Playing Both Sides of the Fence: A Missionary's Journey in Search of the Supra-Cultural Gospel

By Richie Allen

Could the Gospel that we commonly proclaim in the US be labeled, Made in America? Have Americanisms and cultural insertions unknowingly slipped into our message? Can the Cultural Fence encountered when we attempt to minister cross-culturally serve as a filter to help purify our Gospel presentation and return it to the powerful, supra-cultural Gospel of which the Apostle Paul was not ashamed? The answer to these and many other questions make Playing Both Sides of the Fence required reading for all who care to proclaim the Good News to the World.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490875538

Richie Allen

Richie Allen is the Executive Director of LINC-UP Missions. He earned his bachelor of theology degree from the Baptist College of Florida in Graceville. He also holds a master of divinity with biblical languages and a doctor of ministry from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Dr. Allen has served as pastor of churches in Mississippi and Florida. In 2007, he was called from the First Baptist Church of Hilliard, Florida, to serve as a missionary and mission mobilizer with LINC-UP Missions. Richie’s unique position in ministry gives him a good perspective of ministry on both sides of the cultural fence. He is able to give helpful insight into gospel presentation and effective ministry methodologies on the missionary front and the US home front. His pastor’s heart and experience couples with missionary zeal to create a hybrid ministry position which he calls a “passionary.” This part-pastor and part-missionary mentality blends the often divergent roles of the pastor and the missionary. His credentials give him the ability to speak as a pastor and missionary to the issues that both plague and bless us on both sides of the cultural fence. When not on the mission field, Richie and his wife, Heather, reside in Dothan, Alabama. They are the parents of two adult sons, Kyle and Clint.

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Copyright © 2015 Richie Allen.

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Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-7554-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7553-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015905309

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/15/2015

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

Becoming as a Little Child

Communicating Fluently

Confronting the Cultural Fence

Not So Foreign After all

No Bibles Allowed

Start at the Beginning

The Green Grass on the Other Side of the Cultural Fence

Straddling the Fence

Hitting the Gospel Over the Fence

A Few Things Weeded Out by the Cultural Fence

Resist the fix it now mentality

Avoid the this is how you do it approach

Avoid popular evangelistic clichés

Bringing the Supra-Cultural Gospel Home

Convinced Converts

Strong Churches

A Well-Defined Missiology

Closed Backdoors

Attempting to Identify the Supra-Cultural Gospel

About the Author

FOREWORD

T here are few things that bring greater joy to my life than the privilege of being able to provide a foreword to this book written by my son in the ministry, Dr. Richie Allen. Here is a book that succinctly provides great help to all of those who are committed to carrying out our Lord’s Great Commission.

In my twenty-eight years of pastoring Baptist churches, I have come to the conclusion that we have a serious hurdle to overcome in our attempt as believers to be Great Commission Christians. There seems to be a huge disconnect, a great divide, between the heart of wanting to be successful in cross-cultural missions and the how of accomplishing the mission. In his book, Dr. Allen confronts this cultural fence that so often hinders our evangelistic efforts and equips us with a tried and proven method of getting over that fence.

This book is very helpful in its emphasis on the gospel being supra-cultural while at the same time emphasizing the importance of packaging the gospel within its cultural context. Another very helpful insight in this book is the importance of the role of the Holy Spirit in evangelism, which Dr. Allen correctly stresses.

Whether you are a scholar or a student, a lay person or a pastor, here is a book that will appeal greatly to all who are serious about the Great Commission.

My association with Dr. Allen through LINC-UP Missions has led me to expect nothing but excellence from whatever he does. Playing Both Sides of the Fence: A Missionary’s Journey in Search of the Supra-Cultural Gospel certainly measures up to his high standard. With the heart and perspective of a cross-cultural missionary, Richie Allen has taken a problem that has for years been neglected and given it the serious treatment it deserves. The principles contained in this book will forever alter your perspective of cross-cultural missions.

Dr. Craig Conner

Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church

Panama City, FL

January 22, 2015

This book is inspired by and dedicated to my devoted and selfless wife, Heather. She has consistently given up privileges, comforts, careers, family, and friends for the sake of following the call of Christ to the ends of the earth.

PREFACE

I n 2002, I was flying from Fort Worth, Texas, to Jacksonville, Florida. The field supervisor of my doctoral studies and I had just defended my final work before the faculty board at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He asked if I would like to attend a missions leadership conference with him the following weekend in Columbia, South Carolina. I really did not want to go. I had a hundred good reasons not to go. However, I could not bring myself to refuse the man who had just dedicated four years of his life to my education. So I reluctantly agreed.

Little did I know that the conference in Columbia would be a game-changer for me. While there, I heard things that I had never heard or considered. I learned that missionary activity is not primarily about man being lost, but about the glory of God. We go to the ends of the earth to preach to those who have never heard because He is worthy of their worship. I learned that the priority in missions is the unreached. Making the gospel accessible to all people within their own culture and language should be the goal of our mission efforts.

I was more than just a little intrigued. I asked one of the conference leaders how I managed to get all the way through the theological education process without hearing about these things. He smiled and replied, You’re not the first one to ask that question.

Within a matter of months, we hosted this same leadership conference in our church. The response was more than I imagined. Our church was ready to attack the world’s darkness with only a candle. When we asked about an unreached people-group that we could begin to reach, the response was astounding. Oh, we don’t actually connect you to an unreached people-group; we are simply equippers. We were deflated. Where in the world (literally) would we find our unreached people-group?

As the Lord would have it, I was invited on a vision trip by a former missionary who was leading several pastors to the field. This was the beginning of our efforts to reach the unreached.

Over the course of four years, the Lord immensely blessed the work and our church. Everything from tithes to attendance rose. A dozen or so people surrendered their lives to missionary service. We were riding high!

Then it happened. One Sunday morning while a guest speaker was in my pulpit, my wife and I clearly heard the call of