Three Great Missionary Thinkers
Three Great Missionary Thinkers
In the previous Blog, entitled "Fathers of the Modern Missionary Movement," I dealt with William Carey, Sheldon Dibble, and Hudson Taylor. Those 3 men gave the argument as to WHY we should go and preach the gospel in foreign lands.
In this Blog I want to present to you three (3) men who followed after them:
John Nevius (1829 - 1893)
Rolland Allen (1868 - 1947)
Alex Rattray Hay (late 1800s into 1900s)
These 3 men presented a biblical methodology for HOW TO DO missions. They probably knew of each other, but it does not seem they knew each other personally, or collaborated with each other, BUT their thinking is very very similar. If you are interested in missions, whether foreign pioneer missions, or church planting in your home country, I would encourage you to read their books, and give serious thought to what they are saying.
All three men focused on the need to establish churches that were self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating, making the case that foreign rule of local churches (pastors/missionaries from America or England) being the leaders, and supplying the financial support, and then being the ones to start more new churches, was not biblical, and was in fact detrimental to the local churches. It created churches that could not exist on their own, but would collapse when the foreigners left either by death, or by retirement, or expulsion by the government.
Wikipedia has a very good article on both John Nevius and Rolland Allen, and a little searching on the Internet you can find information on all three.
John Nevius
He was a missionary to China in the late 1800's and his experience promoted him to write his book, "The Planting and Development of Missionary Churches."
https://archive.org/details/plantingdevelopm00nevi
Missionaries in Korea heard about his ideas, and asked him to come and visit them, which he did, and as they adapted his ideas, the result was "The Korean Pentecost." The result was a great outpouring of gospel blessing in Korea, recorded in the book “The Korean Pentecost and the Suffering Which Followed,” written by Bruce Hunt; it was Bruce Hunt’s dad who asked Nevius to come to Korea!
The Korean Pentecost occurred in 1907; and what followed was suffering; note the book's title!
https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Pentecost-Sufferings-Which-Followed/dp/0851512445
https://archive.org/details/koreanpentecosts00blai
His other book, which is the best book I have read on the subject, is "Demon Possession and Allied Themes."
https://archive.org/details/JohnL.NeviusDemonPossesionAndAlliedThemes_201802
For the average American this will give a good understanding of demon possession and animism, which are inter-related.
Here is a biography on Nevius, which I have not read.
https://archive.org/details/cu31924023221454
Rolland Allen
He started in China, but was forced to flee during the Boxer Rebellion, he later returned to China, and then spent time in Africa as well.
He was a thinker; he has some very interesting thoughts, his books are:
"Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours?"
https://ia804609.us.archive.org/31/items/missionarymethod00alle/missionarymethod00alle.pdf
"The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church"
https://www.gospeltruth.net/allen/spon_expanofch.htm
Think of how thought provoking the title "Missionary Methods: St' Paul's or Ours?" is! If the titles don’t intrigue you enough to read them, all the explanation I can write will do nothing. He asked the people of his day, "Should we use missionary methods of our own choosing or should we use ones God has given us; ie, St. Paul's?" The same question still stands! This book is very relevant.
Think of the other book's title? Does the church, can the church, "spontaneously expand?" By "spontaneous expansion" he means the Holy Spirit sovereignly saving people without the trappings of the western church being present. His point is that many of the methods we use, are just cultural trapping of the western church, are not only not biblical, but are cultural bound to the home country of the missionary, and are therefore often detrimental to the growth of the local churches in the foreign country. Because they are foreign, they often hinder the work of the Holy Spirit. This is a very profound book; one that has caused me much soul searching regarding our work in Papua New Guinea; I have read it 3 times.
There is also a biography out on Rolland Allen, "Roland Allen: Pioneer, Priest, and Prophet." I have read it, and it is very good to fill in the facts about the man.
https://www.amazon.com/Roland-Allen-Pioneer-Priest-Prophet/dp/0802808972
https://archive.org/details/rolandallenpione0000alle
Alex. Rattray Hay
By contrast, there is very little information to be found on Alex Hay. He worked in South America in the early 1900's, up to the 1940s or so when his last books were being published. He was the son of the founder of what was later re-named The New Testament Missionary Union.
Here is a very brief article, but again there is very little on him:
His thoughts are biblical, and to support his importance, I site this article from Ligonier Ministries. It is John MacArthur telling how important Alex Hay's book "The New Testament Order for Church and Missionary," was to him!
If you cannot access that page, let me know, I saved it as a PDF and can send it to you.
"The New Testament Order for Church and Missionary"
It is available on Amazon.
All of his books are very good, but I would say without question, "The New Testament Order for Church and Missionary" is his salient work. I have read it several times over the past 35 years, and it has shaped my thinking on missionary work.
His principle point is it that a missionary is not a pastor. A missionary is a sent one (missionary is the latin for the greek work "apostle" which means "sent one"). The missionary brings the gospel to an area where the gospel has basically not previous gone. He preaches and gathers those saved under his ministry into groups, churches, and he appoints leadership in those churches, from among the men of that local congregation. These men are the pastors of the local churches; the missionary is never the pastor.
His other major point is that leadership of the local churches, elders and deacons, must come from within the local church. The importation of outsiders into a local church is detrimental and un-Biblical. When Paul told Titus ordain elders in every church, Paul's assumption was that God has in every group of believers, those whom He wants to lead that particular group.
"The New Testament Order" is a 500 page book, and cannot be summed by a few simple statements.
You can see how John Nevius and Rolland Allen and Alex Hay are all dealing with the same issues, even though they started from different situations, and basically came to the same conclusions. If they are read, not to find the holes in their positions (for everyone has holes in their arguments) but to learn, and implement, I believe positive results would occur regarding the sending out of missionaries, and how those missionaries functioned on the field.
These books are must reading for a missionary, and for the non-missionary, they will give much food for thought regarding your church and personal evangelism.
13 April 2025