The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church

Roland Allen wrote this book 100 years ago based on his experiences as a missionary in China. His conclusion: Missionaries should seek to raise up local leaders and then step out of the way.It was Allen's belief that only people with a local connection to a land and its people could raise up the sort of spontaneous expansion of the church that he saw as normative. Local leaders raised up as priests and bishops was the only way for the church to explode through society. Coming from the Anglican communion, his most challenging idea centered around bishops. Allen felt simply that it was bishops that were the catalyst for expansion. By raising large numbers of bishops from the local population, expansion would be self-sufficient and self-propogating.Allen's thoughts are timeless. Equally applicable to overseas mission fields today and inner-city outreach in America. By reaching to the local people, embracing everyone as equals, and turning people loose with their God-given talents, expansion of the church would be rapid, and inevitable.