Killead Congregation has a long history. Its origins lie in the Six Mile Water Revivial (1625-1634) and the fiery evangelical preaching of the Rev. James Glendinning, Minister at Oldstone. The meeting house was first erected at Killead somewhere about 1680 and the present building dates from about 1750. The T-shaped building with three entrances and a large gallery was designed to so that the people sat around the pulpit in the middle of the long wall. The reading and the expounding of the Word of God was central to their worship – a feature which remains unchanged today.
During the ministry of the Rev. Henry Mecredy the 1859 Revival swept through Ulster. In that year forty new communicants were added to the role of Killead and over one hundred more people than usual attended the sacrament. During the remaining years of his ministry and that of his successor the Rev. William Baird (1891-1903) the congregation grew and ‘enjoyed much blessing in matters spiritual and material.’
Although there had long been a school attached to the congregation to provide an elementary education to the children of the area, it was in 1916 under the leadership of the Rev. Dr Jack Irwin that a new school and Master’s residence were constructed. Unfortunately due to Dr Irwin’s strong political views and his support for a United Ireland, a significant number of families left the congregation in the following years.
Slow growth followed during the rest of the twentieth century and various renovations were made to the church building and other property so that in its visitation of 1971 (five years after the installation of the Rev. Derek Weir) the Templepatrick Presbytery noted “many evidences of growth and progress both in the spiritual and temporal in the life of the congregation.”
In 1976 the congregation was united with the neighbouring congregation of Loanends. In 1979 the Presbytery recorded that it “rejoiced in the knowledge that both congregations have developed a very successful partnership in meeting the spiritual and pastoral need of their respective areas.
A new church hall was opened in June 2006 and is much used by church organizations and by others from the community.
The Church Micro IE series is open to everyone; if you have a church you would like to place a cache at then please contact THE_Chris through Geocaching.com. He keeps track of the numbers of the churches and he will give you the general format for the cache page. In the UK there are #1500 caches in the series so we have some catching up to do! If you currently have a published cache at a church that you would like to include in the series get in contact and we can add it.
