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Sir Alan Walker, World Methodist evangelist, dies at 91


From "NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>
Date Thu, 30 Jan 2003 14:42:29 -0600

Jan. 30, 2003  News media contact: Linda Bloom7(202)870-38037New York
10-71BPI{041}

NOTE: A photograph of Sir Alan Walker is available.

By United Methodist News Service* 

Sir Alan Walker, whose ministry spanned most of the 20th century, died Jan.
29 in Sydney, Australia, at the age of 91.

A Methodist minister, Walker was the first to hold the position of world
director of evangelism for the World Methodist Council, a post in which he
served from 1978 to 1988.  

The Rev. H. Eddie Fox, who succeeded Walker and still serves as the council's
evangelism director, noted that Walker and his wife, Lady Winifred, traveled
to 78 countries to proclaim the gospel during the 1980s.

"This magnificent obsession of Sir Alan made evangelism credible again in the
worldwide Methodist movement," Fox said. "Today, we stand on the shoulders of
Sir Alan and Lady Win, and we can see farther and more clearly what it means
to offer Christ today."

Walker, whose honors included being knighted by Queen Elizabeth and receiving
the 1986 World Methodist Peace Award, made his mark on the world by being a
prophetic evangelist, Fox added.

According to the Rev. Joe Hale, retired chief executive of the World
Methodist Council, "We learned so much by watching and hearing the Walkers
take courageous stands, seek the exercise of justice and pursue the cause of
peace. We seek to follow to the example they have set."

The council's current chief executive, the Rev. George Freeman, called
Walker's work "a great legacy" and noted that his writings continue to be
used. "Sir Alan Walker not only reached Methodist people around the world,
but others as well through his preaching and teaching as they came to know
Christ," he said.

Under Walker's leadership, the World Methodist Evangelism Institute was
founded in 1982 as a ministry of the council and United Methodist-related
Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. The Rev. George E.
Morris, who currently serves as the senior professor of world evangelism and
was the founding director of the institute, said, "These ministries reflect
the imprint of Sir Alan Walker, and they are what they are today as a result
of this imprint."

A native of Sydney, Walker was a Methodist preacher for 70 years. He led
crusades across Australia in the 1950s and founded Lifeline, a telephone
counseling service that is now international, in 1963.
 
After retiring from the World Methodist Council, he served as principal of
the Pacific College of Evangelism in Sydney until 1995. The school was later
renamed Alan Walker College of Evangelism in Sydney.

Walker is survived by his wife, Lady Winifred Walker, a daughter and three
sons.

# # #

*The Rev. H. Eddie Fox, world director of evangelism for the World Methodist
Council, provided information for this report.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org


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