We have been in Europe since 1985.
We spent five years in Dublin establishing Cornerstone Christian
Church; 16 years in Delft, the Netherlands, starting Levend Water
church in Delft and helping start Lighthouse Fellowship in
Antwerp, Belgium. This latest term in Ireland has been over 3 years
leading Dungarvan Christian Fellowship.
Our mission is multifaceted.
We want to establish churches and strengthen those established
and establish or ensure that spirit-filled university campus
ministries are established on very major university in Ireland,
while encouraging and helping strengthen local leaders. We
also work to establish a network of churches in Ireland,
linked with Horizon Europe which we helped found 20 years ago,
designed for mutual encouragement and support, as we disciple
and establish European leaders.
A lot is going on with our
ministry! Last year, we established Dungarvan Christian Fellowship
as a more vibrant and influential church plant. (There is no other
evangelical church in Dungarvan or East Waterford County.) To this
end, we have gotten our first building in the center of Dungarvan
which we are using as an outreach center. We built connections with
local leaders,conducted many outreaches in Dungarvan and on the
Universities, discipled various members, and met regularly to help
establish and strengthen pastors with their work in Clonmel,
Michelston, Dublin, and other surrounding towns. We
also Established the ground work for a successful campus
ministry at UCC by building a healthy relationship with the
chaplaincy, various professors, pastors, and students in Cork. (We
are running a student Alpha at the moment.) In addition, we helped
with the formation of a new training center with one of our
converts, Ross Barnett, (http://www.badboyturnedgood.com/) and
researched for a book project on Valentine Greatrakes, an
important, but relatively unknown Christian in Seventeenth
Century Ireland, to bring to forefront a national Christian
hero.
At the beginning of this year,
there was leadership crisis in the Dublin church that I helped
establish in 1985. I was asked to take over the senior pastorate,
thus our goals for 2011 relate to this transition. One thing we
would like to do is stabilize and grow Cornerstone Church in
Dublin, including seeing the former pastor being released into his
next season of ministry, and also building a new leadership team
for the church. We'd like to transition leadership
successfully in Dungarvan while maintaining
oversight, continue establishing campus ministries at UCC
(Cork) WIT (Waterford) and UCD (Dublin), and help launch the
training center in Cappoquin.
Furthermore, we want to continue to
work with churches that relate to us and Horizon Ireland, as well
as the Horizon Europe network, encourage formerly established
churches in Delft, the Netherlands, and Antwerp Belgium, and
help serve as a senior leader in Life Alliance, another network of
churches that we relate to in Europe. Our final goal for 2011 is to
finish the Greatrakes book.
Please be in prayer for our
ministry as we are looking for full-time campus workers for
UCD and we're trusting that the Woolsey's from the Harvest will be
able to join us and move to work on UCC in Cork. In addition, we
are looking for one or two Christian young people (ages 18-25) to
take part in our first year of the training school. We also need a
small team of young adults for outreach on the universities.
Learn More at our Websites:
http://hollandscoop.wordpress.com/
http://twitter.com/#%21/LKyleHolland
http://www.dungarvanchurch.org/
http://www.facebook.com/lkholland
We want to thank you again for your
many years of involvement in our lives and encouragement and
support. We look forward to by God's grace to continue to be an arm
of your outreach into Europe.
Much love and thanks,
The Hollands