Background

Joel Comiskey, in 2000 Years of Small Groups writes in chapter 3 about Patrick, the apostle to Ireland and his small group evangelistic strategy.

Patrick was born in about 385 in Roman Britain (a Roman colony until 409) but was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave shepherd. He was in a pagan country, with no access to anything written. However, as Comiskey says, he turned to God in prayer, and God revealed Himself.

In Patrick’s words:

“The love of God and His fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul was roused… as I said as many as a hundred prayers in day, and almost as many at night… in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn."

God showed him in a dream that he should escape, find his way to the coast and return to England. It worked out exactly like the dream and he found his way back to the coast where he met some sailors with a boat that would take him across the Irish sea. Back in England and reunited with his family, he studied for the priesthood. God showed him in another dream that he should return to Ireland. After being ordained as a bishop by Saint Germanus in 430, he was officially sent to Ireland to establish the church there.

Patrick began preaching the gospel throughout Ireland and many were converted. His strategy was to preach, make disciples and plant churches and he did this all over the country, seeing kings and entire kingdoms converted to Christianity as a result of receiving the message. There were many miracles attested to Patrick and he wrote on the theme of God’s power and love in his autobiography Confessions of Saint Patrick.

To share briefly?

Joel Comiskey writes: “Patrick’s mode of reaching out to others was highly relational, hospitable and community-orientated. He and his disciples would move into pagan area and then become part of the community.

For Patrick and his disciples Psalm 34:8 was pivotal:

Taste and see that the Lord is good;

Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.

Patrick believed that the truth is first caught, and then taught; therefore his approach was to make church as accessible as possible for the people.

They modelled what they wanted others to follow, but unlike later monastic communities, living life in community was never an end in itself – they sought to give their mutually dependent way of life away.

Their evangelistic strategy looked like the prayer of Jesus in John 17 that the world would see and believe by their unity. Patrick and his followers talked a lot about the love and unity within the Trinity, using the three-sided shamrock as an illustration. They knew that their lives, and their demonstration of love and unity needed to reflect God’s character if they were going to reach the pagan Irish. Those who joined the group saw transformed lives and observed how disciples were supposed to act, and these seekers were themselves invited to become Christ’s disciples. The new group multiplied and then moved out to unreached areas. The discipleship and the outreach were intimately connected.

Summary points

  • Patrick learned to hear God and to depend on God early on in life, when he had nothing else.

  • He was sent to establish the church in Ireland: a true apostolic commission.

  • His approach was not churchy, but relational and hospitable.

  • His strategy was to preach (probably not like us), make disciples, and plant churches.

  • The unity and love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, like the leaves of the shamrock, was a powerful revelation for Patrick and central to his message to others.

  • He and his disciples knew that reaching others was about demonstrating God’s character in love and unity. Preaching, teaching and practice were all woven together.

  • This community way of reaching people was not a ‘latest idea’ but continued to be hugely influential e.g. through Columba and other Celtic saints who followed, right up until the Synod of Whitby in 689.

Discussion starters

  1. Patrick’s situation was one where there were no buildings, no tradition, and no preconceived or religious ideas about Christianity. Given that we have all three, what parts of his strategy would work for us today?

  2. Which is more transforming to a community – us showing God’s power, or demonstrating God’s character in love and unity?

  3. Patrick’s main, and almost only, way seemed to be to share the Jesus life in groups, which invited others to see how disciples lived and related. Has something here been lost to the church, which we could recover?

  4. Patrick’s concept of planting churches was a lot more low-key than ours would be. Could we plant churches within the parish by understanding ‘churches’ in a different way e.g. Fresh Expressions, cell-like disciple groups, a more 'mixed economy’ in former archbishop Rowan Williams’ words?

  5. Patrick's strategy was to preach, make disciples, and plant churches. He almost certainly didn’t preach like we do, his understanding of making disciples was different and he planted churches but they wouldn’t look like churches to us. What lessons here might shape our practice today?