Photo: Corbis/Getty Images While the Church in Ireland struggles to adapt to the rolling Covid-19 measures, NET Ministries are continuing to adapt to the moving times in an effort to reach out to the young people of Ireland.
“As the restrictions change, and as advice from the Government is different nearly every week, we’re very much holding it all lightly and seeing where the Holy Spirit is asking us to respond to each restriction that’s put in place,” Ciara Ferry of NET Ministries Ireland told The Irish Catholic.
Describing their normal configuration, Ms Ferry said, “Well, normally what happens is we have one road team and then we have several discipleship teams that would be based in local areas, so for example, Letterkenny is one that would have been there for the past three years.”
However, 2020 has seen their efforts to interact with the youth rewritten, with missionaries experiencing an altered year on the team.
Adapting their approach to the level of lockdown that the country finds itself in at any given time, Ms Ferry explained that the focus this year will be having the missionaries accompany the young adults online in ‘mentorship’-like relationships, as that is how the “most fruitful work is done”.
“When lockdown was announced in March, all of our teams went completely online and there was eight teams across the country last year working at that time, and so they had to go online,” she said.
Discipleship
“What they were doing was, at that point in the year, they would have certain discipleship students that they would walk with very closely throughout the year so they were still able to be in contact with them…what we’re very much pushing and very much encouraging at the moment is for that one-to-one relationship.”
Speaking of the missionaries’ commitment, she said. “For us, the commitment this year is really, it’s humbling. The commitment that these missionaries have had to come to us – many of them are Irish – the commitment to come and do this year in such uncertainty shows the level of passion that they have bringing souls to Jesus, so it’s really great.”