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.


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9 thoughts on “Roland Allen: Part 2, His Missiology

  • Chris

    I’m a little fuzzy on his “Ideas of Devolution.” How can a missionary practically avoid devolution in an area full of unchurched people? Or is it that once people come to faith, then the missionary establishes the leadership?

  • J.D.

    Thanks Chris. As missionaries, we must labor to raise up leaders as quickly as the Holy Spirit will allow. The problem with devolution is that it advocates that “no one can do ‘it’ as good as the missionaries, and since it took the missionaries many many years to get to where they are now to do ‘it’ right, then it will probably take these unchurched people even longer”. Therefore, instead of seeing what the Spirit can do in the lives of the people (just as He did in the New Testament among pure polytheistic pagans), missionaries keep the focus on the new beleivers. They always think “They can’t” and practically teach the people that they must depend on them to do the work of the ministry.
    Do missionaries provide oversight, hold people accountable, and teach them to obey Jesus’ commands? Yes. The art of raising up leaders is that the people are given enough rope to “run with” but not enough rope to “hang themselves”.

  • Sam

    As a first year seminary student, Cal Guy had us at Southwestern Seminary to outline Roland Allen’s, Spontaneous Expansion. Have to admit, I didn’t see the relevance then, since I didn’t think I would be a missionary overseas. It’s interesting we have returned to Allen’s mastery of missions even in our mission in America. So listen when your professor has you do an assignment. You never know what might be helpful later on!

  • desi starr

    j.d. thanks so much for this cliff’s notes of cliff’s notes on roland allen.
    i’m going to pass this along. most of my pastor type friends have had a hard time “getting into” roland allen. maybe this can be a good place to dip one’s toes in and discover that the water feels pretty darn good.
    many of us house church planters here in denver joke about him being our patron saint. the quote you share from the spontaneous expansion of the church is one of my faves. that is what we are praying for.
    we have found that coaching can be a helpful solution for leadership development while not giving in to the issue of devolving authority slowly over time. knowing that leaders and churches will learn more from their mistakes then from us preventing mistakes has been huge and coaches can then help leaders process what they have learned from the experiences.

    i’d love to hear more about any groups that you know of that are living out these principles in real life. please pass along any info you have.
    you can check out some about the house church movement here in colorado, if you are interested at coloradohousechurch.com and see a map of where we have house churches at http://www.coloradohousechurch.com/churches

    ok, sorry this was so long. i’d love any thoughts, connections or helpful correspondence you have.

    -desi starr