Roland Allen: Part 2, His Missiology 9

This past week at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, I gave a lecture titled “Roland Allen: The Man, His Missiology, and Missions Today.”  In a blog post, it is impossible to discuss the depth of Allen’s missiology.  Therefore, what you are getting here is the Cliff’s Notes verison of the Cliff’s Notes. 🙂

Because I cannot do adequate justice to his missiology in 1000 words, I want to provide you with two other significant resources (at least the Cliff’s Notes 🙂 ) to give you a better understanding of Allen and his missiology.  HERE is the PowerPoint presentation of my lecture on campus and HERE is a link where you can download the corresponding lecture (the player on my site is not the best).  Let me warn you, the lecture is just over one hour in length–do not listen while operating heavy machinery. 

Allen was a prolific writer.  He wrote numerous books, pamphlets, and articles that were published in his lifetime.  I have compiled an extensive Roland Allen bibliography to assist you in better understanding him and his missiology as well. 

So, here goes my attempt to introduce you to his missiology. 

In order to understand Allen’s missiology, you need to know about the following four categories:

• Issue of Theology
• Issue of Devolution
• Role of the Missionary
• Concept of Spontaneous Expansion

Issue of Theology

Allen’s missionary methods are meaningless apart from his theology.  He believed that the Apostolic Church learned from Jesus. And the two significant areas of his theology that dynamically influenced his missiology were ecclesiology and pneumatology.

Concerning ecclesiology:  Allen believed that churches were to be indigenous (self-supporing, self-propagating, self-governing) from the moment they were birthed.  This also included the fact that even young churches were to be able to participate in the Euchrist, with their own leaders administering it. 

Concerning pneumatology: Allen’s missiology was supported by the conviction that all new believers (and thus new churches) had the indwelling Holy Spirit who would guide, protect, seal, sanctify, empower, and instruct those new believers.  For Allen, missionaries were to manifest a faith in the Holy Spirit to do what the Scriptures claimed He would do in the lives of the new churches.  Allen understood that most missionaries feared that new churches would quickly become corrupt, and therefore had to resort to paternalistic methods.

Issue of Devolution

Devolution was the practice whereby missionaries would over many years, “devolve” authority onto the local churches, so they could be and function as local churches.  This practice of paternalism usually resulted in a situation with the churches becoming dependent on the western missionaries for financial support, evangelism, leadership development, buildings, etc.

In his article, “Devolution: the Question of the Hour,” Allen argued strongly against this practice.  Turning to the Scriptures for support, as was his practice, he referenced the Apostle Paul:

“St. Paul, for instance, established a Church when he organized converts with their own proper officers, but he did not organize a Church and then later, and piece by piece, devolve an authority which at first the Church did not possess.  He devolved all necessary power and authority upon the Church when he established it. . . . When St. Paul had once established a Church there was nothing left to devolve.  We read nowhere of his going back to a Church and adding to its powers by devolving upon it some responsibility or authority which he had before kept in his own hands” (World Dominion 5 (1927): 278).

Role of the Missionary

The work of the missionary involved four critical practices:

• Priority on Evangelism
• Practice an Apostolic Approach
• Maintain the Ministration of the Spirit
• Manifest Missionary Faith

While Allen advocated works such as education and medical missions were good and necessary, he strongly believed the priority of all missionaries was to be that of evangelism, calling people to repentance and placing faith in Jesus alone for salvation.  Following in the pattern of the apostolic teams, missionaries were to enter into an area, do evangelism, plant churches, raise up leaders for those churches, and “retire” from the work in that area.  Missionaries following after an apostolic practice, were to leave behind the Scriptures, Creed, Sacraments, and Orders.  The “goal” of such missionaries was the “ministration” of the Spirit, to teach the new churches how to rely on the Spirit.  Maintaining the ministration of the Spirit was the way to avoid devolution.

In his article, “Mission Activities Considered in Relation to the Manifestation of the Spirit,” he wrote:

“Just as we ourselves only manifest spirit in our activities where those activities are free and spontaneous, not forced or governed or controlled . . . so those to whom we minister the Spirit can only show forth His power in their own free spontaneous activity.”   

Encompassing these three aforementioned critical aspects, the missionary had to manifest a missionary faith.  Such faith was what the missionaries placed in the Holy Spirit to do His work in sanctifying the churches.  This faith in the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish what the Scriptures taught about Him was the way missionaries would escape the fear that resulted in paternalism and prevented the spontaneous expansion of the Church.

The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church

While Allen was a High Church Anglican, he believed the Scriptures taught the Church could exist with very simple structures and organization.  For Allen, the spontaneous expansion of the church was a simple thing.  Yet, missionaries, following years of western tradition, had made it much more difficult than what he understood to be in the Scriptures.  In his book, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes Which Hinder It, he explained:

“This then is what I mean by spontaneous expansion. I mean the expansion which follows the unexhorted and unorganized activity of individual members of the Church explaining to others the Gospel which they have found for themselves; I mean the expansion which follows the irresistible attraction of the Christian Church for men who see its ordered life, and are drawn to it by desire to discover the secret of a life which they instinctively desire to share; I mean also the expansion of the Church by the addition of new Churches.”

Whenever a Spirit-filled indigenous church was present, and the missionaries were manifesting a missionary faith, the situation was ripe for such expansion.

Now…go and read Roland Allen for yourself.