"A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are for."
“Harbour Faith Community” is the new name for "St Colmans Gateway". A number of years ago, St Colman's Church of Ireland and Gateway Church in Carrickfergus began to collaborate on a shared project. Operating out of either St Colmans premises in Kilroot or Gateway’s building in Governor’s Place, our aim was to establish a new kind of informal Anglican faith community that could support and encourage the growth of progressive Christianity in our area of influence.
(if you want to know what we mean by “progressive Christianity”, see this post)
Three years down the road, and having settled into our premises at Governor’s Place, we are finding our stride and the time is right to allow the new community an identity of its own. The name “Harbour Faith Community” has been chosen to reflect both our physical location (beside the harbour in Carrickfergus) and to remind us of our supportive role in the lives of those who journey with us, however intermittently.
You’ve probably heard the saying “A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are for”. This is obviously because ships are meant for sailing the seas and exploring the oceans. Our role as a church community is to support those vessels in their journey, providing a stable and enduring docking point between voyages or stormy spells - but always with the aim of getting those ships back out to sea. We could stretch the metaphor further, but you get the idea.
So who are we now? We are a progressive, informal Anglican faith community based in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. In a part of the country largely dominated by a more conservative evangelical version of Christianity, we aim to provide a home for those who wish to express or explore the Christian faith in an alternative way. For us, the practice of following Jesus is a compelling call to live compassionately, cherish all of creation, be thoughtful in faith, embrace unknowing, exclude no-one and cultivate an altogether more defiantly hopeful view of our shared future together.
So here we are. We remain a stable and robust Christian presence in our town, even as we continue to grow, to learn and to progress together. Grace & Peace.