Roland Allen's the Ministry of Expansion

The Priesthood of the Laity

Roland Allen, J. D. Payne

• Publisher: William Carey Library
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780878089758
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Roland Allen was one of the most influential mission thinkers of the twentieth century. As a High Church Anglican, he had great respect and value for Church tradition, but was quick to confront cultural preferences when they appeared to contradict biblical prescriptions.The Ministry of Expansion: The Priesthood of the Laity reflects his thoughts that dealt with Communion-related activities in the Majority World where the Anglican Church did not have well-developed church structures and priests. In this work, Allen argues that there are times and circumstances when non-clergy must take the lead in the administration of Holy Communion. Written around 1938, The Ministry of Expansion: The Priesthood of the Laity has remained unpublished until now. The work you hold represents one of the last book-length manuscripts written by Allen and includes a collection of articles by contemporary Allen scholars. Though nearly eighty years since he first put pen to paper, Allen's principles and convictions still speak to the Church with great gravitas. What should be the response when the Church's cultural preferences are unable to keep up with the work of the Spirit on the mission field? This was a not only a question in Allen's day, but one for every generation of believers.

Part I

BACKGROUND

ROLAND ALLEN

Missiology and The Ministry of Expansion

J. D. Payne

I am frequently asked to give lectures on Roland Allen to seminary classes. Before I begin, I often ask the class if they have read any of Allen’s writings. My general observations reveal that about 10 percent of a class will have read one of Allen’s books, usually Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours?. A second question, related to the first, is how many of the students have heard of Roland Allen before enrolling in the class. Usually, the only students who have heard of him are those who have read his writings.¹

And, truth be told, I also was a seminary student when first exposed to Allen through Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours?.

Irony is found in this scarcity of familiarity with Roland Allen. For Allen was one of the most influential individuals in missionary circles during the twentieth century. And his influence, at least among evangelicals, is even stronger in the twenty-first century and continues to grow. His writings shaped the thoughts and practices of individuals such as Lesslie Newbigin, Donald McGavran, and Ralph Winter. He is well respected among many leaders of mission agencies and networks. Allen’s name is often referenced and revered in church planting conversations.

His influence has not been limited to missiologists. Many New Testament scholars reference him in their bibliographies as a result of his studies of the Apostle Paul. However, among those serving in pastoral and missionary roles, Allen remains largely unknown.

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post that included the following characteristics of the potential Roland Allen aficionado:

• you are interested in church planting movements

• you think about church multiplication

• you have strong convictions about the role of the Holy Spirit in missions

• you prefer contextualized church planting over paternalism

• you believe in raising up leaders from the harvest

• you believe that the New Testament has something to say regarding how we should be doing missionary work today

The point of this post was to help readers understand that while few of them had any knowledge about Allen, his influence had shaped their thoughts, lives, and ministries. Just as the sun provides a gravitational pull on the earth even when not seen during the night, Allen’s influence is present and active even if they were not aware of him. From the grave, he speaks!

MISSIOLOGY OF ROLAND ALLEN

While space will not permit a detailed explanation of Allen’s missiological views, it is important the reader have some familiarity with his thinking about missions.² His thoughts were often consumed with what he described as the spontaneous expansion of the church—a potential reality he claimed missionaries feared. He wrote that it would be a “delight to think that a Christian travelling on his business, or fleeing from persecution, could preach Christ, and a church spring up as the results of his preaching.”³ Such a modern-day, Antioch disciple making movement (Acts 11:19-21), uncontrolled by the church, was the “terror of missionaries.”⁴ While Allen was not opposed to order and heritage, he was quick to speak against the traditions, legalism, and control that interfered with disciple making, growth in Christ, leadership development, and church planting in the Majority World. Upon comparing the church’s present-day missionary organizations and structures to those in the New Testament, he believed Western culture and tradition had trumped biblical necessities. And it was these contemporary developments that hindered the expansion of the church.

Disciple making that resulted in the birth of contextualized (indigenous was the common parlance in Allen’s day) churches was a simple process that could lead to exponential church growth. He wrote:

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.⁵

Missionaries who brought a heavy amount of paternalism to the field, were missionaries who hindered such gospel advancement. Allen often wrote of Western missionaries who feared what might happen if they were not governing and dictating all matters related to Majority World believers. He would argue against this fear and would call missionaries to orient their perspective to Christ and the power of his gospel. A missionary faith, not fear, was needed:

We fear corruption and degeneration; when shall we cease to fear them? The roots of that fear are in us, and when shall we eradicate them, and how? There will always be cause for that fear, if we look at men. If we look at Christ then we may escape; but then why should we not escape now? He does not change. When we talk of a day when we shall be able to trust our converts in non-Christian lands, we are looking at them. So long as we look at them we shall be afraid.⁶

THE WAY OF CHRIST

Though much of Allen’s writings focused on the Apostle Paul, he understood that some members of the apostolic church had been discipled by Jesus and had been taught not to fear the possible outcome of their labors, but walk by faith. “He trained them in the work,” Allen wrote, “not outside of it; in the world, not in a hothouse.”⁷

And this training was to prepare them for his departure and the ongoing mission. The apostolic approach to disciple making and church multiplication originated with Jesus, not the Twelve or the Apostle Paul. According to Allen:

The Apostles followed Christ in this; they established a society, a spiritual society on earth. The establishment of this society is most clearly seen in the work and writing of the Apostle Paul. He recognized a Church; he established churches.⁸

This Christological (and thoroughly Trinitarian) understanding was also explained in his work Pentecost and the World. Reflecting on the Holy Spirit, he wrote:

The same Holy Spirit which descended upon Christ was to descend upon them [apostles]. . . . Thus the work of the apostles with which this book is concerned is linked with the work of Jesus Christ as the carrying on of that which He began on earth under the impulse of the same Spirit through whom He acted and spoke.⁹

PNEUMATOLOGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY

Understanding Allen’s missiology requires grasping his thoughts regarding the Holy Spirit and the local church. John Branner was correct when he wrote that “the gift of the Holy Spirit to believers was something which was to govern Allen’s entire concept of mission, particularly that of the indigenous church.”¹⁰ Charles Chaney suggested that Allen’s understanding of the Spirit was likely his “most important contribution to missiological theory and the most distinctive thrust of his thought.”¹¹

The Spirit was the one who led the church to do mission. He was the one who worked in the lives of new churches, sanctifying them as they awaited the return of the Lord. Missionaries were to teach these new believers how to rely on the Spirit. And missionaries had to manifest a faith in the power of the Spirit to protect, lead, and mature these churches.

Allen argued that the active role of the Spirit of mission was so strong that even if Jesus never gave the Great Commission, the church would still go into all the world and make disciples. “Had the Lord not given any such command,” he noted, “had the Scriptures never contained such a form of words, or could Christians blot it out from their Bibles and from their memories, the obligation to preach the Gospel to all nations would not have been diminished by a single iota.”¹² The spontaneous expansion of the church was dependent upon a Spirit-filled church. Such advancement was impossible without the active agency of the Spirit.

Allen’s pneumatology and ecclesiology were woven together and unable to be separated. The Spirit was intimately connected to the church, and the church was dependent upon the Spirit for life, growth, and power. This relationship in Allen’s missiology influenced his understanding of the indigenous nature of the church and the Eucharist.

Since churches came from people in a given context, those churches were to express themselves according to the cultures of those people. Churches in the West had developed structures, ministry styles, and organizations that missionaries often expected to be embraced by Majority World churches. However, Allen had little patience for such expectations whenever Western cultural preferences trumped the application of biblical expectations to the mission field. These new churches were to be indigenous churches (i.e., contextualized) and did not need Western trappings. Whenever missionaries had expectations for churches to look like their Western counterparts, the spontaneous expansion would be hindered.

This complex ecclesiology was not helpful to Kingdom work. Though Allen was a high church Anglican, he recognized the biblical simplicity of the church:

In the New Testament the idea of a Church is simple. It is an organized body of Christians in a place with its [leaders]. The Christians with their officers are the Church in the place, and they are addressed as such. This is simple and intelligible. That Church is the visible Body of Christ in the place, and it has all the rights and privileges and duties of the Body of Christ. Above it is the Universal Church, composed of all the Churches in the world, and of all the redeemed in heaven and on earth. The Apostolic idea of the Church is wonderfully intelligible to men everywhere. . . . The Apostolic system is so simple, that it can be apprehended by men in every stage of education, and civilization.¹³

This simplicity was often necessary for the church to come into existence in pioneer fields and multiply throughout people groups. An apostolic approach to the planting of churches required that new churches be indigenous and manifesting characteristics of young congregations, rather than displaying characteristics of churches that were decades and even centuries old.

New churches were to come from the new believers, a practice Allen observed in the Scriptures:

Now if we look at the work of St. Paul, I think it must be perfectly clear that the local Churches of his foundation were essentially what we call native Churches. The little groups of Christians that he established in towns like Lystra or Derbe, Thessalonica or Beroea, were wholly composed of permanent residents in the country. They managed their own internal affairs under the leadership of their own officers, they administered their own sacraments, they controlled their own finance, and they propagated themselves, establishing in neighbouring towns or villages Churches like themselves.¹⁴

Allen’s convictions regarding their right to manage these internal affairs related to the administration of the Eucharist eventually resulted in hi...

Table of contents

• COVER
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• CONTENTS
• CONTRIBUTORS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• PART I Background
• PART II Roland Allen’s The Ministry of Expansion: The Priesthood of the Laity
• POSTSCRIPT
• BIBLIOGRAPHY