This Week in AG History — February 24, 1963
By Ruthie Edgerly Oberg
Originally published on AG News, 26 February 2026
The Assemblies of God has been shaped not only by evangelists and church planters, but also by patient builders of people and institutions. Among them stands Delbert H. “Del” Tarr, Jr (1934-2025) — missionary, linguist, educator, author, and former president of the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary — whose life embodied a simple conviction: to preach Christ well, one must first listen and learn well.
Born June 14, 1934, Tarr and his wife, Dorothy “Dolly” Tarr (1931–2022), were appointed missionaries with Assemblies of God World Missions in 1959. Their early years of service were in West Africa, in what was then Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). It was there that Tarr’s lifelong passion for language, culture, and theological formation took deep root.
In a Feb. 24, 1963, article he wrote for the Pentecostal Evangel titled, “Repeat That Please!,” Tarr offered a vivid window into those formative years.
“This is a stock expression for missionaries learning another language,” he wrote, describing the humility of starting from scratch. Whether studying French, Moré, or Kasem, he said the missionary finds himself “in the position of a small child facing the vast problem of limited expression and comprehension.”
Language study, he admitted, was lonely.
“The first few weeks you are in the country you feel completely isolated although you are surrounded by people,” Tarr stated.
He never forgot standing at a train station in a French-speaking town with no one to meet them, no place to stay, and no one who could understand him.
“Language study is frustrating,” he wrote, not only because of vocabulary, but because of “new thought patterns to be mastered.” In French, cars do not run — “they walk.” In Moré, they “obey.”
Yet even in the frustration, Tarr discerned the hand of God. The discipline of language study, he realized, was not wasted time but “an integral part of fulfilling His call to preach the gospel to every creature.”
As weeks turned into months, something beautiful happened: “Suddenly you are rewarded with the realization that a new translation of the Bible is open to you.” Reading Scripture in another language, he said, was like seeing with both eyes instead of one — the same truth, but with greater depth.
That conviction shaped his missionary philosophy.
“You can’t be a good missionary until you can communicate with people on their own level,” an older missionary once told him. Tarr agreed.
“His real person and his language are inseparable,” he wrote. When Africans heard a white missionary speak in their mother tongue, barriers fell. “Our chances of touching his soul with the gospel are greatly enhanced.”
Those early lessons in humility and communication guided the next decades of Tarr’s ministry.
In West Africa, he helped lead Bible training efforts, including directing the Mossiland Bible School in Burkina Faso and eventually assisted in the founding of the West Africa Advanced School of Theology (WAAST) in Lomé, Togo — a regional graduate institution serving Francophone and Anglophone leaders across the continent.
Serving as the WAAST academic dean of the French section, he invested deeply in curriculum development and leadership formation, equipping pastors from multiple nations to return home prepared to shepherd growing Pentecostal churches. Along the way, he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota with concentrations in Cultural Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Communications.
Tarr’s influence extended far beyond West Africa. He became a respected voice in cross-cultural communication, anthropology, and missiology. His writings — including Intercultural Communications, The Foolishness of God: A Linguist Looks at the Mystery of Tongues, Double Image: Insights from African Parables, and Shepherds Not Kings — reflected the same themes he articulated in 1963: listen carefully, think deeply, and love people enough to speak in ways they understand.
In the 1980s, Tarr became the founding president of California Theological Seminary in Fresno, California, and in 1990, Tarr began his tenure as president of the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary (AGTS) in Springfield, Missouri.
Under his leadership (1990–1999), the seminary’s academic profile was strengthened alongside a successful capital campaign that culminated in the construction of the Michael and Frances Cardone Building, giving the seminary a permanent and visible home adjacent to Evangel University. He later served as Professor Emeritus of Cross-Cultural Communications and Anthropology, continuing to teach and mentor long after his presidency concluded.
Students remember Tarr not simply as a scholar, but as a shepherd. He modeled intellectual rigor without spiritual dryness, global awareness without cultural arrogance. He knew firsthand the vulnerability of standing in a train station unable to communicate — and he taught future missionaries to embrace that vulnerability as holy ground.
Late in life, Tarr reflected with gratitude that he had ministered or taught in 71 countries. Yet the heart of his ministry remained what he described decades earlier: the slow, humbling, beautiful work of learning to say, “Repeat that, please.”
Language study, he wrote, “is hard; it is taxing on the nerves… but it is worth it.” The same could be said of a life poured out in patient obedience. Through classrooms in Africa, lecture halls in Springfield, and pages of thoughtful scholarship, Del Tarr demonstrated that Spirit-empowered mission requires both courage and comprehension — and that sometimes the most powerful words we learn to say are the ones that teach us to listen first.
His legacy lives on in the thousands of pastors, missionaries, and scholars who carry forward that vision: to speak the gospel clearly, in every language, to every people, with humility and love.
Read Del Tarr’s article, “Repeat That Please!,” on page 8 of the Feb. 24, 1963, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.
Also featured in this issue:
• “Breaking the Barriers of Dark Silence,” by Maxine Strobridge
• “WMC Fingerprints,” by R.L. Brandt
• “I Found a Positive Cure for Dope Addiction,” by Sonny Arguinzoni
And many more!
Click here to read this issue now.
Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center.
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