How The Irish Saved My Civilization

3 comments | Jan 24, 12:55 PM | best-of-earl | by Earl Creps

In How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill describes the role of the island’s monks in preserving both the scriptures and the written classics of western civilization from the aftermath of the Roman Empire’s collapse.

When the opportunity became available, these monks would re-introduce learning and literacy into a continent ravaged by invading tribes, disease, and despotism. Without these largely unknown scribes, no one knows what would have happened to the West after Rome succumbed.

Our trip to Ireland may not save a continent, but it has certainly proven life-giving for both Janet and me.

For one thing, we have learned some new (to us) vocabulary.

Our friend Anne Monaghan, a counselor with an Irish AoG church, used the phrase “secular fundamentalists” to describe people who can tolerate almost anything—except Christianity. They have the iron convictions of a religious fundamentalist, but distill their views from faith in tolerance itself.

John Edwards, who runs a network of rehab and outreach ministries in the UK, used the phrase “the fourth world” to describe the realm populated by drug addicts, prostitutes, and street people across the globe. I had never thought of the afflicted and the addicted as a nation.

These new terms gave me different ways of thinking about these issues. And with new thinking can come new ways of responding.

The Friday evening worship service at the AoG’s Mobilise conference provided another life-giving element of our time here. Jan and I have been visiting churches for more than 5 years in various capacities. Seldom have we been impacted by the presence of God like we were last night. I cried and cried during the worship time. The flow of prophetic giftings during the prayers that followed the preaching of the scriptures was profound. We desperately needed this immersion in God’s presence. Having spent months traveling only to listen to my own preaching, this night fed a real hunger in us. I can only speculate about what the people listening to my preaching have endured.

With some of the American Church giving itself over to marketing-based solutions to the problem of how to grow. I wonder where the heroin addicts go to find a solution to the problem of how to live. The pressure on the mainstream Church is to put together services that are attractive to people, so that our numbers will increase, and along the way, some people will come to faith. A friend calls this “American Idol” church. What if we put together services to impress God so that people could come to faith, and along the way, we would also grow? I’m not suggesting a return to a revivalistic style of years gone by, but a renewal of sensitivity to the Spirit so we can meet God in real time, however that looks.

The Irish also saved my civilization by modeling storytelling as a communication form. I mentioned yesterday that a person I met at their bible college told me of how natural this genre is to the Irish. Since that time, I have had one experience after another in which I have been intrigued, delighted, and laugh-out-loud entertained by their stories and jokes—which are also stories, but you laugh more at the end.

While I tend to use some narrative forms anyway, had I more time to research Irish culture, I would have picked up on this trait and taken my talks in an almost completely narrative direction. Once again, I find an audience training me instead of me training them.

The Irish I have met are marvelous teachers. Their jokes are better than my sermon illustrations because narrative is so natural in this culture. One of their leaders pointed out that this aspect of Ireland could make its citizens effective evangelists among post-everythings to whom a person standing at the front of a room telling them what to do is anathema. But a story (like the gospel) is both safe and meaningful.

We also met people who embodied the new thing that the Spirit is doing in Ireland. Everything in AoG here feels like it just started—mostly because it did. The organization is only a few years old. There are young leaders, church plants, and outreach projects springing up all around. It’s exciting, despite the challenges of finances, isolation, and the basic unpopularity of church and Christianity in many subcultures.

One young couple, Martin and Sarah, told us of a congregation near Limerick in which they are attempting to evolve new forms of worship. Looking for more than just a 40-minute concert composed of “Song A, Song B, Song C, etc.,” they are attempting to create an experience that is less packaged, less rushed, and in which the Holy Spirit has a chance to engage people in powerful ways.

These impulses led to the creation of a regional worship conference last year, with another planned for 2009. Listening to this vision I was impressed by how important it will be for older leaders to support these young visionaries with love, encouragement, and resources, but also by having the grace to get out of their way.

I felt so strongly how unable I am to do what these young people are capable of. They have knowledge and gifts that I simply do not possess. In some ways the best gift I can give them is not to insist on holding on to positions of influence so long that they never get a chance. In short, if we love the Church, some of us older leaders need to move into different capacities, that of pioneering, and of being spiritual parents. In return, younger leaders need to take chances, stepping into the roles we vacate and creating new ministries that are simply beyond us.

To be practical, some 50+ pastors should begin to pray about resigning to plant churches, freeing up their ministries to be led by 20 and 30somethings. Meanwhile, young staff pastors in larger churches should be ready to give up the many benefits of being a popular associate to shoulder the burden of senior leadership and/or church planting right now.

Ireland has been good to us. We return to support-raising for our church plant in Berkeley with a renewed conviction to live in response to the Holy Spirit.

FOOTNOTES:
1. The Irish seem to have a preference for really big bottles of water.

2. Most of the Irish consider tea incomplete without milk.

3. On Saturday night almost every Millennial in Dublin meets at Eddie Rocket’s burger place in the Dundrum mall.

4. Gary and Wilma Davidson are two of the most gracious people we have met. Jan and I are so grateful for their hospitality and so impressed by their influence in Ireland. They are truly spiritual parents of the Irish AoG.