"Secondly, people have adopted fragments of St. Paul's method and have tried to incorporate them into alien systems, and the failure which resulted has been used as
an argument against the Apostle's method. For instance, people have; baptized uninstructed converts and the converts have fallen away ; but St. Paul did not baptize
uninstructed converts apart from a system of mutual responsibility which ensured their instruction. Again, they have gathered congregations and have left them to fend for
themselves, with the result that the congregations have fallen back into heathenism. But St. Paul did not gather congregations, he planted Churches, and he did not leave a Church until it was fully equipped with orders of Ministry, Sacraments and Tradition. Or again, they have trusted native helpers with the management of mission funds,
and the natives have grievously misused them ; but St. Paul did not trust natives with the management of Church funds. He had no funds with which to entrust them. These
people have committed funds in trust to individual natives and have been deceived ; but St. Paul left the Church to manage its own finance. These people have made the
natives responsible to them for honest management ; but St. Paul never made any Church render an account of its finances to him. Or again, Europeans have ordained ill educated
natives and have repented of it. But they have first broken the bonds which should have united those whom they ordained to those to whom they were to minister, and then have expected them to be ministers of a foreign system of Church organization with which neither the ministers nor their congregations were familiar. St. Paul
did not do this. He ordained ministers of the Church for the Church, and he instituted no elaborate constitution. When these false and partial attempts at imitating the Apostle's method have failed, men have declared that the Apostolic method was at fault and was quite unsuited to the condition and circumstances of present day missions. The truth is that they have neither understood nor practiced the Apostle's method at all."
- Roland Allen
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