L E A D E R S H I P | H I S T O RY
The Woman Who Shaped AG Missions Alice Luce’s indigenous church missiology By DARRIN J. RODGERS
or more than a century, a central aspect of ssemblies of God ( G) missions has been a commitment to planting indigenous churches and training local leaders. lice valine Luce (1 3 1 55), an nglican turned-Pentecostal missionary, led the AG to adopt this indigenous church principle as its official missions strategy in 1921. AG missionary Melvin Hodges and others later popularized the missional approach, but Luce’s pioneering work laid the foundation. It is no exaggeration to say Luce played a pivotal role in the Fellowship’s global growth.
Life Born in ngland, Luce was the oldest of 13 children. She accepted Christ as Savior at age 10 and felt drawn to Christian ministry as a youth.
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Her father, a vicar of an evangelical Anglican parish, taught Luce biblical Hebrew and Greek, cultivated her spiritual and intellectual development, and prepared her for a lifetime of teaching. Luce attended Cheltenham Ladies’ College and later studied theology and nursing. Keswick Convention helped shape the theology of Luce and a number of other early AG leaders. The annual interdenominational gathering of evangelicals in England promoted practical biblical teaching and emphasized the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying and empowering work. In 1 , the Church Missionary ociety (CM ) appointed Luce to serve as a missionary in India. There, Luce taught in a Christian high school and evangelized women in harems. During her ministry in India, Luce heard about the emergence of the Pentecostal movement.
