The Celtic movement combined a profound commitment to trinitarian theology with a deeply experiential/sensual/visual spirituality. Celtic understanding and practice of community and holism was exemplary. And their missiology was highly incarnational with a remarkable understanding of apostolic structures. A Celtic monastic community’s purpose was:

“… to root your consciousness in the gospel and the scriptures; to help you experience the presence of the Triune God and an empowered life; to help you discover and fulfill your vocation; and to give you experience in ministry with seekers.”

A wonderful example of Celtic apostolic passion—firmly grounded in trinitarian spirituality—can be found in this portion of the famous Celtic prayer, “St. Patrick’s Breastplate:”

We rise today
In power’s strength, invoking the Trinity,
Believing in threeness, confessing the oneness,
Of creation’s Creator.

For to the Lord belongs salvation,
And to the Spirit belongs salvation,
And to Christ belongs salvation,
May your salvation, Lord, be with us always.

“I will kindle my fire this morning,
In the presence of the holy angels of heaven,
God, kindle Thou in my heart within
A flame of love to my neighbor,
To my foe, to my friend, to my kindred all,
To the brave, to the knave, to the thrall …”

- Celtic Prayer to begin the day from the Carmine Gadelica

- George G. Hunter in The Celtic Way of Evangelism

For CRM, there are striking (and deliberate) parallels between this ancient movement and InnerCHANGE and NieuCommunities. May God multiply all such movements.

A fairer comparison would be to compare local congregations of today with the local churches that were spawned by monastic communities. The diocesan structures actually emerged as a result of the apostolic activity of Celic monastic communities. The historical interplay in the centuries following Patrick between the parish/ecclesiastical structure that evolved and the lingering effects of the monastic communities is a fascinating study in movement dynamics.

Celtic monastic orders were:

Sociologically flexible
Geographically mobile
Relationally transient

Historically, a shift inevitably occurred where authority shifted from the monastic communities to an ecclesiastical hierarchy. This shift was closely related to the leveling off, institutionalization, and even stagnation of Irish Christianity. Some church historians would probably describe this as “Catholicism in Ireland coming of age,” but in fact, this shift would more accurately be the beginning of an institution gaining ascendancy over a movement, modality over sodality, and the pastoral over the apostolic.

The more any existing local church can capture and emulate the apostolic functions evidenced in monastic communities, the more effective and vibrant that local church will be. But the church in its local form – by virtue of its very calling and nature – does not have the structural capability of maintaining such apostolic characteristics or momentum apart from the regular infusion of such dynamics from the outside. Hence, the necessity of sodalic entities. This is primarily due to the fact that:

Local churches are made up of “first-decision” individuals.

Discipline and the ability to remove people from the community is limited in the diocesan/parish structure.

Pastoral care, not mission and a commitment to militant expansion, are the primary values of most local congregations. Conservation and maintenance of the fruit, not multiplying the fruit, is the overriding value and focus.

The vast majority of those who are followers of Christ will not and should not be long-term participants in monastic communities. Only a small percentage of a believing population will ever effectively function as foundational and long-term members of a monastic community. Those that remain and thrive in monastic communities do so because their gifts and calling are conducive to life and ministry in a missional, apostolic structure.

Monastic communities multiply on several levels:

They multiply new churches
They multiply new monastic communities
They multiply new leadership for both

For example, in the Methodist movement, the class meetings evidenced many of the characteristics of such missional communities. But rather than maintaining their unique structural separateness, they evolved into local churches and eventually assumed a modalic hierarchy, i.e., a denominational structure. However because of their sodalic roots, the Methodist movement probably sustained its momentum, purity, and cutting edge longer than a movement with modalic origins. Similarly, the Christian and Missionary Alliance and the Salvation Army, both which started as mission movements, evolved into local congregations and then into institutionalized denominational structure.

However in the Celtic movement, the distinction between monastic communities and local churches was maintained more clearly for centuries. Maintaining this distinctive was one of the main factors contributing to the movement’s spiritual vitality, effectiveness in converting the whole of the society, and the longevity and pervasiveness of its influence. The monastic community, because of its structure, was able to maintain clarity of calling and focus far longer than the local churches it gave birth to and in turn, was a constant source of renewal, deep spirituality, and vision that fed these parishes for hundreds of years.

This model for multiplying churches could be difficult for most westerners because of Western individualism. The strong sense of “community” in the Celtic movement provided a sociological glue that held these monastic entities together and that dynamic is rare in the sociology of the West. Believers in other cultures may have more success in capturing this missiological dynamic.

Best book to illustrate these thoughts is The Celtic Way of Evangelism by George Hunter.