The Celts had an interesting strategy for outreach. They built apostle centers! Catholic historians call them monasteries, but they were not what we usually think of when we hear that word. In a Celtic monastery, for example, the monks and priest were allowed to get married and have children.

In the Catholic Church, monasteries were places of seclusion to escape the world. Celtic “monasteries,” on the other hand, were designed to penetrate the world. The Celts moved into a pagan territory and established a Celtic monastery as a beachhead.

Celtic “monasteries” were apostolic training centers. They taught the Bible, ministered in power, and sent out teams to transform the territory.

One of the teams send out from Ire]and was led by an apostle named Columba. Columba was a Christian, born of noble parents, in Donegal, Ireland. In 563, Columba left Ireland with 12 followers (an apostolic team). They sailed to Scotland and established an apostolic center on the small rocky island of Iona. At the apostolic center on Iona, new converts were taught to read and study the Bible, and minister in supernatural power. They practiced intense intercession, they observed Sabbath and Passover, and they maintained continual 24/7 praise.

Columba was much like Patrick in his mission work and his contests with the Druids. He is reported to have changed water into wine, stilled a storm, purified wells, brought down rain, changed winds, driven out demons, and raised the dead to life. Iona served as a base for the evangelization of page Scots and Picks. Through a ministry of preaching, demon expulsion, and miracles, Columba and his followers won all of Northern Scotland to the Lord in a very short time.

From Iona apostolic centers were founded all over Scotland and England. They established one center on the Island of Lindisfarne just off the northeast coast of England. It is still called “Holy Island” today. From there they travelled south to Whitby and established an apostolic center designed to reach all of England.

How did the Celtic Church die? The death of the Celtic Church took place at Whitby in England. At the Council of Whitby in 664, the Celtic Church submitted to political pressure to come under the authority of the paganize Roman Church. The key issue at Whitby was whether the Church should observe Roman Easter or Christian Passover.

Whitby was a third generation apostolic center. It had great potential. Its apostolic leader was a godly woman named Hilda. It was also the home of the prophetic psalmist, Caedmon. But as the Celtic Church was entering England from the north, the first Roman Catholic missionaries were coming in from the east. The problem was the the King’s wife had become a Catholic.

The King Brough together representatives from the Celtic Church and the Catholic Church to meet with him at the Council of Whitby. The Catholic Church sent skilled debaters who argued that the whole church worldwide had given up Passover in favour of Easter. They asked, “Who do these Celts think they are to oppose the whole Body of Christ on earth!” The King was swayed by their arguments and ordered the Celtic Church to give up Passover and become a part of the Catholic Church. When they did this the Celtic Church died.

Some of the Celtic leaders refused to give in. A few retreated to Ireland. Some went back to Iona and continued the apostolic center there for another 50 years. In the year 717 King Nechtan drove the Celtic leaders out of Iona and turned it into a Catholic monastery.

But most of the Celtic Church submitted to the king. They gave up Passover. They gave up Shabbat. They gave up fivefold ministry and their biblical heritage. The result was that the Spirit of God departed.

If you want to know where and when the early church died, it died in the year 664 in Whitby, England. The site of Whitby today is occupied by the ruins of a 12th Century Catholic monastery.

Whitby should have been a place filled with life, but if you go there today, you find it inundated by darkness. Whitby is one of the darkest places in England. Whitby was designed to be an apostolic centre where the power of God could radiate throughout the land. Instead it has become a centre for evil. Whitby today is a major hub of Goth culture, the celebration of vampires, witchcraft, Satanism, and death.

God wants us to remember that for hundreds of years the Celtic Church equipped the saints to minister, winning the lost through signs, wonders, and miracles. It was the last place on earth to operate in the power of the Early Church.

God wants to restore all of this to us today as He establishes regional apostolic centers in every nation.

Patrick had a passion for the Kingdom … not just a passion for lost

A passion for the lost can lead to getting notches on your Bible. You may get some “decisions,” but there is often little change, but a passion for the Kingdom is an apostolic vision to transform a territory.
A passion for the lost is pastoral and often driven by guilt, but passion for the Kingdom is apostolic and is driven by vision.
A passion for the lost sends people to isolated places to lay down their lives with little fruit, but a passion for the Kingdom sends out apostolic teams, with the authority to change nations.
A passion for the lost holds meetings and invited people to attend, but a passion for the Kingdom builds communities where the power and the glory of God is manifested in the earth.
A passion for the lost wins converts and then goes to the next city to win more, but a passion for the Kingdom builds apostolic centers to equip the converts, so that can be sent out to take new cities.
A passion for the lost is good but it often does not produce lasting fruit, but a passion for the Kingdom is God’s strategy and results in many lost being saved.

We live in a day of restoration. In the early years of the 20th Century, God restored the gift of tongues and healing. In later decades, He restored prophecy and apostleship. Today He is restoring the ministry of regional apostolic centers and the fullness of the fivefold ministry.

A major key to the expansion and growth of the Early Church was the establishment of apostolic centers. Every time the Church penetrated into a new area or ethnic group, it established a beachhead for the gospel. It was a teaching and training center that gave every Christian access to the fivefold ministry. These were apostolic regional centers or regional churches.

When people are trained and equipped, then miracles becomes common. Origen, in the 3rd Century, described the Church in his day this way, “Even recently converted pagans can heal. Greeks and barbarians who come to believe in Jesus sometimes perform amazing cures by invoking the Name of Jesus.”

Irenaeus, in 195, wrote that prophetic words, tongues, miracles of healing were common in the Church. Then he added that the Church frequently saw people raised from the dead, through the prayers of believers, ordinary Christians. The result was a massive harvest of souls for the Kingdom and the Church growing substantially. By the 4th Century the Church had spread all over the Roman Empire and beyond.

But then, the Church died. The Emperor Constantine seduced the church to compromise and merge with the pagan Roman culture. As paganism entered the Church, God’s Holy Spirit left and the Church died.

In the centuries after Constantine, a shroud of death spread across the Church. By the 6th Century the Early Church only survived where the Roman armies could not enforce Constantine’s edicts. The last remnant of the Early Church was the Celtic Church in Scotland and Ireland.

The Celtic Church was the last surviving outpost of early Christianity. In Celtic lands, apostles like Patrick and Columba continued for centuries to heal the sick, raises the dead, and equip the saints to minister. The last major apostolic center was located on a little Scottish isle called Iona. If we can understand what God did on that little island, it will give us a better picture of what God wants to do today.

To understand Iona, it is helpful to know a little background on Celtic Christianity. The key person in the Celtic Church was Patrick of Ireland. When most people think of Patrick, they assume they know two things about him: He was Catholic, and he was Irish. Actually, he was neither. Patrick was born in Roman Britain about 389, and although raised in a Christian family, Patrick was a prodigal who did not follow Jesus. At age 16, he was captured by Irish raiders and sold into slavery in Ireland.

Sitting on an Irish hillside tending his master’s sheep, the young slave Patrick remembered what he had been taught as a child and turned to God. He said, “Constantly I used to pray in the daytime. Love for God and His fear increased more and more. My faith grew and my spirit was stirred up. In a single day I said as many as a hundred prayers, and at night nearly as many. Before the dawn I used to wake up to prayer.”

Finally God spoke prophetically to Patrick and told him to return home. He ran away, found passage on a ship, and returned home to Britain where for several years he devoted himself to the study of the Bible. Finally, God spoke to him again and told him to return to Ireland and win the land for Jesus. What Patrick did in Ireland changed the world. In 30 years of ministry, he converted the whole land from paganism to Christianity and overturned the religion of the Druids.

Like earlier apostles, Patrick operated in the working of miracles – one of the nine supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. One historian wrote of Patrick, “The blind and the lame, the deaf and the dumb, the palsy, the lunatic, the leprous, the epileptic, all who laboured under any disease, did he in the name of the Holy Trinity restore unto entire health, and these good deeds he was daily practiced.” The report goes on to say, “33 dead men did this great reviver raise from the dead.”

“When Patrick came to Dublin, it happened that in the region nearby the young son of the King lay dead in his chamber. The sorrow over his death was compounded when it was learned that his sister who had gone to bathe in the neighbouring river had drowned mid-stream. Her body was finally found resting on the riverbed, and it was laid out beside that of her brother. Tombs were prepared for both according to the pagan custom. And at this sorrowful time, the rumours spread that Patrick, who in the name of the unknown God had raised many that were dead, had arrived in the village. The King Alphimus promised that he, his nobles, and the whole city would be baptized into the new faith if his two children were restored. Patrick seeing the opportunity for a great gain of souls raised them both to life.”

An old Irish code of law describes Patrick’s ministry at Tara this way, “When they saw Laeghaire and his Druids overcome by the great signs and miracles wrought in the presence of the men of Erin, they bowed down in obedience to God and Patrick.”

Patrick wrote, “The Lord has given unto me, though humble, the power of working miracles among a barbarous people.”

At the end of his life he wrote, “Wherefore those in Ireland who never had the knowledge of God but until now only worshipped idols and abominations, from them has been lately prepared a people of the Lord and they are called children of God.”

What we need to see is that Patrick is not a mythical figure. He did not drink green beer. He did not chase snakes out of Ireland. He was not a Catholic saint. He was a man who walked in apostolic Christianity, operated in the power of God, and saw a nation transformed. History confirms that a totally pagan nation was completely changed in his lifetime.

Where did Patrick’s Christianity come from? We know he was not Catholic because he lived 200 years before the first Roman Catholic missionaries came to the British Isles. Two hundred years after Patrick’s death, a Catholic historian wrote a bogus history that said Patrick went to Rome and the Pope sent him to Ireland. Even Catholic historians admit that never happened.

Another reason we know Patrick was not a Roman Catholic is because the church he planted was not a Catholic Church. The Celtic Church did not believe what Catholics believed. They did not believe in purgatory. They did not submit to the Pope. They honoured Mary but did not pray to her. Priests baptized believers by immersion. They observed Passover and Sabbath. They placed a strong emphasis on equipping the saints to do the work of ministry.

Some have suggested that Patrick’s Christianity is more closely aligned with the Eastern Church than the Roman Church – that Patrick was somehow connected to the church in Egypt or Syria or Greece.

So Patrick is an example of early Christianity. He equipped the saints! He trained the pagan Irish to minister in the power of God. He raised up Irish apostles. Other Celtic apostles include Brigid, who was a woman, Brendon, Colomba, Comgall, and many others. They operated in the power of the Early Church as seen in the book of Acts. They trained disciples and they evangelized Europe.

How did the Gospel of the Kingdom penetrate this huge, cosmopolitan city?

The truth is, we don’t know!

The New Testament never tells us when the church in Rome was started (founded). And, it never tells us who started the church.

Acts 2:10 tells us that on the Day of Pentecost, visitors from Rome were present in Jerusalem. Some of them may have been among the 3,000 who were saved that day

After being discipled in Jerusalem for a season, they would have returned to Rome and started a church. Following the pattern they learned in Jerusalem, they probably met together in a home, ate together, praised God together, prayer for each other, and exercised their spiritual gifts. All in a local house church.

As they ministered in the power of the Spirit, the house church would have grown and multiplied – meeting in two houses instead of one. From two it went to four and then to eight. Apostles and prophets and teachers (1 Corinthians 12:28) came in and began to equip the saints to minister. Soon there were house churches started all over the city of Rome. By the time Paul arrived, there were probably hundreds of them.

So, when we read about Paul going to Rome, we need to remember that Paul did not start the church at Rome. There was already a large population of Christians in the city when he arrived.

Paul was not even the first apostle in Rome. When he wrote the book of Romans several years earlier, he sent greetings to two apostles in Rome, Andronicus and Junia (Romans 16:7). So the Roman church was already an apostolic center before Paul arrived to visit and encourage the saints. Rome had apostles before Paul’s first visit. They were already equipping the saints to minister. In Romans 1:8 Paul tells the Romans, “Your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.” This is being an apostolic center.

If the church in Rome was already planted and already had apostles, why did Paul need to go to Rome?

In Romans 1, Paul tells the Romans, “I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be strengthened.” The Roman church already had at least two apostles. Andronicus was a man; Junia was a woman. They may have been married. In Romans 16 Paul describes them. He says that were his kinsman. They were Messianic Jews. They had grown up with the rich heritage of the Word.
Paul says that Andronicus and Junia had both been in the Lord longer than he. They knew Jesus before Paul was even saved. They may have even been part of the original three thousand added to the Church on the Day of Pentecost. Paul calls them “fellow prisoners.” They had both suffered for the Gospel.

Finally, Paul tells us that Andronicus and Junia were both outstanding among the apostles. They were well-known apostles in Paul’s day. They may have been the founders of the church in Rome.

But as good as Andronicus and Junia were, Paul knew that they could not give the Roman church everything it needed. No one minister or team has everything a church needs to be healthy. No one person can give you what you need to achieve your destiny in the Lord.

Paul knew that the people at Rome needed his gifts also. Paul told the Corinthian church that he planted, Apollos watered, and God caused the growth. In Rome just the opposite happened. Someone else had planted, but Paul wanted to come and water what was there. He believed that God would bring the increase. And, as we will see, God did!

He wanted to add his distinctive gifts to the mix, to help them to the next level. This is how apostolic centers work. Apostolic centers are places where the church can cross-pollinate. At an apostolic center, ministers from other locations can share their teaching, their resources and their impartation.

One of the big problems we have had in the modern church is that many pastors seem to want to build their own empire, instead of God’s Kingdom. They get possessive of their sheep and don’t allow others to come in to teach and minister. They see going to others for ministry as disloyal. This removes the ability for the church to cross-pollinate which is needed in every church for it to reach it’s full maturity (see Ephesians 4:11-16).

Paul writes to correct this wrong approach to ministry in 1 Corinthians 3:4-23. In Corinth, some of the Christians were dividing up, based on which apostle they liked best. One said, “I am of Paul.” One said, “I am of Apollos.” Someone else said, “I am of Peter.” And the super-religious said, “I am more spiritual than all of you! I am of Christ.” Paul rebukes them all. He told them, “All of the apostles belong to you. You need them all.”