Exponential Celts

Okay, okay, I'll bite. I'm writing less out of a feeling of guilt and more out of a feeling of insomnia. Must. Sleep. Soon. Anyway, moving on.

Jess, this sounds like an amazing book. I can see that you're really excited about it. And when I first read what you had to say about it, I thought of how that philosophy of evangelism applies to my own life. I mean, the best experiences I've had, sharing the Truth with believers and non-believers, have been all tied up in relationships. That's what the Celtic people were doing, wasn't it? Living together, working together, hashing out the hard parts of faith together. I know that there are documented cases of people's lives being changed at the Calgary revival or the Brownsville revival or any number of other movements, but the most drastic cases of change I've seen have been because of one person investing in one person. Maybe it's because I've never been good at dividing my attention in lots of different directions, but I've got to minister that way. When I try to spread it too thin across lots of different people, I just end up not helping anyone and burning myself out in the process.

I like the idea of planting the church, watching it grow, making disciples, and then moving on. The Celts had it right: they were equipping the next generation of believers to make the next generation of believers. By pouring into a few and encouraging them to invest in another group of people, they created exponential growth. By taking some new believers with them to the next church plant, they gave them ownership over their faith, their church, and their style of evangelism. No wonder Christianity spread the way it did in Ireland. They were spreading the Truth on a personal level.

The most amazing thing I can ever see is one of the girls I've mentored mentoring another girl. I've tried to keep in touch with "my girls," the ones I've known since they were in the seventh grade and I taught their junior high Sunday school class for one summer. Those girls graduated from high school this year and I don't know, it chokes me up a little bit. They're growing up and moving on and impacting people in a huge way. Seeing the six years of growth in those girls makes my heart grow like the Grinch's, but it also brings me closer to Jesus. It was by his grace that I was ever able to pour into those girls in the first place. It's him who inhabits those girls, and I am so knocked flat by the fact he chose me to be there to listen to them and pray with them and bumble through growing up with them. That's been the exponential growth in my life. While I was pouring in to girls, Jesus was pouring in to me. I've grown just as much as they have. So it's kind of a back and forth when it comes to evangelism- I may have shared with them, but what I got in return was tenfold whatever little tidbits they got from me.

There: my tiny thoughts, served with plastic ware. "You bought me plastic ware? You love me!" To paraphrase Dexter.