Background

Alan Edgar Walker was born on June 4, 1911, in Annandale, New South Wales, Australia. He was the only child of Reverend Alfred Walker and Violet Lavis.

Education

At Fort Street High School Alan had been a poor scholar, but when studying Divinity at Leigh Theological College he shone. He also graduated from the University of Sydney in 1943.

Career

Alan Walker was ordained a Methodist minister in 1934; he filled the remainder of his life with a remarkable number of accomplishments. Walker ministered to coal miners during World War II. After the war he directed what is now the Wesley Mission in Sydney, expanding it into one of the world's largest Methodist missions. In the 1960s Walker led missions all over the world, especially enjoying his time in Fiji.

In 1978 Alan was appointed the director of world evangelism for the World Methodist Council, a position from which he retired in 1988. Walker's individual achievements included the founding in 1963 of Lifeline, a telephone counselling service that became international in scope, and the founding of what is now the Alan Walker College of Evangelism, a school designed to train ministers for Pacific Asia.

Walker presented the television program I Challenge the Minister, in which he fielded questions from a live audience. From the 1940s through the 1990s he was the religion editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Walker also wrote more than fifty books, including "Breakthrough: Rediscovering the Holy Spirit," "The New Evangelism, Life in the Holy Spirit, and Try God." Walker shared with his wife the Methodist Peace Prize. He was created a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 1981, but the title Walker preferred, he once said, was "Reverend."

Achievements

• Reverend Alan Walker was a great Australian, widely revered not only in Methodism but throughout society around the globe. His was a lifetime of ministry which emphasized moral and spiritual transformation and reconciliation. He was superintendent of Wesley Central Mission and the founder of Lifeline telephone counseling service in New South Wales. He inspired many young people to commit themselves to Christian service and founded a training college to equip young people from Pacific nations for ministry, the Pacific College of Evangelism (now the Alan Walker College of Evangelism).
  
  Alan was honored through appointment as Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours 1955 for service to the Waverley Methodist Mission and creation as Knight Bachelor in the New Year's Honours 1981 for 'services to religion.' In 1978, he was awarded the Institut de la Vie award of the French Academy of Science. In 1986, Alan was awarded the World Methodist Peace Award and, in 2001, the Centenary Medal for 'service to Australian society.' Sir Alan Walker was named, as one of 100 people in 1997, as an Australian Living Treasure.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Breakthrough: Rediscovery of the Holy Spirit 1969
  • Life in the Holy Spirit 1986
  • Evangelistic Preaching 1988
  • The Prayer Back: Encounter the Divine and Transform Your Life 2003
  • Love in action: The thrilling story of an Australian company of Christians 1977
  • Jesus the Liberator 1973

Religion

Walker was a traditional Methodist and preached against alcohol, gambling, and promiscuity.

Views

Alan Walker was a longtime pacifist who also worked diligently on behalf of human rights and racial equality.

Interests

• Swimming, gardening, amateur movies

Connections

Alan married Winifred Garrard Channon on March 26, 1938. They had four children: Lynette, Bruce, David, and Christopher.

Father:

Alfred Edgar Walker

Mother:

Violet Louise (Lavis) Walker

Wife:

Winifred Garrard (Channon) Walker

Daughter:

Lynette Walker

Son:

Bruce Walker

Son:

David Walker

Son:

Christopher Walker

References

• Alan Walker: Conscience of the Nation
  1997
• Reach for the world: The Alan Walker story
  1981