By Robbie McAlister, CIU Alumni
It All Began With a Chat With a Neighbor.
Back in the 1980s, Robbie McAlister told his next door neighbor that he wanted to plant a church. “What kind of training have you had?” the neighbor asked.
“Well, I’ve been discipled in my church,” McAlister replied.
“You need to go to Columbia Bible College,” the neighbor responded, referencing what is now Columbia International University.
As it turns out, McAlister didn’t know anything about Columbia Bible College. But he did get to know the school and his neighbor much better after that conversation.
His neighbor was Robertson McQuilkin, the third president of Columbia Bible College.
Enrolling in the Seminary at Columbia Bible College would be the first of many experiences in McAlister’s life that he refers to as “kairos” moments, crucial times when he carried out a new venture at God’s prompting and direction.
McAlister earned a graduate degree in Missions from CIU in 1994 and a Doctorate in Missions in 2007. That’s quite a turn for a man who earned an undergraduate degree in engineering from Clemson University and began a career in the textile industry. But soon after he become involved in church planting in the Columbia area and while attending CIU, he was developing an even greater vision for the world and The Great Commission with the assistance of the CIU seminary dean, Dr. Ken Mullholland.
“He absolutely agreed with me that we need to deploy more people to reach the unreached,” McAlister told CIU Today during an interview over lunch in the CIU cafeteria.
Checking the Phone Book
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and The Soviet Union collapsed, the atheistic grip on Eastern Europe ended. That opened the way for McAlister to travel on a CIU summer mission trip to Ukraine, expanding his vision. Upon his return to the United States, he did an informal count of the number of churches in the Columbia area by looking through the closest thing to what would be an internet search today — the yellow pages of the telephone directory. This was one of those “kairos” moments for McAllister.
“Why are we expending so much energy on an area so flush with churches, when there are places in the world that are not only unreached, but receptive (and) in a unique moment — a kairos moment?” McAlister questioned. “God laid it on my heart to be a person who is looking around the world for kairos moments where God is uniquely working through contextual factors, to create receptivity, accessibility and intersection with unreached people groups so that we can actually finish the (Great Commission) task.”
That moment in the phone book, led to a 10-year ministry in Ukraine that included assisting with an accredited Christian school, church-planting, training local leaders and initiating an association of Baptist churches.
When he returned to the Columbia area, he assisted in leadership at Riverbend Community Church while working on his CIU doctorate in Missions. By 2017, Riverbend sent McAlister to the mission field once again, this time ministering during a refugee crisis developing in Europe. He organized short-term teams to assist in the refugee camps. Most of the refugees were Muslim.
“For those four years I was again trying to understand that kairos moment,” McAlister said. “God created a moment where there was accessibility to unreached people groups and receptivity (to the gospel) like I’ve never seen before. Most of (the refugees) were Muslims who were escaping terroristic regimes and repression. So they were questioning everything including Islam. We gave out Bibles. We were able to serve them and love them.”
More Work Back Home
More recently, McAlister has been involved in ethnic engagement in South Carolina, assisting with church plants among Chinese, Vietnamese, Haitians and Filipinos.
He has also served as a consultant with the Evangelical Immigration Table, an arm of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in association with World Relief. He lobbied for just and good immigration laws and reform, taking him to the U.S. southern border and to Washington, D.C.
The War in Ukraine
Now in his late 60s, McAlister is heading back to Ukraine, to assist a nation at war with Russia. “I never thought we’d see a war there,” McAlister thought aloud. “The opportunities there for the gospel demands my commitment.”
He still has a network of pastors and other colleagues there ministering around the country, building houses for those who’ve lost theirs in the war, and feeding widows and war orphans.
“There is a real value in the ministry of presence of just showing people in crisis that you care,” McAlister said. “As long as I’m adding value to what they are doing, then I’ll go over there.”
Through it all, McAlister makes sure he gives credit to Criss, his wife of 42 years, “a great champion of everything we’ve done.”
Alumni Leadership
McAlister serves on CIU’s Alumni Association Leadership Council (AALC), including three years as president, which included CIU’s 100th anniversary year. He looks back fondly on the school that gave him a heart for the nations.
“What really amazed me at CIU, it seemed like almost every professor had been in ministry before they taught,” McAlister said. “They weren’t just academicians. They were practitioners who were academically sound and they were able to contextualize the academics with the practice. That really meant a lot to me.”
McAlister’s voice rises with excitement.
“They were doing the very things I wanted to do. I get goose bumps thinking about it.”
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