Name: The Marriage Course (online)
Start: 2026-01-06T00:00:00+01:00
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Church of Ireland celebrates 250 years of children’s and youth ministries

Tuesday September 23rd 2025

Board for Ministry with Children and Families (BMCF) and Church of Ireland Youth Department (CIYD) staff with Bishops Pat Storey, George Davison, David McClay, and Moses Zungo, and guest speaker Dr Mark Griffiths. Photo credit: Frank Dillon Photography.

The Church of Ireland celebrated 250 years of children’s and youth ministries at a special service hosted by St Mary’s Parish Church, Newry, on September 20.

At the celebration, leaders across the Church were encouraged to prioritise children, families and youth ministry, leading from a loving heart, knowing their purpose, and reaching individuals.

This special service was organised by the Board for Ministry with Children and Families (BMCF) and the Church of Ireland Youth Department (CIYD), with the Rev Dr Mark Griffiths as guest speaker. Dr Griffiths is Director of Mission Resources with Scripture Union in England and Wales.

Welcoming guests to the service, Bishop David McClay introduced Bishop Moses Zungo from the Diocese of Maridi, in South Sudan – children in Maridi have recently benefited from the Pancakes and Prayer fundraising initiative from CIYD, Fields of Life, and Bishops’ Appeal for World Aid and Development. Bishop McClay thanked the rector of Newry, the Rev Captain Scott McDonald, and his parishioners for their hospitality.

“This service is about the future,” Bishop Pat Storey, President of CIYD, said in her invitation to worship. “It’s a service of potential and we are going to come before God to surrender ourselves to what God’s future might look like.”

The 250th anniversary service for Church of Ireland children’s and youth ministry in St Mary’s Church, Newry. Photo credit: Frank Dillon Photography.

Extracts from the Sunday School Society of Ireland’s early books of reports were read, sharing stories of changed lives and the care shown by local churches for families in their communities around Ireland.

The Bishop of Connor, the Rt Rev George Davison, who chairs the Board for Ministry with Children and Families, led the congregation in prayers that acknowledged where the Church had fallen short in how it had ministered to children, and seeking that Jesus would revive it in its calling.

In the course of his sermon, Dr Griffiths commented that ‘all ministry ultimately becomes a matter of the heart, what we are truly like’ and God is looking for people with the right heart for ministry. A motivation of ‘I love God’ leads to incredible things ‘when that motivation flows through us,’ he noted, and this is especially important when presenting our faith to the ‘highly empathic’ generations of young people and children today.

“You have got to keep yourself spiritually sweet and you have got to keep your heart free of baggage,” he continued, also noting the value of perseverance in Paul’s message in Philippians about pressing onwards in faith – “If you bring these things into your lives, you communicate that to children and young people.”

Board for Ministry with Children and Families (BMCF) staff Dr Peter Hamill and Rachael Murphy with Bishop George Davison, Chair. Photo credit: Frank Dillon Photography.

Secondly, Dr Griffiths emphasised the importance of knowing what we are trying to do. Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India who was born in County Down, once dreamed that she was trying to keep people from falling off a cliff while others were making daisy chains – the Church of her time was ‘wrapped up in complacency, apathy and indifference,’ whereas today ‘our enemy is activity.’

There was a role for ‘rescue services at the bottom of the cliff,’ but it’s far better to invest in helping children and young people ‘to become everything that God wants them to be.’ This includes teaching them how to deal with hurt and harm, and introducing them to life in all its fulness in Jesus before the fall takes place.

Dr Griffiths concluded with a focus on the value of the individual young person, recalling that a clergyman in a Scottish fishing village was once criticised for his perceived lack of success – only one boy had come to faith through the Sunday School in the previous year.

The gift presented to each diocese. Photo credit: Frank Dillon Photography.

This boy, Robert Moffat, grew up to become the father of modern missions, who in turn encouraged David Livingstone to go and plant the seeds of church growth in Southern Africa. Similarly, when Peter and John made one person the focus in the healing at the Beautiful Gate (in Acts chapter 3), the miracle attracted the attention of thousands of people.

Representatives of the 11 dioceses in the Church of Ireland received the gift of a plaque to commemorate this celebration, during prayers led by Bishop Storey and Bishop Davison.

The plaques will be displayed in a location in each diocese and lit up on the next Day of Prayer for Young People and Youth Ministry, which will take place on the Sunday before Advent (November 23).

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