Dungannon Vineyard - Reaching out with compassion in Northern Ireland

Determined to leave a local legacy, this church has a fundamental commitment to being outward-focused. It operates a range of initiatives including the Compassion project which aims to creating a sustainable support system tackling the root causes of poverty and isolation...

When the Dungannon Vineyard was planted six years ago, the team were very clear that they wanted the church to be outward looking. As lead Pastor Jason Scott explains, “Mission is the reason that the church exists; we’re here to see the lost found and the found grown.”

With that passion at their core, the congregation got stuck in straight away with servant evangelism in the community. They did everything from cleaning toilets in public areas to washing people’s cars for free – anything that would demonstrate God’s love in practical ways. “We really wanted to connect with the poor in our community too,” says Jason, “But we weren’t sure who they were at first, so we started to work with elderly people who were feeling isolated and lonely. Volunteers would go and visit, taking groceries but most importantly making time to chat and be a listening ear.”

It was a report from the Northern Ireland Assembly which helped the Vineyard discover one of the greatest needs in the community. It highlighted Dungannon as one of the areas where children in Northern Ireland were most likely to experience child poverty. “We knew this was a real need in our community and we had to get involved, so we set up the Compassion Project,” Jason says.

One element of Compassion is ‘Reach’, an emergency support service for individuals and families in crisis. As well as helping with practical needs such as groceries, nappies, heating and electricity, the Reach team also offer emotional and spiritual support. They work with other agencies that often refer people on to them who are in need. Jason says, “We had a young woman referred to us whose children were on the Child Protection Register. We were able to spend some time with her and support her in her case. The professionals asked for our opinion about whether she was able to look after her children and they noted in their report that the children were able to come off the register because of the church’s support. We also recently spent time with a single parent who was feeling quite depressed. We were able to offer practical advice as well as to pray with her and since then she says everything has turned around. She said it made all the difference that someone took the time to spend with her.”

The aim of the Compassion Project is to create a sustainable support system tackling the root causes of poverty and isolation to move families and individuals from dependency to independence. As Jason explains, “We don’t want to continually be throwing people life jackets – we want to address the root causes of poverty so that it can be prevented.” An essential part of this work has been teaming up with Christians Against Poverty to run debt counselling and to give advice and practical help to those who need it. “So many people are caught up with fear and worry over debt and we want to see people released from that and given the tools to budget and keep themselves on track in the future,” Jason says.

The church takes every opportunity to remind itself to keep looking outwards. In addition to Engage and CAP they run Sunny Scheme which gives families they work with a much-needed one-week holiday. They host a cafe which is open to the community every Friday and Saturday night and they have a thriving youth club for teenagers every weekend too. Each Christmas they run a series of teaching about how they can use the season to reach their community and last year gave out 260 food hampers to those in need. Everyone got involved, with the congregation, the youth club, local schools and businesses supplying the food as well as helping pack the hampers.

One of the things that drives the Dungannon Vineyard is their ‘leaving a legacy’ campaign. Jason explains, “Every year we ask ourselves, “If we closed the church tomorrow, would our community miss us? If only the Christians would then we don’t think we’re doing our job. It’s not an option for us not to do mission; it’s why we’re here.”

Inspired? Want to do more in your community? Here are Jason’s top tips:

• Don’t think you have to be a certain sized congregation or have a certain amount of money before you start. We just got stuck in straight away and found that we punch well above our weight – we are a congregation of around 150 adults and 70 kids but we manage to engage with quadruple that amount.
• A famous ice hockey player said that what makes him different is that he doesn’t skate to where the puck is, he skates to where it’s going to be. I think that same approach is needed in ministry. Ask the questions about where the community is going, look at what changes are on the horizon and aim to be there to meet the needs.
• Make friends with the experts! We have formed relationships with all sorts of groups to find out what the needs are in the community and to make sure we all work together to meet those needs.
• Find out everything you can about your community. Understand the issues like housing, schools and health care. Discover the things that will make people open to or resistant to the gospel and try and turn the problems into opportunities.
• On a practical note it helps to take a pack of information with you when you meet someone in the community – leaflets and numbers of organisations that might be able to help them. You won’t have all the answers yourself so it really helps to know where to point people.
• Get as many people from your congregation and community involved as possible. John Wimber (founder of the Vineyard church) used to say ‘If you stay, you play’ and we encourage that. We have 85% of our congregation serving in some capacity and it takes the pressure off a few people trying to do everything.
• Another Wimber-ism is that ‘belonging comes before believing’. We try to make people feel welcome and are happy to have them as part of our team before they give their lives to Jesus. We often then see them go on to make a commitment when they have been part of our community for a while.

If you’d like to do something similar in your community and would value talking to the team at Dungannon Vineyard you can contact them at info@vineyarddungannon.co.uk.  The team are also running a conference called ‘Explore 58’ looking at how to put the words of Isaiah 58 into action. All are welcome! For more details visit  www.vineyarddungannon.co.uk

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