Lessons from Celtic Christianity

With the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, Western Europe was tribalised and run-over by many of the barbarian people groups native to these lands, and essentially became post-Christian In “The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West…Again”, George G. Hunter III deals with how Celtic Christianity and Monasticism re-evangelized much of Western Europe.

In like manner, postmodern Western Europe is esentially post-Christian, and we are watching its re-tribaliztion into distinct “new barbarian” subcultures. There are amazing parallels between these two eras, and amazing lessons we can apply in our mission to reach and touch nations.

Like these Celtic monks, we are faced with a need to study culture, and understand people, what language they speak (some words mean something to a churched Christian, and something completely different to an un-churched person), and where they are at with regards to Truth.

Among the many lessons to be learnt in this book, maybe the most important one is that the Roman model of evangelism used to (and still does) stress a presentation of the Gospel, followed by a decision to become a Christian, then finally an invitation to form part of a church. The Celtic community would first befriend someone into fellowship with the community of faith, and would then engage the person in the ministry of conversation with an invitation to belief last. We need to recover this aspect of building bridges and establishing relationships with people whilst engaging in conversation and ministry with them. As time passes, these friends will find themselves believing the same things as the community.

The Celts were also very right-brained in their approach to evangelism. The use of creativity, imagination and media in communicating the Gospel is paramount nowadays when seeking to reach an increasingly digital generation with the Gospel.

Read my book notes on my iPaper here

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