March 16, 2026
We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints. Your faith and love have arisen from the hope laid up for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. You learned the gospel from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave—a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf— who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
Colossians 1:3-8 (NET)
This month, as we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, we can draw meaningful leadership lessons from Celtic Christianity. When Patrick began sharing the gospel with the peoples of Ireland in the mid‑fifth century (a people who had once enslaved him), he entered a culture shaped by imagery, symbol, and the natural rhythms of the land. The ancient Celts lived in an enchanted world, steeped in stories of many deities and convinced that groves, rivers, hills, stones, and lakes were alive with spiritual presence. Their theology shaped their anthropology, which shaped their sociology. As Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil puts it, “What we believe about God will tell us what we believe about people; and what we believe about people will tell us what kinds of communities and societies we believe we should strive to create.”
Celtic beliefs permeated every dimension of life, intertwining land, community, and the sacred. Because their religion was both polytheistic and animistic, the Celts treated the natural world with reverence, their festivals ordered the agricultural year, and their kingship carried sacred responsibility for the land’s wellbeing. Warfare, law, and diplomacy were guided by ritual and the authority of Druids, while art and storytelling expressed a worldview rooted in interconnectedness and spiritual presence. Religion was not a compartment of life; it was the atmosphere they breathed.
Patrick and the early missionaries understood this world well. They lived among the people and repurposed familiar symbols to tell a different story, the story of a benevolent God who reigned above all powers and authorities, a God whose reign is marked by kindness and love. While the Celts worshipped many gods, several appeared in threefold forms, such as the Three Mothers or Brigid the triple goddess. The Celts loved triads because they saw the world as woven together in patterns of balance, relationship, and interdependence. Threeness helped them hold unity and diversity together without collapsing mystery. So, when the triquetra (pictured here) emerged in Celtic Christian art around the seventh century, with its three interwoven arcs and a continuous, unbroken line, it became a natural symbol for the Christian confession of one God who eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Over time, this Trinitarian theology reshaped Celtic anthropology and the societies they built around the Triune God.
Paul takes a similar approach in Colossians 1. He reminds the believers that if they worship Christ, their life together must reflect Christ. Their theology must shape their anthropology and sociology. Paul uses precise Trinitarian language—Father, Son, and Spirit—and notes that the Spirit’s presence is revealed in their love for one another (v. 8). Because they belong to this divine community, they are being renewed in Christ’s image. In chapter 3, Paul calls them to put off behaviors that fracture community and to put on mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, virtues that reflect their new identity as God’s beloved people.
In chapter 1, Paul summarizes these virtues as faith, hope, and love. These identify a people who belong to the Triune God. Where these qualities grow, the gospel is bearing fruit.
The leadership lesson is simple: how you lead reveals the God you worship. Leadership shaped by mercy, kindness, compassion, and gentleness reflects the life of the Triune God at work within you. Leadership marked by dominance, harshness, or disloyalty reveals a very different object of worship.
What does your leadership say about who—or what—you worship? Is your faith in Christ producing love for your people and your mission? Does it shape your words, actions, and decisions so that mission and people are never pitted against each other? Do you make hospitable space at the leadership table for diverse people, perspectives, and personalities? And do you persevere in love and good deeds, even when it is difficult, because your faith in Christ is producing in you a hope stored up for you in heaven?
