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The Irish evangelical movement developed its present form in the 18th century. A major early influence in evangelicalism was the Reverend John Wesley, an Anglican minister whose distinctive method of teaching and preaching later gave rise to the Methodist Church.
The movement uses a lower case e when writing the word evangelical.
Essential Practice Point 1
Evangelicalism is now expressed as a part of virtually every Christian denomination including Baptist, Church of Ireland, Methodist, Presbyterian and Pentecostal. There are also numerous independent evangelical churches in Ireland, some with congregations in excess of five hundred. A number of social, relief and mission agencies such as the Salvation Army and the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), TearFund Ireland, etc., work to evangelical principles.
Census 2006 recorded an increase of almost 40% among those identifying themselves as evangelicals, amounting to 5,276 members. As evangelicals in the major denominations tend to list as members of those churches the actual figure in the Republic may be much larger. Contributors estimate that there are in excess of 30,000 evangelicals and Pentecostals in Ireland. Evangelicals may be Irish and from new communities, particularly Africa, Asia (including the Philippines) and South America.
(Return to Summary of Essential Practice Points)
There are evangelical congregations throughout the country in major cities and other urban centres. As mentioned above, some of these are led by clergy or ministers from the major denominations.
Others are independent churches, groups, or fellowships, whose leaders are usually referred to as pastors, elders or sometimes senior leaders. There are currently a number of evangelical and Pentecostal churches in Ireland including Chinese, Filipino and African (the last are detailed in the Pentecostal section).
Evangelical Alliance Ireland (EAI) is the largest movement of evangelical churches, organisations and individuals in Ireland. There are also other organised groupings of evangelical churches.
