Keeping the Spirit of church alive

Markethill Elim was born via a mission and a handful of Spirit-filled Christians. A century later, another mission and outreach projects run by dedicated church members are keeping that legacy alive, says pastor Alan McCann.

“Our church started in 1923 with a handful of people in a hut and a gospel mission where folks were baptised and received the Holy Spirit,” says Alan McCann.

“There are records of people being spat at as they went to church because of how Pentecostalism was viewed in Northern Ireland then, but the church just grew and grew.

“More than 100 years later there’s a thriving church here because of their encounters with the Spirit and their willingness to seek and serve God.”

Alan is talking through the past and present of Markethill Elim. What’s clear as he moves between the 1920s and the 2020s is that this early character of the church is still evident today.

Markethill Elim is a rural, family-oriented church with a congregation ranging from the children of its founder members down to young families.

It is well connected to its close-knit community and in the three years since Alan, his wife Steph and their children arrived, that’s one thing he has sought to strengthen still further.

“To a certain extent we’re already well embedded here,” he says.

“I had an email from a housing association last week, for example, asking if we could mend some elderly people’s fences, and if we could help a homeless couple who’ve been living in their car.”

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