On March 17, Americans celebrate St. Patrick\u2019s Day. Cities like Pittsburgh celebrate with parades. Revelers will indulge in Irish-themed food and drinks, even beer that\u2019s been artificially dyed green. Amusing and entertaining as these festivities may be, they reveal little to us of the glorious ways God moved through humble Patrick\u2019s life and ministry.<\/p>\n
Like St. Nicholas \u2013 the fourth-century bishop who rescued impoverished girls from prostitution, but whom the world has transformed into Santa Claus \u2013 St. Patrick was a saint whose original story of holiness we need to hear afresh today. The real St. Patrick was a man of prayer and discipline as well as an evangelist who baptized \u2013 by his own account \u2013 \u201cmany thousands of people.\u201d[1] And that means that St. Patrick sets a valuable example for those of us who seek to start and lead new churches today.<\/p>\n
Based upon St. Patrick\u2019s autobiography, his Confession, <\/em>here are five lessons which Patrick can teach us:<\/p>\n In light of these aspects of Patrick\u2019s life, leaders of church plants and new worshiping communities today would do well to ask ourselves a few questions:<\/p>\n Patrick\u2019s world was not that different from our own, and Patrick\u2019s ministry was fruitful not because he became like the world around him, but because he pursued God with zeal and unflinching devotion. May God give us the humility, prayerfulness, and faithfulness of the real St. Patrick.<\/p>\n [1]\u00a0St. Patrick\u2019s Confession<\/em>, as printed in Readings in World Christian History: Vol. I: Earliest Christianity to 1453<\/em>, eds. John W. Coakley and Andrea Sterk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 2004) p. 223<\/p>\n [2]\u00a0Confession<\/em> p. 225<\/p>\n [3]\u00a0Confession<\/em> \u00a0p. 227<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Rev. Christopher Brown moved to Pittsburgh from Colorado to pursue a master of divinity (MDiv) degree at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He currently serves as the coordinator of the Church Planting initiative at the Seminary along with pursuing his master\u2019s in\u00a0theology. Chris is the organizing co-pastor of The Upper Room Presbyterian Church, a church plant of the PC (U.S.A.) in Pittsburgh\u2019s Squirrel Hill neighborhood.\u00a0He regularly blogs at https:\/\/christopherbrown.wordpress.com<\/a> and tweets at @brwnchrstpher<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On March 17, Americans celebrate St. Patrick\u2019s Day. Cities like Pittsburgh celebrate with parades. Revelers will indulge in Irish-themed food and drinks, even beer that\u2019s been artificially dyed green. Amusing and entertaining as these festivities may be, they reveal little to us of the glorious ways God moved through humble Patrick\u2019s life and ministry. Like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[98,96,97],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-planting","tag-new-church-development","tag-st-patrick","tag-st-patricks-day"],"yoast_head":"\r\n\n
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