St. Patrick and Missions … (March 2025 Update)
When people think of St. Patrick’s Day, they generally think of leprechauns and wearing something green. In fact, today St. Patrick’s Day has been transformed into celebrating anything Irish. But originally, St. Patrick’s Day was about a celebration of the gospel advancing to reach an unreached people group. It was about bringing God’s grace to a group of people who had not heard the gospel. It was about missions.
St. Patrick’s Day became a church feast day in the early 17th century to remember Patrick’s fifth-century mission to share the gospel with Ireland. Unlike the neighboring island of Britain, many considered Ireland to be a land of uncivilized barbarians who would never respond to the gospel. But Patrick believed they needed the gospel too. By a strange twist of God’s providence, Patrick was kidnapped by Irish raiders at age 16, and enslaved among them where he learned their language and their culture.
During his six years in slavery, he meditated on the things his family had taught him about Christ (he had rejected Christianity in his teens) and came to a saving faith in Christ. One night, Patrick received a vision in a dream that a boat was waiting to take him back to Britain. He decided to escape his slavery and walked nearly 200 miles until he reached a coastal port. There was indeed a boat in the harbor, and he convinced the captain to take him back to England.
He studied for the ministry and served as a pastor in Britain for nearly 20 when he began to contemplate “retirement.” At age 48 (most men did not even live past 48 in the fifth century), he had another vision in a dream that was similar to Paul’s Macedonian Call (Acts 16) in which a man in an Irish accent spoke to him: “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.”
Even though Ireland was a very difficult land with much pagan opposition to the gospel, Patrick spread the gospel and started churches all over Ireland. He reportedly saw over 120,000 converts to Christ and established over 300 churches during his ministry there. In fact, many of his converts were Druid priests – the pagan religion most hostile to Christianity. Patrick’s commitment and perseverance in spreading the gospel across a hostile land serve as a testament to his faith and determination. His remarkable ministry not only transformed the spiritual landscape of Ireland but also left a lasting legacy that continues to inspire believers today.
What lessons can we learn today from the ministry of St. Patrick?
- Missions rests upon the transforming power of the gospel. Remember that when Patrick he was just 16 years old, he was stolen from his home and forced to work as a slave in Ireland for 6 years. I’m sure he often thought about revenge toward these terrible captors. But after he came to Christ, he began to see that these people needed a savior too. In his later life, he received a call from God in a dream to return to them and share the gospel. Only the power of the gospel could transform and change his heart.
- Missions takes extraordinary courage. For Patrick to return to the land of his capturers is remarkable. But for him to make a commitment to share the gospel with a bunch of “barbarian warriors” and “hostile warlords” required a willingness to risk everything for the sake of the gospel. He wrote in Confessions, “As every day arrives, I expect either sudden death or deception, or being taken back as a slave or some such other misfortune. But I fear none of these, since I look to the promise of heaven and have flung myself into the hands of the all-powerful God, who rules as Lord everywhere.” Missionaries need to be willing to trust their lives completely into the hands of the Lord.
- Missions requires contextualizing the gospel. In Acts 17:23, the Apostle Paul pointed to an “unknown God” that was effectively part of the pagan worship of the Athenians and pointed them toward the one true God. Likewise, St. Patrick shared the Gospel with the Celts by pointing to objects in nature –- like the shamrock — to explain spiritual principles. Since the Irish Druids worshipped nature, he often used nature and other common points to start gospel conversations.
- Missions requires time with the people. In his book, The Celtic Way of Evangelism, George Hunter notes what made Patrick’s ministry so effective:
“The fact that Patrick understood the people and their language, their issues, and their ways, serves as the most strategically significant single insight that was to drive the wider expansion of Celtic Christianity, and stands as perhaps our greatest single learning from this movement. There is no shortcut to understanding the people. When you understand the people, you will often know what to say and do, and how. When the people know that the Christians understand them, they infer that maybe the High God understands them too.”
- Missions requires teamwork. When Paul went on his missionary journeys, he always took a team of people with him. That seems to be the pattern in all early missionary journeys. Patrick sent believers and “missionaries” out in teams. These teams typically had about a dozen members who would travel together from tribe to tribe, sharing the Gospel and discipling people. After they established a work among one tribe, Patrick’s team would leave a few people behind to continue discipling the new believers and take some of the new believers along with the team, learning and discipling as they went. In this way, Patrick was able to leave behind strong churches led by mature believers.
- Missions requires humility. Missionaries, above all else, need to remember that their work depends not on themselves, but upon God. Missionary work, especially to an unreached people group, is really an impossible task. As Patrick ministered in Ireland for over 30 years, his reputation grew — and he became renowned as a leader. Yet through it all, Patrick maintained attitudes of humility, and gratitude. He wrote, “I know for certain, that before I was humbled, I was like a stone lying in deep mire, and he that is mighty [God] came and, in his mercy, raised me up and, indeed, lifted me high up and placed me on top of the wall. And from there I ought to shout out in gratitude to the Lord for his great favors in this world and forever, that the mind of man cannot measure.” Patrick never forgot that all he was and all the success he had came only from God. It kept him humble and kept him useful to the Kingdom of God.
As you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year, you might wear green or even eat corned beef and cabbage. But remember, St. Patrick’s Day is not about any of these things. It is about the mission of God, sending redeemed sinners to a lost world. St. Patrick is a wonderful example of biblical missions.
Opportunities to Serve and Teach …
Last month, I assisted Dima (one of my former students) as he taught Theology 1 at Kyiv Theological Seminary. I met with him and the students to discuss their questions over Zoom at the end of his teaching. The students had many relevant questions, especially some about the problem of evil in our world and how to respond to it. Dima did such a good job with the class that he has been asked to teach the same class at Odessa Theological Seminary too. I will be helping him with this too.
In May, I will be helping Natasha Chikota (also a former student) teach the Research and Critical Thinking class that we have been teaching for the last 14 years. Be praying for her as she prepares. This is a massive class with a lot of preparation. But it is one of the most helpful classes for seminary students.
Katya and I are continuing to help with GlobalServe International (GSI). GSI continues to train and send missionaries to restricted access countries where there are unreached people groups. This is a very difficult, long-term type of missions. Most of our missionaries will be on the field 18-20 years, learning a tribal language, translating scriptures and planting an indigenous church. It is also dangerous work since GSI workers only serve in countries where missionaries are not permitted. Here is a short update from a missionary to a country on the ancient Silk Route. (We cannot mention the persons or the country because of security concerns).
“Recently, I landed in this new country in Central Asia; it didn’t take long for me to be struck by the immensity of the needs—spiritual and physical—it was evident from the calls to prayer and the people living on the street that this was a very deprived place!
“Evaluating what gospel and church-planting work was already happening there was more complicated. We had organized some contacts with representatives of other organizations to talk with other workers about the state of the church and what outreach was going on. In a short time, the amount of in-person data we could gather was limited, but it was certainly enough to see immense gaps in what was being targeted in terms of healthy church planting.
“Very little was being done in the minority languages – often GSI workers are targeting unreached language groups with 100,000 speakers. However, in this country, there were multiple groups with millions of speakers without a healthy church!”
Pray for GSI workers, like this family, to be able to find ways to reach out in a culture and a language group currently without access to the gospel. Also be praying for a GSI workers gathering in Thailand in May where missionaries will come for training and rest. I won’t be going this year but pray for other staff who will be traveling there.
I am also continuing to learn how I can help GSI organize and train missionaries on the field and “care teams” here in the states. In January, I talked with one of the directors and they want me to design a training program for caring for missionaries. This will require developing training for three levels: for local churches, for missionaries on the field and for members of the GSI Care Team. I will be meeting again this month to find out what are the most pressing needs so I can work on creating this program. Pray for me. While I have been a missionary, my teaching has been mostly in theology and history. Missions is a new area for me, so I have a lot to learn. I am reading lots of books on missions just trying to catch up so I can be more helpful!
Family …
The last 3 months, we have been busy preparing for our garden. It has been quite an undertaking! We had to have a fence large enough to keep out the many deer families that roam in our yard as well as a number of other animals. We also needed to figure out how to water our garden. We decided that the most cost effective means would be to capture rainwater for the garden. So, we build a rainwater collection system for our irrigation using inexpensive pickle barrels (cleaned out of course). The girls “helped” by rolling the barrels around to clean them out. We hope to finish our system this week.
In addition to having a garden, we are also going to try having our own beehive. We ordered a kit and assembled it and painted it. Hopefully we’ll be getting our bees in a few weeks.
Our girls had a special sleepover with some friends they met when we lived at LightBearers a couple years ago. All the girls even got to have some fun rolling on the water barrels! The next day, we all went to a Homeschool event at the JB Hunt Nature Center where the girls were able to try their hand at archery.
Pray for Ukraine …
Please continue to pray for Ukraine. Putin has increased its missile attacks on civilians to show how much Russia really wants peace. Ukraine has agreed to a 30-day ceasefire, but so far Russia is not willing to sign unless they get even more concessions from Ukraine. In spite of the fact that Ukraine has more than held its own for the last three years against the 2nd strongest army in the world. Ukraine is being treated like a defeated country and being asked to give concessions and territory for peace. Russia is not being asked to give anything. Pray that there will be peace in Ukraine – but a peace that is both just and lasting.
In spite of the ongoing war, our students and friends continue to minister to people suffering from the war. Our seminaries continue to meet and train more pastors and leaders for the church in Ukraine. Please pray for them as they minister under difficult circumstances.
Thank you for your prayers for us. We continue to train students and pastors in Ukraine, and we are working on helping with missionaries in NWA as well as around the world (through GSI). We are so grateful that we have been able to serve the Lord in this capacity for almost 30 years now. Pray that we can continue to be effective for the Kingdom of God in the coming years too!
By His Grace,
Jim and Katya, Kristina and Nadia
If you missed previous updates or just want to read some short theological reflections, you can find these at our website at https://teachingresources.org/ .
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