A large congregation comprising parishioners, clergy and readers from as far away as Inver, Dunfanaghy and Ardstraw filled All Saints’ Church in Newtowncunningham on Friday evening to welcome the Taughboyne Group’s new priest, Rev Sean McClafferty. Rev McClafferty becomes the first Ordained Local Minister in the East Donegal parishes and picks up the mantle worn by Rev Canon David Crooks prior to his retirement a year ago this week after 40 years as Rector.
The Service of Welcome, which was led by the Rural Dean, Very Rev Liz Fitzgerald, marked a real homecoming for the new minister, who had served for the last couple of years in the Ardstraw Group in Tyrone’s Sperrins area but lives in Newtowncunningham. His wife Jennifer and daughter Zara were in church to see him assume the responsibilities and privileges of ministry conferred when he accepted the BIshop’s Licence.
The Archdeacon of Raphoe, Ven. David Huss, acknowledged Rev McClafferty’s rootedness in the community during a sermon which also included a reference to two of the world’s most powerful leaders. Extending a joyful welcome to the new minister, Archdeacon Huss said the fullness of All Saints’ Church and the enthusiasm of the singing and worship was testament to how meaningful this moment was. “It’s a joyful time and it’s a new beginning,” he said.
It was tempting, the preacher suggested, to compare this evening’s occasion to the event recorded in the Gospel reading (Luke 4: 14-21). “Both of them involve homecomings which are also fresh starts in ministry. In Luke, Chapter 4, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, returns to his home town of Nazareth and preaches in the synagogue there. Here tonight, Sean returns to minister in the place where he lives and among people he knows and is known by.”
The ministry to which Rev McClafferty and all of us were called, Archdeacon Huss said, was the ministry of the Gospel, a ministry which – tempting as it often was – was not so much about laying down the law, rather more about lifting up the Saviour – a ministry of invitation, that His door is open wide. “It is the ministry of the Gospel that will comfort those who mourn; the ministry of the Gospel will give joy in place of faintness; the ministry of the Gospel will build up ancient ruins and repair desolate cities; the ministry of the Gospel will build and bless the Church – Christ’s body.”
Archdeacon Huss said that that ministry was going to take a particular form in the Taughboyne Group of Parishes. OLM was a new format of ministry in the Church of Ireland, he explained. “Sean is among the first OLM priests in Derry and Raphoe. A need was identified for an ordained priest to work in this group of parishes. Sean was identified as the person called to meet that need….Tonight that role commences. Tonight’s a change – for everybody. The remarkable ministry of Canon Crooks over 40 years shaped these parishes, and we remember David with affection and we hold him in our prayers. Today’s a new chapter and now Sean will be the visible, local face of ministry in these parishes, under the Bishop, and in close cooperation with the Dean.”
Archdeacon Huss said he was reminded this week that eternal life had far from disappeared from the agenda. “Perhaps you saw the rather strange news at the great summit that President Xi held in Beijing, to which he’d invited some of the rather severe men of the world – Putin, Kim Jong Un, and so on – and at one point they were caught by a microphone that had been left inadvertently switched on. And what were they talking about? Eternal life. Check this out, it’s not a joke; this is actually true. They were discussing how long it would be possible to live under new technology like transplants and artificial implants in the body. Here were some of the most powerful men in the world, leaders of China, Russia and North Korea and what do they want? To live for ever. It’s not an encouraging thought for us for them to continue for ever in the vein they’re currently in. But there is eternal life for all who will not build themselves up in grandness but who will come only to the cross of Jesus Christ. The answer to eternal life is not solved through the technology that’s coming towards us in the 21st century, it was solved in the first century at the cross and empty tomb of Jesus.”
Members of the three currently active churches in the Taughboyne Group – Don Pearson (Taughboyne and Craigadooish), Billy Moore (Killea) and Terence West (All Saints) delivered this evening’s readings. After the service, the congregation walked the short distance to the parish hall for refreshments and fellowship.
