“To all this is added the mysterious power of a secret. Christian experience is always a secret, but compels attention.
The speaker of the gospel message, through the effort to express his truth exercises a profound effect on himself. The expression of his experience intensifies the message; renews it; repeats it in himself; and enlightens the message. In speaking of the gospel, he goes through it again for himself. In setting it before others, he sets it before himself in a new light. He gets a deeper sense of its reality and power and meaning. In speaking of the gospel, he pledges himself to the conduct and life which it requires. He proclaims himself bound by it, and every time that his message produces an effect upon someone else, that effect reacts upon himself, making his hold upon his truth surer and stronger.” What message are you repeating to others and becoming more convinced of yourself? Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver
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“Where this instinct for expression of the gospel; this divine desire for the salvation of others has free course, it will exercise a most extraordinary power. That power is vividly painted by M. Taine in his History of English Literature. Speaking of the causes which led to the Reformation in England, he describes the way in which knowledge of "Salvation" spread through the country:
“Spontaneous expansion begins with the effort of the individual Christian to assist his fellow, when common experience, common difficulties, common toil have first brought the two together. It is this equality and community of experience which makes the one share his message in ways the other person can understand. He makes the hearer approach the subject with sympathy and confidence because of their common experience. This makes approaching the subject of salvation easy and natural, with confidence, because the one is accustomed to understand what the other says and expects to understand him now.” What carries conviction is the manifest impartiality of the speaker. He speaks from his heart. His subject has gripped him. He speaks of what he knows, and knows by experience. The truth which he imparts is his own truth. He knows its force in his own life. He is speaking almost as much to relieve his own mind as to convert his hearer, and yet he is as eager to convert his hearer as to relieve his own mind; for his mind can only be relieved by sharing his new truth, and his truth is not shared until another has received it. His hearer realizes this. Inevitably he is moved by it. Before he has experienced the truth himself he has shared the speaker's experience.” This is the ultimate passion in proclaiming the gospel. Though we see little of this today, it is as close as asking God to give it for the sake of His glory. Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver “If we seek to understand the cause that produces rapid expansion when a new faith seizes hold of men, we find its roots in a certain natural instinct. The new convert feels able and free to propagate his faith spontaneously of his own initiative. This instinct is admirably expressed in a saying of Archytas of Tarentum quoted by Cicero, "If a man ascended to Heaven and saw the beautiful nature of the world and of the stars, his feelings of wonder would lose its sweetness if he could not tell someone."
This is the instinctive force which drives men, even at the risk of life itself, to impart to others a new-found joy. They cannot keep it a secret. It is not surprising then that when Christians are scattered, they feel a yearning for fellowship that demands an outlet, especially when the hope of the Gospel and the experience of its power is something new and wonderful. But in Christians there is more than this natural instinct. The Spirit of Christ is a Spirit who longs for, and strives after, the salvation of the souls of men, and that Spirit dwells in them. That Spirit converts the natural instinct into a longing for the conversion of others which is indeed divine in its source and character.” Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver “I do not know how it may appear to others, but this unexhorted, unorganized, spontaneous expansion has a charm far beyond that of our modern highly organized missions. I delight to think that a Christian traveling on his business trip, or a believer fleeing from persecution, could preach Christ, and a Church would spring up as the result of his preaching. Instead, his work is advertised with an appeal to Christians to give money to establish a school, or to send money to a Mission organization. It is claimed that new converts are deprived of guidance without these funds. I suspect that I am not alone in this strange feeling that many new believers read their Bibles and find there a welcome escape from our material appeals for funds, and from our methods of moving heaven and earth to make a convert.
Some say that the age of this simple expansion has gone, that we must live in our own age, and that in our age such spontaneous expansion cannot be expected. They say ‘an elaborate and highly organized society must employ elaborate and highly organized methods; that it is vain to hope for a simplicity that can never be ours. I must agree if it is really true that our elaborate machinery is a great improvement on Early Church practice, and that carrying the knowledge of Christ throughout the world it is in fact far more efficient than the simpler methods of the apostolic age. But if we long for spontaneous freedom of expanding life, realizing it is because we see in it something divine, something in its very nature profoundly efficient, something which we would gladly recover, then we must leave our modern machinery that obscures, deadens and kills.” Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver “A sign of the amazing inspiration and power through preaching and example was seen for centuries by the Christian Church as it continued to expand by its own inherent grace from God. It provided an unceasing supply of missionaries without any direct exhortation from the leaders.
The result of preaching by these unknown missionaries was not the creation of a multitude of detached groups of believers in cities and villages all over the Empire. All these groups were fully equipped churches. The first knowledge that we have of the existence of Christians in many places is by the name of their pastor in the list of those attending some council. There was order in the expansion: the moment converts were made in any place, elders were appointed from among themselves who in turn could organize and bring into unity the visible Church and any new group of Christians in their neighborhood. This then is what I mean by spontaneous expansion. This expansion follows the unexhorted and unorganized activity of individual members of the Church who simply explain to others the Gospel which they have found for themselves. This expansion 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. Also the expansion of the Church by the addition of new Churches.” Where can you find this inspiration and expansion today? Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver Roland Allen “argues that spontaneous expression on the part both of individuals and churches is the key to expansion, and that restricting it from fear of its uncontrollable character is disastrous. When we turn from the restless entreaties and exhortations which fill the pages of our modern missionary magazines to the pages of the New Testament, we are astonished at the change in the atmosphere. Paul does not repeatedly exhort his churches to raise money for the propagation of the Faith, he is far more concerned to explain to them what the Faith is and how they ought to practice it and to keep it. The same is true of Peter and John, and of all the apostles. They do not seem to feel any necessity to repeat the great Commission, or to urge that it is the duty of their converts to make disciples of all the nations. What we read in the New Testament is no anxious appeal to Christians to spread the Gospel, but a note here and there which suggests how the Gospel was being spread abroad: "the Churches were established in the Faith, and increased in number daily" (Acts 14:22; 16:5), "in every place your faith to Godward is spread abroad so that we need not to speak anything" (1 Thessalonians 1:8); or as a result of a persecution: "They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word" (Acts 8:4).” This is the Spirit’s natural work! Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver There are fears we face today that have been faced with church planting for centuries. “Terrible fears which beset us are, fears for our doctrine, our moral standards, our ideas of civilized Christianity, our organization. Such fears are real and natural, but wicked. The standards we so highly prize are not our Gospel, and the attempt to maintain them by our control is a false method. Spontaneous expansion must be free! It cannot be under our control. Some say that ‘we desire to see spontaneous expansion, and yet it must maintain our control’. If we want to see spontaneous expansion we must establish native Churches free from our control. When I speak of “churches” I am not thinking of pseudo-national churches, (national only in name), but local Churches, like those founded by Paul, churches fully established with their proper ministers.” Stay with us in this series. We must face our fears with biblical truth and its Author. When both become our governing principle and authority, then fears dissolve so we can properly concentrate on our mission. Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver Prayer requests for Tim’s trip to Ecuador, March 5th to 11th: Johnathan Cook (A young man with a heart and passion to take Christ to those who have never heard) and I are traveling to Ecuador Sunday to follow-up and encourage the brothers and sisters in Quito and Puyo as they work through GPHC. Pray that we will do NOTHING that would hinder or quench this powerful indigenous and self-supporting work of the Spirit. Here is a recent testimony we received from there: “God is also doing amazing things through this ministry/book, God’s Plan for His Church. In the last three months the number of pastors, leaders and churches who are joining the movement continues to surprise us. But why? When God is in it, it’s unstoppable! Just last night we heard another report of how God is moving to renew established churches and plant new ones in Quito, in Ecuador, and Latin America. For the first time in 18 years of training pastors, we heard, “We were wrong! We’ve been doing things our way, not God’s way. This must change!” When God moves, nothing can stop Him. But that doesn’t mean the enemy won’t try. Rejoice with us, but also please pray for protection and wisdom in dealing with the opposition.” E. M. Bounds said, “The success of all real missionary effort is dependent on prayer. The life and spirit of missions are the life and spirit of prayer.” (The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer, Prince Press, 2000, page 142). Thank you for standing with us in prayer and praise of God’s work. The following is a report from Randy covering his trip to India and Malaysia. We trust this will inspire you to pray for us and become more involved and passionate about missions. India (February 4-15) Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) became my hub in India. After a quick night, I flew out to Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat to work with N. in 18 training church planters from 6 different states. The potential for rapid church planting movements in this group is great. After 4 days in Ahmedabad, I flew back to Kolkata and took an all-night train to Malda in West Bengal to work with S.M. For one week, we equipped 23 leaders (most of them like the Apostle Paul working with their hands while taking on the task of ministry), teaching in home group Bible studies filled with new believers, encouraging the persecuted church and visiting key leaders in Christian education throughout the area. Malaysia (February 17-19) By God’s grace, a new avenue opened for impacting Asia when I met with Dr. P. of Malaysia Theological Seminary. STM is one of the two largest seminaries in Malaysia. In our time together, the joy and excitement of partnering together in training leaders emerged. We made plans to launch God’s Plan for His Church in August and work closely together with students and pastors in the first quarter of 2018. Reflections: Working with men and women who labor with little and worshiping with the persecuted church, inspires me with the truth of Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.” For the Apostle Paul, this was not only the source of his strength in ministry, but it was also the power to be content in any circumstance. When I look into the face of those who stand with Christ against immeasurable odds, those who know a peace beyond comfort and a joy beyond an easy life, I am challenged to leave my frustration over little things and press on to what matters most: spreading the gospel and the glory of God to the entire world. Would you please join me in prayer for our brothers and sisters in Thailand, India & Malaysia; and would you join me in asking God to plant strong, self-sustaining, self-supporting, reproducing churches among all people groups? Would you pray for me, that genuine contentment, the kind that only comes from Christ’s limitless strength, would take me beyond my petty concerns and into a world in need of Him regardless of the cost? Would you join me in this wonderful work of exalting Christ in our world, right here where we live? Roland Allen came under severe criticism for the stand he took on missions. Even today, his writings are not well received by most because they are radically different from the general tradition of mission boards and missiologists. His concern was being biblical, not popular. This alone should cause us to read carefully and listen to his heart through his pen. “It is scarcely possible to make any statement about our Missions which someone will not contradict. Statements of fact are constantly made, and repeated again and again in our missionary magazines, without any question being raised, so long as the conclusion is that we agree to meet present needs. But if questions are raised concerning the wisdom of our missionary policy or practice, they are disputed without reference to principle. There is another difficulty which faces anyone writing of missionary methods in general terms. It is not easy for him to find statements which are universally true, or any rules which have no exception. I can only ask my readers to believe that I have not written anything carelessly; I can only ask them to remember that the field with which they are familiar is not the only mission field in the world. I can only ask them to pay heed to the essential principles rather than the particular details. Remembering that a crop of fruit does not all ripen on one day, and that if they did not see ripe fruit in their field, it may be because it is not the right season. The seed which produces the fruit may be there, and it is the character of seed they are sowing that is important. Just do not be taken by surprise when the fruit appears.” What Allen is pointing out in this section is that ‘mission policy’ should be set from principle (of Scripture) and not what may be needed in a specific culture. When the native is given the biblical principle, then they can work out the cultural application. Roland Allen, Edited by Sherman Driver |
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