Aidan of Lindisfarne

I celebrated my 35th birthday a few years ago in northeastern England with Mark and Juliette Birch-Machin. They treated me to a day on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, an important site in the history of Christianity in England. I was reminded of this special day in reading about St. Aidan today in Michael Mitton's Restoring the Woven Cord: Strands of Celtic Christianity for the Church Today (Darton, Longman and Todd: London, 1993).

The community at Iona held a conference to work out what to do next. Present at this conference was an Irish monk called Aidan, who listened intently to Corman's report. He then rose and said to Corman, "Brother, it seems to me that you were too severe on your ignorant hearers. You should have followed the practice of the Apostles, and begun by giving them the milk of simpler teaching, and gradually nourrished them with the word of God." When Aidan had finished speaking, the conference fell into silence and all eyes were on him. They sensed that there was a clear call of God on Aidan to go and evangelise the English, and so without further ado, he was duly consecrated bishop and sent off with the prayers and blessings of the Iona monastery. (p. 13)

Aidan was consecrated in 635 at Bamburgh on the Northumbria and met King Oswald at Bamburgh on the Northumbrian coast. A few miles north of Bamburgh lies the tidal island of Lindisfarne, and here Aidan formed a mission base of Christian people who were trained in teaching and evangelism. This was one of the most effective misison bases England has ever seen. Here Aidan stayed, overseeing the community, setting up other communities in the north-east and training people like Hilda and Chad and his brothers. (p. 13)

Aidan's ministry in England is significant not so much for what he did but more for the kind of person he was, and for the kind of Christian spirituality and witness he modelled, which was to deeply impress the British people and would affect the Celtic church in England for several generations. (p. 14, bold mine)

The Celtic approach...was more gentle and humble [than the Roman approach] and therefore altogether more sensitive to the people it was directed towards. Aidan's gentle personality and spirituality were the key to the mission. He was a man who had an infectious holiness, which, far from making him remote and other worldly, enabled him to mix with all kinds of people and to understand their world. They could believe in his message because he was a person whose life-style was transparently attractive to all who were seeking God. In Aidan we see the Beatitudes displayed in his life. (p. 16, bold mine)

I think that ministry in the post-modern world will require more Aidans and Aidan-style ministries that are authentic and simple (but not simplistic), rather than necessarily perfect or slick in their public performance.