Steven Rutt on Roland Allen’s Life and Work

Strike the Match with J. D. Payne

Dr. Steven Rutt has written the definitive works on Roland Allen. And both of these books were published in 2018. Roland Allen: A Missionary Life is an outstanding biography on the man behind such books as Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? and The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church. And Roland Allen: A Theology of Mission describes the views of this Anglican priest that continue to influence missions and New Testament studies.

Allen was one of the leading missionary thinkers of the 20th century. His views help shift a paradigm from colonialistic mission-stations to contextualized church planting and leadership development. His writings would later influence leading missiologists such as Donald McGavran and others within the Church Growth Movement. His principles related to the spontaneous expansion of the Church would shape missionary practices of advocates for church planting movements, and later disciple making movements, and those encouraging Training for Trainers (T4T). In fact, if you are involved in evangelical mission work today, you have been influenced by Roland Allen.

Check out our conversation and hear of Rutt’s journey into the world of Roland Allen. Then get copies of his books.

Listen. Share. Discuss. Go.

Dr. Rutt may be contacted at [e-mail]