Missional Theology and St Patrick's day.

The following are two large excerpts (the introduction and the conclusion) from an article I wrote about St Patrick. A condensed version re-posted today on the blog of http://www.thehousestudio.com/.  For all the good stuff in the middle of the article you will need to go here: http://www.thehousestudio.com/real-st-patrick-roman-imperative/

St. Patrick was a remarkable individual whose intrigue had nothing to do with leprechauns and rainbows. Though Patrick was ethnically a Celt, he was culturally a Roman whose primary language was Latin. He grew up in a Christian home with a deacon for a father and a priest for a grandfather. As a youth, Patrick was what some might call a “lukewarm” Christian, saying of himself, “At the time, I did not recognize the True God.”[1] According to Patrick, it was this rejection of God that led to his life being turned upside down when a band of Celtic pirates invaded the region, captured Patrick, and sold him into slavery. During his years as a slave, Patrick experienced two major changes.First, Patrick experienced the revelation of God through nature and became a devout Christian.

. . . after I reached Ireland I used to pasture the flock each day and I used to pray many times a day. More and more did the love of God, and my fear of him and faith increase, and my spirit was moved so that in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers, and in the night a like number; besides I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.[2]

Second, Patrick, immersed in a new environment, came to understand and accept the Celtic culture of his captors. It was this deep understanding of the Celtic world that later allowed him to effectively reach the “unreachable” with the good news of Christ. After six years of captivity, God told Patrick in a dream to flee from his captors.

The next 25 years or so of Patrick’s life are unknown, but at the age of 48, Patrick had another dream where an angel named Victor spoke to him. During that dream Patrick was called to bring the “good news of Christ” to the Celtic world. Patrick returned to Ireland as a bishop with this mission. Patrick’s 28 years of ministry to the Celts—and the movement that followed—forever changed the Western world...

...Like some 1600 years ago, the world’s churches are largely content with neglecting a major portion of the harvest. Thus, the model of St. Patrick and those who followed him can be of some use. Maybe an approach that recognizes God is big enough to reach people exactly where they are is the key. In St. Patrick’s time, a barbarian people wanted to know that they belonged. Today’s “lost” may not be so different. Are we going to demand that they become civilized, or are we going to create opportunities for them to be accepted and to experience the living God?

1. St. Patrick, The Confession of St. Patrick (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), http://www.ccel.org/ccel/Patrick/confession.pdf. This first section of his writing is St. Patrick’s own account of his life and the events that lead up to his mission in Ireland. Though that is not its primary purpose. Patrick’s Confession is a defense of his life and ministry.
2. Ibid., paragraph 16.