Celtic Worship

River Road offers a monthly worship service fashioned in the Celtic tradition. It is held in the evening of the third Sunday of each month at 5:00 pm.

Our Celtic services include the lighting of votives, a Ministry of Healing, and Holy Communion. The bulletin insert detailing our customs at River Road regarding some of these practices is available. Additional monthly inserts from the Celtic Worship bulletins provide details about Celtic tradition, saints, and practices. All are available as PDF.

FAQs about Celtic Christianity and Worship

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What is “Celtic” Christianity?
  • Our church, like most mainline Western churches, is influenced by Latin Christianity and its Reformation offshoots. There are, however, other streams of Christian tradition. One of those is Celtic Christianity, which developed in Ireland after Patrick carried Christianity to Ireland in 432 A.D.
  • The Celts loved nature, preferred oral tradition rather than writing and reading, took delight in stories and heroes, engaged their imaginations and all their senses to view the world, and formed themselves into communities or tribes. These enabled them to embrace Christianity with its parables, stories, saints, poetry, songs, visual symbols and community. They took to the word of God and preserved the Bible, welcomed Christ and the saints as their new heroes, connected with nature and creation as sacred and emphasized relationships and the equal giftedness of women and men, cleric and laity.
  • For more historical information, see below: "Who are the Celts in Christian History?"
Why a Celtic worship service?
  • There are many paths to God. Our faith is stimulated when we open ourselves to worship in ways that are unfamiliar to us, but which connect us with other streams of Christianity around the world. A Celtic worship service is an alternative to our familiar way of worship on Sunday mornings.
What happens in a Celtic service? How is it different?
  • Most worship services are “proclamation-centered,” that is, a sermon is a central feature of worship. A Celtic service is contemplative. There is no sermon. Our Celtic Evensong and Communion will allow worshippers to encounter God through prayers, poetry, litanies, scripture readings, music and silence. The music will include solos and hymns, and will be accompanied by harp, flute, strings, guitar and piano. Our guide to receiving Holy Communion will help orient you on what to expect at the service, including a Ministry of Healing which has been incorporated into the service.
Is Celtic worship consistent with River Road’s identity?
  • Yes. Our goal is to create a service in which Christians of different denominational backgrounds can join together to worship God. We want the service to be conducted with beauty, reverence and excellence. Few Baptist churches use Celtic worship, so River Road’s service will fill a niche in larger Baptist community.
How does this fit the goals of our Strategy Plan?
  • This service aligns with the Strategy Plan’s goal “to use our strength in creating quality worship experiences, and to consider different venues, forms and sizes of worship to appeal to people within our church and our community.” The Worship Team has discussed the Celtic service and believes it will be a wonderful addition to the worship life of our church.
Who are the Celts in Christian History?
  • "Historically Speaking" by Barbara Jackson, Chair, History Committee
  • Most educated Westerners study the sources of Western civilization in the Hebrew, Greek and Roman models of the Mediterranean, but few of us are exposed to the stories of the ancient Europeans, their history or archaeology. That sad fact is changing as we recognize the role of the Celtic people in preserving Christian faith.
  • The Celts could be called the original Europeans. Thousands of years before Christ, the Celts were a tribe of Caucasians who flourished across most of central Europe. They were a warrior people who excelled in metalworking during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age and gained wealth through control of the salt deposits near present-day Austria. Over time the Celts were invaded and overrun by the same barbarian forces that ultimately, centuries later, unseated the Roman Empire. In essence, the cultural entity known as Celts were pushed westward, forming settlements along the Atlantic coast of Europe and in Britain. They were the ancestors of modern-day Irish, Scots, Welsh, Bretons (Brittany in France), and Cornish (in England). Their language is preserved in today’s Erse, Gaelic, Welsh, and dialects of the smaller islands and enclaves.
  • Across the centuries Britain was invaded and settled by Angles and Saxons, by Vikings and Danes, by the Romans (A.D. first century) and later the Normans to create the immigrant nation we know now as England—and in the process the native Celts pushed westward. The Welsh and Scots retreated to their mountain strongholds and the Irish to their island to relative isolation and managed to retain elements of the Celtic culture. Such cultural identifiers include a distinctive artistic and literary tradition, fierce sense of independence and passion for freedom, acceptance for women’s leadership, an innate spirituality, and a love of land and sea. Over time the peoples became Christianized along with the rest of Europe. There were identifiable Christian churches in Ireland prior to the missionary activity of Patrick in mid-fifth century.
  • In his book, How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995), Thomas Cahill identifies our debt to the Celtic tradition. Patrick’s gift was the “first de-Romanized Christianity in human history,” that is to say, without the sociopolitical flavor of Rome, without human conflict and war, without human slavery and sacrifice. Irish sensibilities prevailed: a love of life along with a melding of pagan traditions (such as Christmas and Halloween).
  • Patrick recognized, however, the need for a literate clergy and Latin was retained as the language of the church. He was instrumental in the establishment of monasteries. The monasteries became centers of prosperity, scholarship, art and learning. The Irish enshrined literacy as a religious virtue and laboriously copied the scriptures. It was in that setting that the Irish artistic tradition was cultivated and perfected. Early illuminated manuscripts demonstrate the Irish unbroken line, interlacing and knots, playful animals in vibrant colors, and the use of the initial to indicate headings and subhead. Those early monasteries were the forerunners of universities and libraries and helped preserve documents of ancient learning.
  • History records the work of other Irish monks. Columcille, known as Columba, founded monasteries throughout Ireland and paved the way for other monks to spread monasticism into Scotland and barbarian Europe. Columbanus (died 615) left a legacy of over 60 monasteries in Europe whose monks reintroduced classical learning to Europe. Even today pilgrims flock to holy places in Ireland, to Iona, an island off the coast of Scotland, and to other remote shrines that continue to preserve the ancient values. They remind us that the Celtic church, even before the Reformation, stood for principles of freedom and equality, a holistic faith for a whole person.