The Christian and Missionary Alliance in Australia
By Russell Warnken
Introduction
In 1878 A. B. Simpson, a Canadian and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, had an experience that was to alter the course of his life and that of countless thousands of others. It was in that year while pastoring a church in Louisville, Kentucky, that Simpson had a dream. In a sermon preached in 1894 he related how, burdened by the needs of s Christless world,
I was awakened one night from sleep, trembling with a strange and solemn sense of God’s overshadowing power, and on yy soul was burning the remembrance of a strange dream through which I had that moment come. It seemed to me that I was sitting in a vast auditorium, and millions of people were there sitting around me. All the Christians in the world seemed to be there, and on the platform was a great multitude of faces and forms. They seemed to be mostly Chinese. They were not speaking, but in mute anguish were wringing their hands, and their faces wore an expression that I can never forget, I had not been thinking or speaking of the Chinese or the heathen world, but as I awoke with that vision on my mind, I did tremble with the Holy Spirit, and I threw myself on my knees, and every fibre of my being answered, ‘Yes, Lord, I will go.’ ‘
To fi man with a passion for evangelism had come a vision for missions. He did not go to China as he first hoped but he did form a missionary movement, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, whiyh in 199J had over 1300 missionaries serving in cross- cultural ministries, and 17,300 churches, with nearly 90 % of these outside of North America.
” A. B. Thompson, A B. Simpson: HU Life and Work Christian Publications. Pennsylvania, 1960 (repr. 1st ed. 1920) p.120
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MISSIONARY IS OUR MIDDLE NAME
2 The Beginnings of a Missionary Movement
The IMA in essence was a sodality that became a modality. Winter in his discussion on modalities and modalities defined a modality as a ‘structrired fellowship in which there is no distinction of sex or age’ and a sodality as ‘a structured fellowship in whioh membership involves an adult second decision beyond modality membership, and is limited by either age or sex or marital status.’2 A local churoh or denomination is an example of a modality while a mission agency would be an example of a sodality.
Sodalities tend to be more focussed in their purposes while modalities cover a wider range of interests.
The C&MA began as a sodality. Simpson, in response to that life-changing dream offered himself to the Lord to go to CA But his wife, Margaret, demurred. In this she was ’as a restraining voioe from the Lord’3 Her refusal required Simpson to turà his attention to North America. Nager to somehow give expression to his newfound vision for missions Simpson conceived the idea ofa missionary magazine to publicise the work of missions. hr t879 he left his pastorate in Louisville, Kentucky, and moved to New York, taking an appointment as pastor of the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian ohurck He saw New York as a strategic centre of the nation’s movement of missionary information and personnel. The following year the first edition of ‘The Gospel in All Lands’ was published. The first editorial expressed Simpson’s purpose,
another voice of cheer to the scattered workers in the Great Harvest field; another standard raised in the great conflict; another channel opened for the diffiision of
R.D. Winter, ‘The Two Structures of Tod‘s Redemptive Mssion’, in Perspectives oJthe World Christie Movement ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steuen C. Hawthorne, William Carey Library: Pasadena, CaEfonüg l98Ip.183.
‘ R Nîklaug J. S. Sawin, and S Stoesz, All For Jesus Christian Publications: Camp Hill,
Pennsylvanie, 1986, p.14.
MISSIO]qARY IS OUk MIDDLE NAME
the living facts of Aggressive Christianity; another echo of the Great Commission; another plea for the one thousand mtllion of our immortal fellowmen, ‘those great billows of humanity surging every generation upon the dark shores of eternal death.’ This is the meaning of our proposed work. Surely there is no need of excuse for even the feeblest effort in such a cause?
Simpson had gone to Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Churoh because of the opportunities New York offered for evangelism and for missions. ‘In New York he would be at the missionary oentre of his own denomination and others, and plans were formulating for a personal ministry on beha1fofChristless millions.’ But circumstances were changing. He found the petiple of his church did not share his vision for mass evangelism and he was becoming increasingly troubled over the issue of infant baptism. In November 1881 he left Thirteenth Street and began an independent church, the Gospel Tabernacle. The work increased and the growing congregation required twelve different premises in its first eight years. Simpson ensured that one of its major purposes was evangelism, especially to the middle classes which he regarded as a neglected group.6
For Simpson evangelism included overseas missions and in 1883 he established the Missionary Union for the Evangelisation of the World. A year later the first team of missionaries was sent to the Congo but the venture failed due to the harsh conditions the missionaries encountered, and to inadequate preparation. Enthusiasm had run ahead of wisdom. In 1883 the Missionary Training College was established which, according to Simpson, was to be a place, ‘where godly and consecrated young men and women can be prepared to go forth as labourers into the neglected fields.”
Niklaus et al, All Por Jesus, p 37 Thompson, A.B. Simpson. p.83
6 Thompson, GB. Simpson p.98
7 Nlklaus ct Q, All For Jesus, p.58
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In l88J Simpson became convinced that ‘the time was ripe for an association of believers in the fullness of the gospel.” At a convention in Old Orchard, Maine, the
following year, the large audience was stirred by an address on missions and requested
Simpson to bring to the next convention a proposal for an organisation embodying the
biblical truths they shared and designed ‘to plaoe missionaries where they were most
needed.’9 In 1887, at the Old Orchard convention two organisations were formed, the
Christian Alltance (CA) and the Evangelical Missionary Alliance (EMA). Two years
later the EMA became the International Missionary Alliance (IMA). The CA embodied
Simpson’s beliefs on the deeper Christian life of whioh he was a well-known exponent. With the support of the CA the EMA was to be a missionary sending agency directing
missionaries to unevangelised peoples. The missionaries were to preach the gospel and plant indigenous churches with the form of church government being decided by local
conditions. The organisations were linked theologically for Simpson believed that one of the main requirements for a missionary was a life that knew the fullness of the
indwelling Jesus Christ.
Simpson was concerned from the outset not to establish another denomination “‘There is no desire on the part of anyone connected with our work to build up a new sect or separate people from the churches where the Lord has called them to work and
worship”’ io
‘ Thompson, AB Simpson p.128 Wiklaus et al, AU For Jesus, p.71
‘ 0 lTiklaus ct al, All For Jesus. p.24
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MISSIONAkY IS OUR MIDDLE NAME
The IMA (formerly EMA) was supported mainly through the CA and ‘the two societies were virtually one iii purpose and constituency’.1 In 1897 the CA and the IMA became one organisation, the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA). In thG United States the C&MA was made up of independent churches, such as the Gospel Tabernacle, and branches. Branches met regularly at times not conflicting with regular church activities and their memberi remained in their own churches. Local branches were not to be thought of as churches and Simpson was at pains to distinguish them from the independent ohurohes. t2
- From Missionary IYfovement to Missioaary Denomination
As noted above Simpson did not intend to start a new denomination. The C&MA was in fact a sodality with no intention of becoming a modality. But things turned out otherwise. As the movement grew its objectives, programs and concerns widened to include the needs of the home base, that is, the branches and independent churches that made up the movement.’3
The story of the Alliance in the twentieth century has been its evolution from a loose-knit missionary movement, iield together by a commitment to the ideals of its founder, into a missionary denomination. By the 1920’s the Alliance was asking how it might respond to circumstances quite different to those of its origins in the 1880’s. It made a beginning at this by organising itself into regions and requiring training for its home workers. But the C&MA still lacked an overall coherent structure. Its constituent members, the branches and affiliated churches, organised themselves according to local
I I ThompspBn, A Simpson. p.132
*z Thompson, A B Simpson p.135
13 Niktaus et al, All For Jesus, p 247
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MISS IONARY IS OUK MIDDLE NAME
needs and conditions, choosing the structure that best suited them. This laissez-faire approach militated against the development of nation-wide support and programmes. “
The decades of the forties and fifties saw the C&MA seeking to develop the home work even further. The same intentional planning and programmes for growth that characterised the missionary work were now being applied to the North American constituency. In 1965 an official Statement of Faith was adopted. It was not so much the ‘formulation of new theological positions hammered out by intense debate and exhaustive research’ but rather, ‘it represented a summary of beliefs long held’ In 1974 the North American General Council approved a reorganisation which gave the Alliance ‘a new and official identity’, a new constitution and by-laws were passed making the C&MA officially a denomination.” It was in reality only the official recognition of what was already a fact of life for the Alliance. The sodality had become a modality, albiet
somewhat reluctantly. The metamorphosis had not been an easy one. Each step towards becoming a modality has been resisted by those who wished to remain a modality fearing that a broadening of the Alliance’s interests would entail a loss of its missionary vision.
Consequently there exists a tension within the C&MA of today, between its sodality origins and its present modality status. This is seen, for example, in the competition of the missionary programme with home interests for available resources.”
” Niklaus et al, All For Jesus, p.172
” Niklaus et al, All For Jesus, pp 229,230
” P Nanfelt, ‘Come On In! The Watefs Finel’ US C&MA, Division of Overseas Ministries, Pre- Council Missionary Conference, 1996, p.25
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MISSIONARY IS OUR MIDDLE NAMP.
Although now a modality, sodality-type thinking still characterises Alliance leadership. L. L. King, President of the US C&MA from 1978 to 1987, wrote in an Epilogue to All For Jesus (1986), titled, ‘We are specialists’ the following,
The Alliance is a unique missionary denomination – a maverick movement into whose soul the Head of the Church breathed ‘Go!’ from the very start…the Alliance believes that ao province or region or country should be exempted b:‹fm the opportunity to hear the Gospel – witnessing that intends to convert. This is our special trust, and we will specialise in it.’7
The recently elected President of the US C&MA, Dr Paul Bubna, after noting ‘that the Alliance was a missionary movement that had evolved into a denomination, declared “However, the missionary vision and emphasis is still at the heart of the Alliance“”‘
- A Missionary Theology.
.The theology of the founder of the C&MA was, at heart, a missionary theology and he summarised it in what he termed, the Fourfold Gospel. He first used this expression in March, 1890 and it ‘was intended to crystallise and convey publicly the distinctive doctrinal convictions of his movement.’1’ The four ‘folds’ were, Christ as saviour, sanctifier, healer and coming king.°0 They not ofily represented his biblical convictions but pointed to four pivotal events in his own spiritual pilgrimage. Three of these had a direct bearing on missions. Christ as saviour provided Simpson with the motivation for evangelism and missions. All men and women needed a saviour, the neighbour next door and the ‘neighbour’ across the seas. But evang9lism and missions
I Niklaus, All For Jesus, p.252
” M. Irwin, ‘A New }•resident for a New Century’, Alliance Life. July 17, 1996, The Christian and Missionary Alliance, Colorado Springs, US, 2,9.
I’ C. W. Nienlfirchen, A B Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement Hendrioksoo, Mass. U.S., 1992,
p.2.
‘° For an elabomtion of the ‘fourfold Gospel’, see A B. Simpson, The Fpur-Potd Gospel, Christian Publications, Pennsylvania, n.d.
MISSIONARY IS OUR MIDDLE NAME
was not to be engaged in unless one was spiritually prepared. So for Simpson a necessary qualification for any would-be missionary was to be filled with Christ. Hence the second ‘fold’, Christ as sanctîfier. Simpson linked the pre-millennial retum of Christ to the missionary enterprise through Matthew 24:14.2 ‘ Thus Christ as ooming king was his eschatologioal imperative for missions. Blumhofer commented, ‘Simpson’s Christian and Missionary Allianoe was among the most visible of the early American missionary agencies shaped by premillennial expectations.’°°
This theology continues to shape the Alliance’s self-understanding today. It remains a missionary theology. It is the theology that has infomied the Australian Alliance in its ministiy in Austmlia and abroad.
- The Alliance in Australia
1 Early Australiait contacta with the C&MA
Australian involvement in the CDMA goes back to the 1890’s. A report in an Alliance publication of the 25th June, 1897, stated ‘that Doctor and Mrs Warren started a missionary home in Australia and in a four year period [probably 1893 – 1897] sent forth twenty candidates’.2‘
Rev Will Fletcher, a Victorian, ‘went to India with a certain Gospel mission in 1902 ‘ but because of his being ‘badly let down by his mission he joined the C&MA in Bombay in 1904 and served for approximately thirty two years’ with the Alliance. Mrs Fletcher followed her hushand to India arriving a year later in 1903. She worked for
’ t Jofin Sawin, ‘The Foufold Gospel’, in The Birt}j of a Vision editors, D. F Hartzfeld and C. Nienkirchen, Buena Book 8ervices, Alberta, Canada, 1986, p.15. See aiso A H. ThompĂson, B.. Simpson His Life and WorL Christian Pufilications, Pennsylvania, 1960, p.124.
E. L. Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith: The Asser»bties of God. Pentecostalistti an‹J American
Culture. University of Illinois Press: Chicago, 1993, p. 18
” R. T. Henry, Repon of the Director to the Ninth just General Council of the Christian and
Missionarv Alliance ofAustmli< The G&MA of Austraja, 1978,. p.1
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MISSIONARY IS OUR MIDDLE NAME
twenty years alongside of him before her death. His daughter, Gladys Fletcher, served with the Ramabai Mukti Mission. 2’ Will Fletcher and a Miss Charlotte Rutherford returned from India to Australia on furlough in 1926 and started the C&MA in Australia. They began meeting in a home in Doncaster, Melbourne, and later held meetings at the Friends Meeting house in Russell Street, Melbourne. This new work only lasted two years and Will Fletcher remarried and went back to India to continue his work as a missionary there. He returned to Australia in 1936 and died in 1947.2*
In 1912, a Rev Elgar Came of Melbourne became aware of the C&MA through the reading of an Alliance magazine. He went to Simpson‘s Missionary Training lhstitute in Nyack in 1912 to study and from there, after graduating in 1915, went with the C&MA to China arriving in South China near Christmas 1917. He served under Robert Jaffray and with Jaffray was captured by bandits in 1924. Sickness caused his return to Australia in 1927.26
Between World War One and World War Two, it is reported that Dr. Jaffray visited Melbourne and spoke at the Melbourne Bible Institute at a series of special meetings. These meetings had a great impact on the students, so much so that an evangelistic missionary organisation was established.
After World War Two, more Australian missionaries joined the Alliance. Rev D W Cattmel served in India, Rev Leon Gold worked in Thailand on secondment to the Far East Broad Casting Association, Dr. Maij Bromley served as a medical doctor in Irian Jaya, and Joan Waller worked with the Alliance in Vietnam.
” Henry, Report, 1978, p 1
” Henry, Renon, 1978, p 2
26 Heory, Report, 1978, p.1
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2 The C&MA comes to Australia (1969)
Although there were contacts between Australians and the Alliance going back to the last century it was not until 1969 that the C&MA formerly established a presence in Australia. In that year, led by former Viet Nam missionary, Robert Henry, the Alliance started in Sydney.
Why had the Alliance come to Atistralta7 R. T. Henry in his report to the first C&MA General Council in Australia included in the reasons, the strategic importance of Australia with regard to missions in south east Asia. He believed there was a need
‘to channel young, dedicated Ausealian lives into regions of the earth heretofore neglected and unnoticed by the evangelical ohurch in this land’.27
6 What Makes The Alliance Different†
1 Missions is central.
What makes the Australian Allianm different? It is not just the interest in missions for other denominations haVe this interest, but that the Alliance has tried to make missions central to the life of the denomination and its constituent churches in a way not done in other denominations. It seeks to be a missionary denomination.
Can this be done effectively† It would seem in trying to do so that modality interests can conflict with sodality interests and indeed overwhelm them. Modalities, in this case local churches, whose concerns are broader and whose members tend to be more inward, oan bltint the effectiveness of sodalities if they come under their control, as church history has shown.” These tensions have been keenly felt especially at the ohurch level, the tension between local and mission needs, between that which impacts directly
Henry, Report. 197fi, p. I
2‘ Winter, ‘The Two Strictures…”, p.185
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on the congregation and that which is often perceived as peripheral concern. Has the C&MA of Australia been able to resolve these tensions†
2 Keeping missions central
In seeking to keep missions central to the life of the denomination the Alliance has relied on the past and has built into its church life some key activities.
- A missionary tradition. The C&MA is a denomination that grew out of a missionary movement as has been briefly outlined above. This tradition is still a defining influence and kept alive in the ways outlined below. Through its magazine, Alliance Life, and through sermons and visits by missionaries the Alliance’s missionary past is retold.
- Institutional commitment:
- The annual missionary convention. The C&MA has a very simple church calendar consisting of Christmas, Easter and the annual missionary convention. Every local Alliance 9huroh is required by its constitution to hold a missionary convention each year. At the convention the church is visited by one of C&MA’s serving missionaries to speak about the work they are involved in and to challenge the people as to their own involvement whether through prayer, giving or actually becoming a missionary oneself.
- The Faith Promise programme of support. Alliance missionaries do not have to raise their own finances but receive support from a central fund, the Great Commission Fund. At each missionary convention a Faith Promise is taken up in which members of the local church commit themselves to give a certain amount of money over the next twelve months. This money is directed to the Oreat Commission Fund.
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One of the limitations of this, which the Australian Alliance has of recent times been grappling with, is that our missionary endeavour is limited by the size of the
constituency and it has found itself with more candidates than it can financially support.
Changing the policy from denominational to individual support has been considered but
rejected in favour of greater education of Alliance people as regards missions. In other
words, seeking to increase the giving of the current constituency. One of the implications of the denominati9nal support policy has been that the burden of raising money for
missionary support has been placed on the pastor of the local church who has the
responsibility to see that missionary giving through the Faith Promise programme is
maintained through the year, instead of falling on the missionaries themselves as in an
individual support soheme .
- Keeping the needs of missionaries before the Alliance constituency throughout
the year. How this is done will vary from ohurch to ohurch and will include missions
segments in Sunday services, distribution of missionary information including prayer
needs, and through the work of special interest groups such as Alliance Women one of
whose purposes is the promotion of missions in the local church. Again the pastor will
have an important part to play here. Like any other pastor, the Alliance pastor has to
encourage the congregation to an outward focus when the natural inclination is to be
concerned with looal and personal matters.
The role of the President and headquarters. One of the main requirements made
of national C&MA leadership is the supervision and promotion of cross-cultural
missions. In the United States this is the responsibility of a special section of national
MISSIONARY IS OUR MIDDLL NAME
semi-autonomous sodality within the larger modality of the US C&MA. ’rhe Australian Alliance is not large enough for such structure and the responsibility for missions supervision and promotion largely falls to one person, assisted by a small head office staff. Given the many other responsibilities of the President for a widely scattered constituency, this is a weakness in the Australian Alliance missionary programme as modality and sodality interests are focussed on one person. 29
7 The Alliance Experience in Austral*a
I Missionaries and money
In size the Australian Alliance is quite small with 39 churches, 15 cross-cultural missionaries and a Sunday morning attendmce of 3,260 in 1995.3‘ Howev9r its contribution to missions has been disproportionately high as table 1 (see Appendix) indicates. This table provides only broad indicators of magnitude and is not meant to be a scorecard on missionary performance. It is not a comprehensive survey of all denominational missions but rather a selective sample of denominations of similar size or ethos to the Australian Alliance. It utilises denominational missions giving not total giving to missions by members of a given denomination. It would appear to indicate that among the denominations surveyed the Australian Alliance has been reasonably successful in keeping missions central in the life of the denomination.
2’ Mgpual of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, The Christian and Missionary Alliance of
Australia, 1996, p.3.t0-3. I \
° R Lang, Rport of the Prestdent tot eh 27th Annual General Council of The Christian and
Missionary Alliance of Australia Inc.„ The CDMA of Australia, 1996.
t4
MISSIONARY IS OUR MIDDLR NAME
2 Ethnic Developments
It is now commonplace to call Australia a multi-cultural society, although there have been other cultures within the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture for most of European settlement. Changes in the pattern of immigration in the last two decades have brought about significant changes to the faoe of Australian society. The missionary work of the Alliance in south-east Asia has given it a foundation to take advantage of the opportunities presented by these remarkable changes especially with regard to Vietnamese and Chinese immigration. Many or those who have come to Australia from these two groups are from Alltance churches in Hong Kong and Viet Nam.
In 1888 the C&MA sent its first missionaries into China, and in 1911 Alliance missionaries entered Viet Nam, then under the colonial control of the French.3‘ The communist take-over of China in 1949 foroed the relocation of Alliance missionaries many of whom went to Hong Kong. In 1975 C&MA missionaries were forced to leave Viet Nam in the race of the conquering army of the then North Viet Nam. The church established by the Alliance, the Evangelical Church of Viet Nam, was one of the largest Protestant churches in Viet Nam at the time of the communist victory.
The C&MA Chinese work in Australia has been developed by Canadian Alliance Chinese coming to Australta in 1986 and working amongst Chinese immigrants. The Alliance Vietnamese Christians who eventually reached Australian shores, most through refugee camps, after the fall of South Viet Nam, formed the Vietnamese Evangelical Church of Australia whioh later joined with the C&MA of Australia. Other AllianGe
31 Missionary Atlas. pp. 56, 135
MISSIONARY IS OUR MIDDLE NAME
ethnic congregations in Australia include, Spanish, Korean, Hmong, Korean and Indonesian.
The profile of the Australian Alliance Sunday morning attendees has changed dramatically since 1984, the year the first ethnic church joined the C&M of Australia, as table 2 indicates.
(3) Aboriginal work ”
The Australian Alliance has a small work amongst Aborigines of the Western Desert in Western Aus,tralia which began in 1971, two years after the Alliance began in Australia. Four workers, including one of Aboriginal descent, are involved in the work whioh includes an Aboriginal churoh in Kalgoorlie and an itinerant discipleship and leadership development programme among the tribes of the Western Desert.
8 flow Missionary is the Christian and Missionary Alliance of Australia?
The C&MA defines itself as a missionary denomination and table 1 seems to indicate that it has been able to keep missions at the centre of the denomination in a way that other denominations perhaps have not. In a comparison with others the Australian Alliance may not seem to be doing too badly but a recent survey of its churches revealed some interesting results:3‘
Crenerally the survey showed a fairly high level of missions awareness but it also revealed some areas for concern 78% of respondents understood overseas mission to be a biblical mandate for all Christians. While this may seem acceptable, it is disquieting to a missionary denomination that nearly one-quarter of the respondents did not think
‘ 2 Missions Support Task Porce, The Faith Promise Survey. The Christian and Missionary Alliance of Australia, (t995), pp. 61-64. The survey was a voluntary one acid the response rate was estimated at 66%.
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overseas missions to be a biblical requirement. 81% of respondents thought that overseas mission is generally not counter-productive for the kingdom of God, while 85% of those replying to the survey thought that overseas mission was necessary for the proclamation of the gospel to all peoples. The survey indicated that 74% of respondents believed overseas mission is generally not destructive of the culture and lifestyle of indigenous peoples. For a missionary denomination it is a concern that one quarter of the respondents were either unsure of this or thought that overseas missions was indeed destructive of the culture add lifestyles of other peoples. 71% of those responding
thought that overseas mission was a required element of the ministry of every local church. While the number of those who replied in the affirmative may be thought to be good compared to the experience of other denominations, for the Australian Alliance it is worrying that nearly 30% of respondents thought that overseas mission was not a required element of the ministry of all loGal churches. This is probably indicative of the sodality-modality tensions which are present in a movement like the Alliance. The report noted somewhat laconically, ‘this is an area requiring attention.’33
Conclusion
The Christian and Missionary Alliance is unique example of a sodality that has beoome a modality while attempting to retain some of the characteristics of a sodality. It is a missionary movement that has become a missionary denomination. History would suggest that this cannot be done. Certainly this transition has involved tensions as more focussed sodality interests have had to compete with broader modality concerns. These
” Faith Promise Survey, p.64
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tensions have been experienced, and continue to be experienced, in the Australian Alliance. The data collected would seem to suggest a modest degree of success in being a missionary denomination, of maintaining a strong missions focus in the midst of the broader concerns of a denomination. However the tensions remain and it is still too early, as far as the Australian Alliance is concerned, to say that the experiment has been a success.