D.R. Allen
D. R. Allen (1969-present) is the youngest son born to an American G.I. and a German-born mother. Following World War 2 they met and married while his father, Duel Newton, was serving in the U.S. Army. Several years later his father longed to return to Texas and promised his mother a washing machine to which she agreed.
In May 1969 Daniel Ray was born and named by his mother; she loved the Daniel from the Bible and chose Ray because of a neighbors brother who was a missionary. His father nicknamed “Lightening” for obvious reasons. His father was the son of share-croppers and loved to plant a garden and also tinker with machines from lawnmowers to cars. When D. R. Allen was almost five-years-old his father took ill suddenly and died from cancer. This affected his life more than anything else in the early years. Growing up without a father brought changes where his mother worked outside the home but she continued to attend church faithfully with her three young sons. And D. R. Allen continued doing the many things that his father loved to do. He loved to explore 5-mile Creek behind his home and fish there too with rod and reel, a sane, or just using kite string and bacon to catch crawdads. In those days drugs and booze where becoming common among teens and many of his friends began using them. However, while he had struggles he refused to go in this direction, instead, continued fishing and tinkering with machines. As he grew up he found that he enjoyed tinkering with bikes, lawn mowers, and even built his dog Sam a dog house out of scrap wood he found laying around. Sam was a shepherd-collie mix that his oldest brother had given him for his birthday and became the kind of dog every boy dreams of having. In 1981 his oldest brother gave him a Bible which he proceeded to literally wear out reading and looking through it. In 1987 following high school graduation he had a personal experience with God in which he gave his heart and life to Jesus Christ.
From there he sensed a calling to proclaim Christ crucified and began serving together with his newlywed wife Teresa (Pulley). They were married in June 1989. Both D. R. Allen and Teresa desired to follow the Lord wherever He was leading and after a decade of local church ministry they moved to Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, where they would live for the next 11-12 years. In Brazil D. R. Allen passed his love of the Lord, family, building and repairing things, as well as exploring nearby rivers to his sons, Joseph and John Paul. They spent many hours exploring the jungle, rivers, waterfalls, canyons, and caves of South America. And with them was their dog Cowboy, a Brazilian-born standard poodle. Like D. R. Allen they had found that special dog who did everything with them. And each night they end their day with a Bible story, prayer, and other stories as well. After working on making disciples among German-Brazilians, working on a translation project in their language called Hunsrik, and co-authoring a couple of books in Hunsrik, Portuguese, and Grammatical German he fell gravely ill and was removed from the field in 2011. They had a 33 acre farm and old farm house that they were able to return to in rural and rugged East Texas. Within a month D. R. Allen was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis which he still deals with to this day.
Presently, he is a bi-vocational pastor of a country church in town, as he describes it and now describes himself as a farmer too. They began a farm clearing pine trees to raise cattle, goats, chickens, ducks, geese, turkey, hogs, etc… This led to the building of barns and fences, tractors, farm implements. And all of these need repairing. And the Allen Brothers Farm is home to Bubba the Longhorn who is one of the only Texas Longhorns lead trained. Like his father before him he is a farmer and glad to be. And like his father’s before him he follows the Lord Jesus Christ.
D. R. Allen has a desire to see people and families, led by the fathers to live according to God’s ways in the here and now. He loves writing and has plans to continue writing for adults and children.
*When he was about 12 years old he received a new fishing reel for Christmas and immediately began taking it apart. After putting it back together it didn’t work properly no matter how he tried. Over the years he kept the reel and would occasionally try to figure out the problem. Then, just before he left from Brazil to return home to Texas he took it out and tinkered with it again but this time he figured out the problem; repairing the reel he received for Christmas almost 30 years earlier.
**And his father did fulfill his promise to buy her a washing machine and was able to even buy a small house where D. R. Allen lived until going to college at age 18.
His Vision
D.R. Allen aims to inspire young Believers cutting through all the buzz and hype rampant today until Christ be formed in them. Do you have such a hunger and a thirst for righteousness? Then, you are encouraged to come along on a passionate journey of faith. Just as Abraham learned to leave old ways and take up new ones in his pursuit of God the reader will also be encouraged and challenged to do the same through Jesus Christ. One needs to study God’s Sacred Word giving consideration to what is essential to the Christian faith as D. R. Allen encourages us to take a hard look at man-made traditions versus the simple faith of the radically altered life. Just as in the days of Gideon and Habakkuk the Lord longs to renew His mighty works and so it begins with those who belong to His household. D. R. Allen presents the compelling need of the church today to become pure. This charge is for the followers of Jesus to cease living between the sacred and the secular so that we return to the simplicity of a New Testament life thereby leaving behind what is shameful in order to outwardly express the inward formation of Christ in us. Jesus longs for His bride to be holy as He is holy. Thus we are to walk with Him into the higher, farther, and deeper of God.
His Experience
D.R. Allen has been a pastor for nearly 40 years. He has a Bachelor of Science in History (UTT) and an MDIV (SWBTS) in Bible. He has pastored at one of the largest churches in the country before serving as a missionary for 10 years in Brazil. Radically Altered: Christ Formed in You is his first full work in English, He debuted as a contributing author for Nexus: The House Church Movement Reader as well as co-authoring two books in Brazil focused upon the Hunsrik language. While living overseas for a decade, he and his family worked extensively in partnership with the Hunsrik people, the Hunsrik Bible Translation Project, the Brazilian Bible Society, Wycliffe and it’s affiliate The Seed Company, teaming together for the purpose of creating an orthography to translate the Bible as well as to create Bible stories in printed and audio formats. Today, he still serves in the area of Bible translation and church planting, is a bi-vocational pastor and farmer.
His Commitment
He and his wife, Teresa, have been married for over thirty years and live on a rugged East Texas farm. They have two sons known affectionately as The Allen Brothers, Joseph and John Paul, known for their musical talents. But it is their family’s passion to see followers of Christ put their spiritual houses in order that they are most known for. This calling drives their labor”…until Christ be formed in you.”
