Celtic Way of Evangelism - ministry of hospitality

From Dr. George G. Hunter III, “Celtic Way of Evangelism”

I would recommend adopting the four-fold Celtic approach to preparing people for ministry. It appears to me to be vastly more sophisticated and effective than anything now being attempted in most churches.

First, every person in a monastic community spent some time in solitude, out in nature. They had a saying, "Go and sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything." Patrick himself discovered the presence of God, that he had learned about in the catechism, in the midst of nature. The Celts believed that time alone in nature is indispensable for triggering a God-consciousness.

Second, everyone had a soul friend. This is not a superior such as a spiritual director, but more like a peer with whom one could be totally vulnerable.

Third, most Celtic Christians were members of a small group who met weekly. Ten or fewer people were led by a person who was most chosen for his or her transparent devoutness.

Fourth, everyone was involved in the life of the monastic community's worship, and Scripture memorization, etc. A great many illiterate Celtic Christians knew all 150 psalms by heart because they rehearsed 30 psalms a day; as a community, every five days, they rehearsed all the psalms.

Everyone, in the community, was involved in ministry with seekers. At some point in their development they would be a seeker's soul friend, or they would observe and help a seeker in their small group who was discovering faith.

That fourfold approach, solitude, soul friends, small group, and ministry of the community, including ministry with seekers, appears to be a potent synergizing combination to produce contagious saints than any of the "improvements" in the last 12 centuries. What kind of ministry did the Celts have to seekers? It was, essentially, the "ministry of hospitality." The monastic community would simply admit into its ranks people who had not yet discovered the gift of faith. The community seems to have believed Christianity was more caught than taught. The people were more likely to catch it in the community of faith rather than by being left to their own devices in the world.