Sloan, Gillian
Gillian Sloan is a Global Missionary of The United Methodist Church, serving as INSPIRE general manager in Chemnitz, Germany.
She earned a diploma/certificate in religious studies at Emmanuel Bible College in Liverpool, United Kingdom. Her most recent employment was as a mission partner with the British Methodist Church. Prior to that, Gillian was a clerical officer with Northern Ireland Civil Service.
A member of EMK Friedenskirche (Peace Church) in Kassberg, part of the Germany East Annual Conference, Gillian grew up in the Methodist Church in Ireland, where she was actively involved in her local congregation. As a young woman, she knew God expected more from her.
“I was able to take a career break from my job,” she said, “which I used to study theology and mission. I completed the Cambridge University Diploma of Religious Studies. Emmanuel Bible College was world mission orientated with its own annual missionary convention. We had guest lectures from missionaries and former missionaries from all over the world. I was introduced to a worldwide church and to many individuals who had served or were serving with different missionary organizations across the globe.
“I was inspired through their lives but also challenged personally,” Gillian continued. “The principal of the college, along with most of our lecturers, had all served in different countries and circumstances. I know that many of my conversations with them helped to motivate me and challenge me to test my calling to serve God overseas.”
She led children’s and women’s ministries in a local congregation in Northern Ireland where her husband, Barry, was the pastor.
“We were very happy,” she said, “but could not ignore this sense of being called to serve overseas, particularly in eastern Europe.”
They applied to become Mission Partners with the Methodist church in Ireland. They went through a four-month candidacy process consisting of interviews, psychological tests and medical examinations. They were accepted to serve with The United Methodist Church in Chemnitz in eastern Germany.
“God led us to a ministry in Chemnitz city, in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany),” Gillian said. “Chemnitz, where 90% of the inhabitants have an atheist background, was a whole new world for our small family of four. We moved to a new country, a new culture, a new church (The United Methodist Church), and learned a new language. My interest in languages and in getting to know new cultures stood me in good stead. I learned German pretty quickly – but not as quickly as my kids!”
Gillian and Barry engaged in an innovative, three-circuit ministry for 13 years. That experience, she said, “prepared the way for when God called us into a new pioneer ministry, A Fresh Expression of Church called INSPIRE, in downtown Chemnitz.
“I have been involved in mission since I was a teenager,” Gillian said. “I have been serving in overseas mission for the last 25 years. And I am still learning! Mission is always about partnership with those around you and with God. This has always excited me. My husband and I have always worked as a team in ministry and mission, each with our own gifts that complement each other.”
INSPIRE is carrying out an innovative ministry in a post−Christian context. The East German Annual Conference recognizes a need for pioneer ministries that do mission in a new reality. The conference sees INSPIRE as a kind of “teaching church.” Through its social, cultural and diaconal outreach ministries, INSPIRE is finding creative and innovative ways to serve and to connect and share God’s love with people who have no connection to church. Incarnational, contextual mission is part of INSPIRE´s DNA. It meets people where they are and on their terms. Reconciliation is at the heart of INSPIRE.
“Sharing my faith and my life with the people of Chemnitz,” Gillian said, “has been one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences of my spiritual journey. A church that does not engage in mission cannot truly be church. Mission is for me a church of ‘sent ones.’ We are a world church. One world. We need each other. In a world that is becoming in some ways increasingly isolationist, insular and exclusionary, it is vital that our churches have an outward focus.”