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Jonathan Allbaugh is the dean of missional effectiveness at Vanguard University, overseeing church engagement, ministry development, and missional alignment. He holds a PhD in organisational leadership from Regent University, an MA in leadership studies, and BAs in religion and psychology from Vanguard University.
He is an ordained Assemblies of God minister and has pastored churches in Southern California and Utah for 27 years. He has served as trustee, dean of spiritual formation, university pastor, and director of the Lewis Wilson Institute for Pentecostal Studies, as well as chaplain with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department for 17 years. He is certified in critical incident stress management and executive coaching.
Dr Jon is a seasoned preacher and conference speaker. His experience spans both ministry and academia, reflecting his commitment to leadership development and missional effectiveness.
This presentation raises the question of the continuity of the Church with the life of Jesus, that is, what the Scriptures call the scandal of Christ. The use of the term “scandal” is derived from the Greek skandalon as used in the New Testament. In its ancient usage, the root of the term identifies the “means whereby one closes something” and refers to the mechanism sealing a trap to which the bait is mounted. The trigger is the stick or the stone preventing the trap from closing, but once removed, along with the bait, the victim is caught and unable to escape. A typical use of this image in the New Testament is to translate skandalon as “stumbling block,” a metaphor which is applied repeatedly to Jesus and to the gospel. The story of Jesus exhibits a striking pattern of division, culminating in the public scandal of his criminal trial and crucifixion. In turn, this scandal that forms the core of the Christian gospel is itself portrayed as a “stumbling block” to Jesus’ followers, Jews and Gentiles alike. However, very few studies have examined the meaning of this scandal, identified how it works or explored its consequences for the life of the Christian community today. This presentation examines how exactly the scandal of Christ continues to function in the life of the apostolic community and, by extension, in the Church today. It proceeds in four steps: (1) an explanation of the scandal found in the gospel of Christ, (2) the identification of the mechanism of the scandal, (3) an exposition of how this mechanism continues in the church at Pentecost, and (4) a discussion of the way the Church today can endorse this scandal and how this task reflects the challenges the churches face in today’s world.
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