Roland Allen > Quotes

“Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love.”
― Roland Allen

“Spontaneous expansion must be free: it cannot be under our control; and consequently it is utterly vain to say, as I constantly hear men say, that we desire to see spontaneous expansion, and yet must maintain our control. If we want to see spontaneous expansion we must establish native Churches free from our control.”
― Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: And the Causes That Hinder It

“We rarely consider the Renaissance in terms of its technological advances but the era’s engineers made much more of a difference to the lives of ordinary people than the great painters or humanist thinkers. Homes were now built with fireplaces and glazed windows; cities with water supplies. New pump designs allowed mines to be sunk, and salt, coal and metal ores to be extracted; new mill designs allowed water and wind power to be harnessed to drain marshes, press olives, or saw planks; new industries – not least, paper manufacture – spread across the continent.”
― Roland Allen, The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper

“We can no longer afford to ignore the work of others and to plan our missions as though other missions did not exist.”
― Roland Allen, Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions

“He speaks from his heart because he is too eager to be able to refrain from speaking. 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. 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. This his hearer realizes. Inevitably he is moved by it. Before he has experienced the truth himself he has shared the speaker's experience.”
― Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: And the Causes That Hinder It

“St. Paul's churches were indigenous churches in the proper sense of the word; and I believe that the secret of their foundation lay in his recognition of the church as a local church (as opposed to our 'national churches') and in his profound belief and trust in the Holy Spirit indwelling his converts and the churches of which they were members, which enabled him to establish them at once with full authority.”
― Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours?

“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.”
― Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: And the Causes That Hinder It

“In the beginning the Church was a Missionary Society: it added to its numbers mainly by the life and speech of its members attracting to it those who were outside. Where they went Churches were organized, where they settled, men who had never heard of the Church saw the Church, and, being attracted by the life, or by the speech, of its members, learned its secret, joined it, and were welcomed into it. To-day members of the Church are scattered all over the world, but they do not carry the Church with them in their own persons, they were not organized, they very often do not desire the conversion of those among whom they live, they do not welcome them into the Church. So Societies are formed to do this for them.”
― Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: And the Causes That Hinder It

“Spiritual pride is a far more deadly sin than concubinage; selfishness is a far more deadly sin than polygamy; hatred is a far more deadly sin than the destruction of twins. Our pride, and selfishness, and hatred, and impurity, express themselves in forms which appear to us less obnoxious than the vices of the heathen; and consequently it is easy for us to denounce their immorality. But if Christ treated us as we treat the heathen, and refused communion with us until we had reformed, what hope should we have?”
― Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: And the Causes That Hinder It

“Spontaneous expansion begins with the individual effort of the individual Christian to assist his fellow, when common experience, common difficulties, common toil have first brought the two together.”
― Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: And the Causes That Hinder It

“In little more than ten years St. Paul established the Church in .four provinces of the Empire, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia and Asia.”
― Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours?

“On the other hand there are those who think that as a work should end so it should begin. If the propagation of the Gospel is to be at any time the spontaneous work of native Christians, it should be so from the very beginning. Every moment of delay is a moment of loss, loss for them, loss for their country.”
― Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: And the Causes That Hinder It

“a mouth which does not confess disproves the existence of a heart that believes. The soul cannot be God's and the life not God's at the same time. The soul cannot be recreated and the life remain unchanged.”
― Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours?

“We should cease to talk of a native church as something to be attained after long years, or generations of probation. There would be native Churches at once which all men would recognize as native.”
― Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: And the Causes That Hinder It

“If the Church is to be indigenous it must spring up in the soil from the very first seeds planted.”
― Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: And the Causes That Hinder It

“The soul cannot be recreated and the life remain unchanged.”
― Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St Paul's or Ours?

“St. Paul did not baptize uninstructed converts apart from a system of mutual responsibility which ensured their instruction.”
― Roland Allen, MISSIONARY METHODS: ST. PAUL'S OR OURS?