Sandwiched between two hurling shops and the O’Neill’s superstore at the National Ploughing Championships is the Free Presbyterian Church stand.
The “Wee Frees”, as they are sometimes known, have not gone into decline since their founder the Rev Ian Paisley died in 2014 — though he had stepped down as moderator in 2008. Their tent offers free tea and biscuits, a free calendar and the promise of a shot at salvation.
They now have 61 churches on the island of Ireland, though mostly in the North. Their tent was full on Thursday afternoon. Volunteers were handing out some of the 15,000 calendars that the churches have allocated for the championships. Each month comes with a farm scene and a biblical quote.
They also brought 240 bibles with them, “which are all gone”, says Rev Jonathan Creane.
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His church is in Convoy, Co Donegal, one of two in the Republic of Ireland, the other being in Drum, Co Monaghan. Little prints with biblical quotations were also handed out along with New Testaments. Seventy were taken away by passersby on Thursday.
“The gospel is free. It is God’s free gift of salvation where Jesus Christ came to pay our debt,” says Rev Creane, while he exhorts visitors to take away the literature.
“People who have got to know us have renewed their contact. The tent has been heaving since 10am this morning.”
There is much in the way of bible literature at their stands, along with the personal testimonies of those who joined the church.
There are now Free Presbyterian churches in the United States, Canada, Australia, Jamaica, Kenya, Uganda, India and Nepal. In Nepal alone there are 120 churches.
The church has moved a long way from its origins. “There was a perception that the Free Presbyterian Church was the DUP at prayer,” said Rev Creane with a smile. “We don’t have political ties to any party at all.
“We find a tremendous openness with many people. We don’t find antagonism at all. A lot of people are turned off by organised religion, with scandals and so on going on. People feel let down.”
The church has not lost its antipathy to the Catholic Church, though it has moved a long way since the days Paisley used to call it “the whore of Babylon”.
Larry Power, who was brought up as Catholic in Co Kilkenny and became a Free Presbyterian minister, said he heard the gospel for the first time from a neighbour. “I was completely ignorant of the way of salvation,” he said. “I never heard in the Catholic Church that the way to salvation was faith in Christ.”
He joined in the 1980s when the church was still associated with Paisley. “Shortly after I was converted, I left the Catholic Church. There was a good deal of opposition,” he recalled. He persisted and became a minister in Kesh in Co Fermanagh for 20 years and then in Drum for nine years.
