What is the Church? The Church is not a building nor an institution. The Church is the people of God with a Divine calling and purpose.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

(1 Peter 2:9–10 NIV)

The outworking of this is seen in local congregations where a group of Christians meet to worship and serve their Saviour. A local congregation consists of both the visible and invisible church. The visible church is all those who claim any connection with Christ and the things of Christ. The invisible church is those who belong to Jesus Christ and as such its membership is known only to Him.

The local congregation in Kells consists of almost 1000 people in 260 families. It is the aim of those who know and love Christ to show that love in worship and in outreach to others with the gospel. To meet this aim we have a large number of activities as outlined on this site. It is our desire that every man, woman, boy, girl and young person in Kells should hear the good news of Christ and that many should come to know Him as Saviour.

To that end we seek to be warm hearted and to welcome everyone into our buildings. Our outreach is not limited to the activities within our walls. Effective evangelism can only be carried out by God’s people living out their faith in the communities in which God has placed them. To that end many of our activities are designed to teach believers the fundamental bible truths that they will require if they are to live effectively for Christ.

Kells Presbyterian Church is a part of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

As such we are a Reformed Church holding Calvinist doctrine. We are governed by Church courts. The superior court is the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland which meets yearly in June. It comprises every minister of the PCI plus a representative elder (Presbyter) from each congregation. Beneath this are 19 Presbyteries which meet approximately monthly. These courts comprise the ministers and representative elders of the congregations in a local area. Kells belongs to the Presbytery of Ballymena which has 31 congregations within its bounds. The most basic court is the Kirk Session which takes decisions on the spiritual life of a local congregation. The elders on the Session are elected by the congregation then ordained by the Presbytery. This ordination is for life.

In Kells we have 20 elders including the minister. The minister is known as the teaching elder because of his function. The others are called ruling elders. In the early church it was soon discovered that leaders cannot fulfil their spiritual role of teaching the bible if they have to look after the every day material affairs of the church (Acts 6). Therefore in the Presbyterian Church we have a congregational committee to look after money, building etc. Members of Committee are elected every 3 years by the members of the congregation.

We hope that you enjoy visiting our web site. We trust that you will see that we believe that everything must be centred on God’s word and that you find benefit from listening to and reading that word. If you have any questions or would like to visit any of our activities please do not hesitate to contact anyone listed on this site.