ground for other missional communities and an opportunity to build community together.
“We plan to develop slowly and intentionally. We have a principle of asking ‘who are the people of peace in our lives?’ Maybe they don’t have faith but it’s taken for granted that they know that we have faith. We engage with the people in our lives at the school gate, on the street, in the networks to which we belong – at Brownies, swimming, on the rugby pitch. It’s about letting your life as a family, and the life of the community, witness to others,” he says. The challenge is whether there is anything different about their family life and their community life, he adds.
Now they hope to increase their fringe by going out to spend time with the people in their lives and networks. They will do community wide events and smaller events where people can have fun with those in their lives.
“It’s a slow burn thing,” Eoghan comments. “You don’t fill churches instantaneously. There will be an organised gathered expression of ICON Community but our primary identity will be to develop a network of communities. The way in which humans are most alive and have most meaning is in community and the way in which we can image God is by being individuals in community.”
While Eoghan understands that there is nothing traditional about ICON Community he points out that the concept of missional communities is not new. Acts chapter 2 for example, gives us some unique insight into the life, shapes and rhythms of the early church. Their expression of faith took place across the continuum of temple and home. Where alongside of the believers gathering together for public worship, we see the astounding picture developing of a community living as a network of extended families whose radical generosity and pursuit of the life of Jesus making an impact then which is still shaking the world today.
ICON Community
t: +353 (83) 4705350
e: info@iconcommunity.ie | w: www.iconcommunity.ie
@icon_community |facebook.com/iconcommunitydublin
[This article first appeared in the November 2014 edition of The Church Review – the diocesan magazine of Dublin and Glendalough]
Photo captions:
Top – The Revd Eoghan Heaslip
Middle – The ICON Logo
Bottom – Eoghan, Becky and their family.