Post by LDM on Apr 21, 2010 10:49:26 GMT -5
The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church - And the Causes which Hinder It
By Roland Allen
www.amazon.com/Spontaneous-Expansion-Church-Roland-Allen/dp/0718891716
Roland Allen (1868 - 1947) was born in England, the son of an Anglican priest. Allen himself became a priest in 1893 after studying at Oxford. Allen traveled to Northern China twice as a missionary and these experiences led him to formulate a radical reexamination of the theology and missionary methods of the Western churches. He therefore retired to Africa where he began writing books until he died in Kenya in 1947.
Deeply influenced by his understanding of St. Paul's missiology and the importance of being guided by the Holy Spirit, Allen advocated for the establishment of churches that adapted to native culture and circumstances and did not simply model Western churches. With this reorientation, Allen argued that mission churches should be self-sustaining, self-propagating and self-governing.
Allen's thoughts are timeless. Equally applicable to overseas mission fields today and inner-city outreach in America. By reaching to the local people, embracing everyone as equals, and turning people loose with their God-given talents, expansion of the church would be rapid, and inevitable.
Book Excerpt:
The spontaneous expansion of the Church reduced to its elements is a very simple thing. It asks for no elaborate organization, no large finances, no great numbers of paid missionaries. In its beginning it may be the work of one man, and that a man neither learned in the things of this world, nor rich in the wealth of this world. The organization of a little Church on the Apostolic model is also extremely simple, and the most illiterate converts can use it, and the poorest are sufficiently wealthy to maintain it. Only as it grows and spreads through large provinces and countries do any complex questions arise, and they arise only as a Church composed of many little Churches is able to produce leaders prepared to handle them by experience learned in the smaller things. There is no need at the beginning to talk of preparing leaders to face great national issues. By the time the issues have become great and complex the leaders of the little Churches of to-day will have learned their lesson, as they cannot possibly be taught it beforehand.
No one, then, who feels within himself the call of Christ to embark on such a path as this need say, I am too ignorant, I am too inexperienced, I have too little influence, or I have not sufficient resources. The first apostles of Christ were in the eyes of the world "unlearned and ignorant" men: it was not until the Church had endured a persecution and had grown largely in numbers that Christ called a learned man to be His Apostle. The missionaries who spread the Gospel and established the Church throughout the lands round the Mediterranean are not known to us as men of great learning or ability. Most of them are not known by name at all. Only when the Church had been established and had spread widely did Christ call the great doctors whose names are familiar to us by their writings, or by their great powers of organization and government.
What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which uniting a man to Christ, sets him on fire. Such a man can believe that others finding Christ will be set on fire also. Such a man can see that there is no need of money to fill a continent with the knowledge of Christ. Such a man can see that all that is required to consolidate and establish that expansion is the simple application of the simple organization of the Church. It is to men who know that faith, who see that vision, that I appeal. Let them judge what I have written.
By Roland Allen
www.amazon.com/Spontaneous-Expansion-Church-Roland-Allen/dp/0718891716
Roland Allen (1868 - 1947) was born in England, the son of an Anglican priest. Allen himself became a priest in 1893 after studying at Oxford. Allen traveled to Northern China twice as a missionary and these experiences led him to formulate a radical reexamination of the theology and missionary methods of the Western churches. He therefore retired to Africa where he began writing books until he died in Kenya in 1947.
Deeply influenced by his understanding of St. Paul's missiology and the importance of being guided by the Holy Spirit, Allen advocated for the establishment of churches that adapted to native culture and circumstances and did not simply model Western churches. With this reorientation, Allen argued that mission churches should be self-sustaining, self-propagating and self-governing.
Allen's thoughts are timeless. Equally applicable to overseas mission fields today and inner-city outreach in America. By reaching to the local people, embracing everyone as equals, and turning people loose with their God-given talents, expansion of the church would be rapid, and inevitable.
Book Excerpt:
The spontaneous expansion of the Church reduced to its elements is a very simple thing. It asks for no elaborate organization, no large finances, no great numbers of paid missionaries. In its beginning it may be the work of one man, and that a man neither learned in the things of this world, nor rich in the wealth of this world. The organization of a little Church on the Apostolic model is also extremely simple, and the most illiterate converts can use it, and the poorest are sufficiently wealthy to maintain it. Only as it grows and spreads through large provinces and countries do any complex questions arise, and they arise only as a Church composed of many little Churches is able to produce leaders prepared to handle them by experience learned in the smaller things. There is no need at the beginning to talk of preparing leaders to face great national issues. By the time the issues have become great and complex the leaders of the little Churches of to-day will have learned their lesson, as they cannot possibly be taught it beforehand.
No one, then, who feels within himself the call of Christ to embark on such a path as this need say, I am too ignorant, I am too inexperienced, I have too little influence, or I have not sufficient resources. The first apostles of Christ were in the eyes of the world "unlearned and ignorant" men: it was not until the Church had endured a persecution and had grown largely in numbers that Christ called a learned man to be His Apostle. The missionaries who spread the Gospel and established the Church throughout the lands round the Mediterranean are not known to us as men of great learning or ability. Most of them are not known by name at all. Only when the Church had been established and had spread widely did Christ call the great doctors whose names are familiar to us by their writings, or by their great powers of organization and government.
What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which uniting a man to Christ, sets him on fire. Such a man can believe that others finding Christ will be set on fire also. Such a man can see that there is no need of money to fill a continent with the knowledge of Christ. Such a man can see that all that is required to consolidate and establish that expansion is the simple application of the simple organization of the Church. It is to men who know that faith, who see that vision, that I appeal. Let them judge what I have written.