Welcome

to Kilternan Parish website. As you browse the site I hope you will feel welcome and experience something of the Christian life and witness of the parish and its people.
Set in south county Dublin, on the outskirts of the city, this once rural parish is experiencing great change due to residential and commercial development in the area. While such development has its attendant problems, from a parochial viewpoint we can only regard it as a positive situation bringing growth and change, challenge and opportunity to the parish and the wider community.

Kilternan Parish enjoys the heritage of beautiful buildings dating from 1826, the consecration of the Parish Church of Kilternan, to 1985, when the new school and rectory were built. The buildings and grounds have been carefully maintained over the years and are often commented upon by locals and visitors alike.

It is, however, in its people that we find the real essence of Kilternan Parish. The parish comprises some 220 households and some 625 souls. The people are from all walks of life and from several traditions of the Christian faith. An approximate age profile is as follows:-

This age profile gives us tremendous encouragement for the future of the parish and the Church in this locality.

The parish seeks to embrace, in Christ's name and love, all who come and all with whom we have contact, that each one may find a welcome, an identity and a people where they may experience God's love and peace.

A Dublin parish had as its motto, "To know God and to make him known". It is a motto to which we in Kilternan also aspire, containing as it does both personal and community elements; the sense that each is enabled to know God in Jesus Christ as their personal friend and saviour; and, the outworking of that Christian faith in witnessing to Christ's love and life in our daily lives. Within the parish Kilternan Church of Ireland National School is a vibrant focus attracting families to the neighbourhood. Through its life and activities many come to join the worshipping and social life of the parish.

Ecumenical relationships in the area are very good. The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland cooperate closely in matters of common concern and hold joint services and discussion/study groups throughout the year.

As we look to the future Kilternan Parish has identified the need to move from a position of 'maintenance ' to one of 'mission'. In this we have identified several areas of special responsibility: Youth; Growing in faith; Parish worship; The Elderly; Parish visiting and Buildings, plant and staffing. In the words of a recent party political slogan - "a lot done, more to do", to which we would add, "in Christ's name".

I am most grateful to Carol, Nick, Peter and Pat who have set up this website. We hope that as you browse it you will feel invited, in Jesus' words to, "Come and see", (John 1:39) and that as you come you will feel touched by God's love and peace, and that you may "believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name". (John 20:31)

David.

Glossary:

Kilternan Parish is part of the Protestant Church of the Catholic and Reformed tradition. Catholic- because, in reforming itself at the time of the reformation, our Church did not become a new Church. It derived from the ancient Church which St Patrick founded in this land, holding the same faith, but relieved and free from errors and later innovations; having the same order of Bishops, Priests and Deacons, the same sacraments and the same prayers.

Reformed- in that, at the Reformation it rid itself of all unnecessary or unscriptural innovations in doctrine and worship which had crept into the early faith of the Church.

Anglican: As well as being Catholic and Reformed, we are also Anglican.   We belong to the Anglican Communion, "A family of Churches within the Universal Church of Christ in full communion with one another, maintaining apostolic doctrine and order, and accepting the Archbishop of Canterbury as Chairman of the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, and as first among equals".   As such the Church of Ireland is an autonomous Church within the Anglican Communion which is held together by the communion or fellowship of bishops.

David.