The document provides a biography of Roland Allen and a summary of his book "Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours?". Allen examines the missionary methods of the Apostle Paul compared to the predominant methods used by missionaries in Allen's time. Some key points Allen makes about Paul's approach include: focusing evangelism in urban areas, not relying on financial support or administering church funds, preaching with an expectation that listeners will respond to the Holy Spirit, and quickly establishing local leadership rather than maintaining long-term foreign control. The summary concludes that while not agreeing with all of Allen's conclusions, his work provides insightful criticism of how historical missionary practices have not adequately emulated Paul's example of trusting national believers and

1. International Christian College of Manila Prof. Ricardo Garcia
New Church Planting Book Review
Noel R. Gonzales September 4, 2017
Bibliography:
Allen, Roland. Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1962 (Orig. London: World Dominion, 1912).
Who is Roland Allen?
Allen was born in Bristol, England, the youngest of five children
of an Anglican priest. He was orphaned early in life but obtained
and education on scholarship at St. John’s College, Oxford, and
at the (Anglo-Catholic) Leeds Clergy Training School. In 1892
he was ordained a deacon, and the following year he became a
priest in the Church of England. In 1895 he was sent by the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) to its North
China Mission. While preparing to head a new seminary for
Chinese catechists in Peking (Beijing), he was trapped with
other foreigners in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. After rescue by foreign troops, Allen wrote
about his experience in The Siege of the Peking Legations (1901). While on Furlough in England
he married Mary B. Tarlton. In 1902 they returned to north China, where their first child was
born, but Allen soon became ill and the family had to be sent home. There he took charge of a
parish until 1907, when he resigned in protest against the rule of the established church that he
must baptize any child presented for the sacrament whether or not the parents had any Christian
commitment. Thereafter he held no official post but continued as a voluntary priest, supporting
himself by writing and lecturing until his death in Kenya, nearly 40 years later.

2. The Thesis of the Book:
His basic thesis is that many cross-cultural workers do not follow the example of the Apostle
Paul, who greatly depended on the Holy Spirit to accomplish in the new believers what
missionaries and methods cannot do. In short, he states, “we cannot trust our converts to Him”.
The author makes a number of key points that are still beneficial for the contemporary reader.
I. Paul’s evangelistic method centered on urban areas:
He remarks that cities were places where people of different ethnic groups could share in
a common culture, language, and legal system. Paul therefore could more easily establish
common ground with a large number of people, who would be ready to form local
congregations.
II. Paul pointed out about the Finances:
Allen urges missionaries to consider how others perceive them. What values are they
projecting? With respect to money, missionaries have been accused of greed, mismanagement,
and even using the name of Christian missions as front but the real motives is in their stomach.
III. The Cross–cultural preaching requires a firm knowledge of Biblical doctrines as well as
local religious beliefs:
Allen says that Paul was unwavering in stressing the cross and the need for repentance
and faith. Paul clearly communicated what was expected of Christ’s followers, even if this meant
rejection or persecution. Yet, undue provocation is avoided because Paul identifies common
ground between Christianity and other religious as starting points for evangelistic dialogue.

3. IV. Missionary practice fails when the Holy Spirit is ignored.
When presenting the gospel, power of the Holy Spirit “requires that the speaker should
expect a response”. The Spirit changes entire lives. In addition, the Spirit manifests himself
within the Church.
V. Allen warns against an intellectual assent to faith.
Theological education must be coupled with practical ministry, though neither is
sufficient without the other. Leadership is marked by humble obedience; teaching comes from
one is trying to put into practice. However, this does not subjugate theological training. In fact,
Paul seems to make sure that new churches had a firm grasp of the gospel, with an emphasis on
Jesus’ death, resurrection, and the Old Testament.
VI. Allen also noticed that Paul shows no partiality to social classes.
He sought our Jews and Gentiles. He preached to the intellectual elite, government rulers,
and the wealthy. At the same time, he conversed with slaves, the superstitious, and the poor.
Since, Allen says, faith does not consist in how much knowledge on has, but rather in the power
of the Spirit, teaching and preaching should be easily understood and applicable for any type of
person.
Summary of the Contents:
The timeless value of Roland Allen’s book lies in its ability to unsettle old habits and
presuppositions found within missionary circles. Over time, methods are fossilized. Perhaps
pragmatism and denominational culture functionally replace the Bible and the Spirit. Allen calls
missionaries the exercise the same sort of faith they demand of potential converts. This
necessarily involves risk. Missionary Methods asks the reader to reconsider his expectations
about what missionary strategies can and cannot accomplish, that is, the limits of human

4. methodology. He reminds us that preaching the gospel cross-culturally is full of uncertainty,
therefore, principles, not patent formulas must guide the labor. Accordingly, when working with
new Christians, Allen warns against the use of law, “unreasoning obedience”, and quick answers
from the missionary teachers. In their place, the missionary exhorts native believers to follow his
example in seeking the Spirit’s wisdom with respect to some circumstance or passage of
Scripture.
Part I: Antecedent Conditions
Chapter 1: Introduction
Allen outlines the antecedent conditions Paul faced, in order to rebut claims that he
“enjoyed advantages in his birth, his education, his call, his mission, his relationship to his
hearers, such as have been enjoyed by no other; and that he enjoyed advantages in the peculiar
constitution of society at the moment of his call such as to render his work quite exceptional”.
Allen responds to the first set of claims about Paul himself by noting that Paul was not the only
one employing these methods with success that contemporary missionaries have a great
advantage over Paul in the printing press and Bible, and that Paul being exceptional does not
empty his model of contemporary value. The second sets of claims are addressed in chapters
two, three and four.
Chapter 2: Strategic Points
Responds to the question “How far was St. Paul’s success due to the position or character
of the places in which he preached?” by finding it unlikely that Paul drafted a strategic plan in
advance and noting how often his decision seemed spontaneously guided by the Spirit. While
Allen highlights how each of the cities where he planted churches were provincial centers of
Roman administration, Greek civilization and education, Jewish influence and global commerce,

5. he pointed out that they weren’t the only cities of this kind, thus we should conclude that St. Paul
“did not select where he would preach simply on the grounds like these: he was led of the
Spirit...they were strategic centers because he made them such”.
Chapter 3: Class
Asks whether Paul’s success was due to the existence of a special class of people to
which he made a special appeal. Though Allen notes Paul’s pattern of preaching first in the
synagogue and then in the home of a “man of good repute”, he concludes that “the majority of
St. Paul’s converts were of the lower commercial and working classes, laborers, freed-men, and
slaves; but that he himself did not deliberately aim at any class”. Furthermore, miracles, despite
their undeniable impact, ten to “draw a gaping crowd of idle, superstitious, and inquisitive folk”.
Chapter 4: Moral and Social Condition
He considers whether the moral, social or religious condition of the Provinces was unlike
that which contemporary missionaries face. Highlighting superstitious belief in demons (of
which he seems skeptical), moral uncleanliness and the presence of slavery and the amphitheater,
Allen concludes that “St. Paul’s converts were born and bred in an atmosphere certainly not
better, and in some respects even worse, than that with which we have to deal today in India or
China”.
Part II concerns Paul’s presentation of the gospel with respect to miracles, finance and the
substance of his preaching.

6. Part II: The Presentation of the Gospel
Chapter 5: Miracles
Paul’s work, points out that Paul used miracles to neither “induce people to receive teaching” nor
to “convert people by working miracle on them”. Instead, miracles were used to attract crowds
of hearers, to prove divine endorsement of his message, and to enact the doctrines charity and
salvation. Allen concludes that what matters is not miracles, but the empowering Spirit, who
furnishes contemporary missionaries with “powers sufficient to gather hearers...to demonstrate
the Divine Presence of the Spirit of God with us...to assure inquirers of the superiority of
Christianity...to illustrate in act the character of our religion.
Chapter 6: Finance
Allen asks how Paul negotiated the financial aspects his work, and concludes that what mattered
to Paul in this regard was not particulars of his own support or how the church managed its funds
but “how these arrangements, whatever they may be, affect the minds of the people, and so
promote or hinder, the spread of the Gospel” . His own practice was to seek no financial help for
himself, to bring none to the church and to avoid administering the church’s funds. Contrasting
Paul’s practice with that of his contemporaries, Allen highlights how securing property can
arouse local opposition, how it entangles missionaries in secular affairs, how this causes a
misrepresentation regarding the missionary’s purpose in coming to a place, how this “unity” is
anything but “Christian,” how these arrangements make it very difficult for a native to succeed to
the place of the European missionary and, finally, how these material things become the most
prolific causes of strife. Above all, Allen’s chief complaint is that “we deprive our converts of

7. one of the very best educational experiences,” namely, learning mutual responsibility through
managing the church’s financial concerns themselves.
Chapter 7: The Substance of St. Paul’s teachings
This chapter outlines Paul’s preaching which 1) appealed favorably to the past from which this
new truth arises, 2) stated the facts of Jesus’ life and death, 3) revealed and responded to the
rejection of Jesus by his own people, 4) appealed to the spiritual needs of humanity and 5) issued
a grave warning of God’s wrath on those who reject the gospel. Four characteristics of his
preaching included: sympathy with the condition of his audience, courage in the open
acknowledgement of unavoidable difficulties, respect for the reasoning ability of his audience
and unhesitating confidence in the truth of his message. Also important, especially as a contrast
to Allen’s day, Paul expected his hearers to be moved, he brought them to a point of decision and
he refused to persist in teaching those who refused to believe because “the teaching of the Gospel
is not a mere intellectual instruction: it is a moral process, and involves a moral response”.
Chapter 8: The Teaching
Paul’s teaching as including basic doctrines regarding the Three Persons, as well as traditions
regarding Jesus’ teaching, the mystical reading of the Old Testament, and the administration and
meaning of the sacraments. “Thus Paul seems to have left his newly-founded churches with a
simple system of Gospel-teaching, two sacraments, a tradition of the main facts of the death and
resurrection, and the Old Testament”. He gave no “exhortations to missionary zeal”, rather,

8. having given them the rudiments, he believed that filled with the missionary Spirit of Christ, they
would naturally begin to “bring back lost souls to the Father” and in this faith, he moved on.
Chapter 9: The Training of the Candidates for Baptism and Ordination
The training of candidates for baptism and ordination, and notes that Paul seems to have left
these matters largely up the church. Though he did appoint some elders and baptize a few, he
left quickly and “[by] leaving the church to decide who should be admitted, he established firmly
the great principle of mutual responsibility”. He laments how contemporaries have made too
much of intellectual prerequisites when moral qualifications suffice, cataloging the difficulties
that this causes.
Part IV: St. Paul’s Method of Dealing with Organized Churches
Chapter 10: Authority and Discipline
This is all about Paul’s exercise of authority and discipline as remarkably restrained, in
preference of persuasive approaches and hands-off faith in the Spirit at work among the local
church. Allen, here, sees Paul’s as a message of spirit, not of Law. Thus in most cases he
“reasons with the whole body, and set before the brethren the argument, and there leaves the
matter”. Allen identifies the genius of this approach in that it forces the church to assume
responsibility for itself, noting “infants can only be taught truly by exercising their infantile
faculties”.

9. Chapter 11: Unity
This chapter addresses how Paul succeeded in maintaining unity by clarifying that here “unity
did not consist in outward conformity to the practices of the earliest member, but in
incorporation into the body”. Thus Paul did not establish unity via transplanting as a rule
customs from the church in Judea, he did not set up a central administrative authority over all
churches, he did not establish a litmus test for orthodoxy and he refused to make all precedents
universal. Instead, he taught unity by taking it for granted, serving as a bridge between Jew and
Greek, initiating acts of charity between churches, and encouraging constant movement of
communication between the churches. In each of these matters, Paul’s law-free approach
allowed for ambiguity that served as learning and training environment for the church.
Part V: Conclusions
Chapter 12: Principles and Spirit
Allen offers his most damning critique against contemporary missions. First, he notes
that “everywhere Christianity is still an exotic” rather than native religion, “everywhere our
missions are dependent” upon foreigners, and everywhere the missions look just the same. The
failures which have caused this state, Allen suggests are racial and religious pride that have
directed missionary distrust of ‘poor heathen,’ and a profound lack of faith which has caused
fearfulness of native independence. As a remedy, Allen offers the two principles which “seem to
underlie all the Apostle’s practice : (1) that he was a preacher of Gospel, not law, and (2) that he
must retire from his converts to give place for Christ”. Each of these rested upon a “great

10. faith...in the Holy Ghost, not merely vaguely as a spiritual Power, but as a Person indwelling his
converts”.
Chapter 13: Applications
Allen’s lays out contemporary applications of five “rules of practice” from the Pauline model.
Founded on a faith in the Spirit, the key to success in the Pauline method, according to Allen, is
“the trust which begets trustworthiness”. Thus, missionaries must always prepare for their own
retirement without succession by 1) never acting alone but always referring all business
regarding finance, baptism, appointment of ministers and discipline to the congregation itself and
by 2) leaving things more and more in the hands of the congregation through increasing and
extended missionary tours and absences. Allen does lament the sacramental starvation that,
without ordained natives, will occur, but considers the maturation which absence will engender
to be worth the cost.
While throughout the book Allen reveals the stark contrast between the missionary methods of
Paul with those of his contemporaries, what is most important to him is to lift up Paul’s
principles, each of which is grounded in a firm belief in the power of the Spirit to lead, shape and
grow the churches which he founded.
Chapter 14: Epilogue
Allen offers narrative portraits of two missionaries, one following the contemporary model and
the other who has taken up Paul’s method. The former’s narrative concludes with an
authoritative assertion by the missionary in view of a potential misuse of church property “Well,

11. anyhow...it is our building, it is not your building, and we will not let you have it for that
purpose,” while the later concludes with a native catechist remarking how it seems the
missionary is en route to a fully native church.
Roland Allen's book, Missionary Methods: St Paul's or Ours? is a major work in missiology. He
examined Scripture to see Paul's approach to missions work and compared it to the predominant
missions’ methodology of his day. The works focuses on Paul and make comparisons with
general tendencies present among missionaries.
Personal Reaction
While I don't agree with all of Allen's conclusions about Paul's methodology, his work is highly
insightful. The sad part of reading this book is seeing the extent to which Allen's insights about
biblical missions’ methodology have not been put into practice.
This book was written at the turn of the 20th century, over 100 years ago, yet easily could have
been penned in recent decades and still would have pertained to a large proportion of the church.
The author summarizes many ways in which he interprets Paul’s work, and then compares it to
current missions work and find sit wanting.
Most specifically, the author saw 19th/20th century missions as being primarily about the
leader/Westerners controlling the “native” until he had been trained to be exactly like a
Westerner, fever. Roland points out that that has made people dependent on the “missionary”,
spiritually and physical week, and unable to claim their faith for themselves. He proposes a
radical transformation in which we trust local people, put institutions and decision-making in
their hands, and stop building so many things that require the continuation of our own presence.

12. I disagree with Allen's philosophy/theology at several points. And I don’t believe that we’re
required to live and work exactly like Paul, which Allen doesn’t claim outright but certainly
assumes. So I would different with him here and there.
But at the root, I deeply agreed with Allen's message, even if it is less true today than it once
was. Paul’s way looks riskier than our way. It opens up possibilities for failure and
embarrassment. But it is the only way to develop fully enabled people, people who are really
following their Christ on their own instead of just mimicking our Christ. It is the pathway to
strong churches, developed Christians and meaningful changes in culture.
The main manner in which I differ from Allen is his unreflective rigidity on “Paul’s way is the
right way”. He doesn’t make an argument for why we should mimic Paul. He simply says, “This
is how Paul did it”, and leaves it at that. That makes it difficult to engage and theologically
understand where we are to take Paul’s model as fundamental and where we are to take Paul’s
model as simply an individual choice. Paul was not the 4th member of the Trinity. He could be
human, individual, particular, and in error. Studying his letters and Acts to try to understand
exactly how he had undertaken his ministry is a worthy endeavor, but it does not mean that we
are to minister in exactly the same manner, especially when the lessons learned have nothing to
do with anything Paul had proscribed himself in Scripture. I think that much of Allen’s advice is
sound, but by itself, Paul’s actions cannot be used as a discerning scalpel between the “right” and
“wrong” ways to do things.
This book is worthy of your careful attention! Enjoy!