Cleric who gave world a Lifeline

Sydney
9 February 2003

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Cleric who gave world a Lifeline

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Cleric who gave world a Lifeline

Sir Alan Walker (pictured), the Protestant clergyman who founded Lifeline, the telephone counselling service, 40 years ago, has died.

The theologian, evangelist, broadcaster and former superintendent of Wesley Mission was 91.

He became superintendent of the Central Methodist Mission (as it was then known) in 1958 and oversaw a remarkable period of growth in Wesley Mission's ministry and work until his retirement from the position in 1978.

He took a strong and committed stand on many social justice issues and was a prominent evangelist, using both the airwaves and public rallies to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ.

His establishment of Lifeline followed a telephone call from a distressed man late one Saturday night in the 1960s.

Roy Brown spoke of his terrible loneliness and crippling debt and sense of failure. He told Sir Alan that he had written him a letter outlining his intention to suicide.

The minister succeeded, however, in arranging a meeting with Mr Brown the following Tuesday.

But, just before the meeting, police phoned to say they had found the man dead in his King Cross flat. On his chest was the letter he had written to Sir Alan.

The incident determined Sir Alan to establish a phone-counselling service.

"Let it never be forgotten that it is Christ we offer," he said. "The Church must never degenerate to being akin to a government or social service agency. We witness first, last and always, to Christ."

Lifeline today is an international organisation with a mantle of care over some of the world's largest cities. Through Lifeline, millions of men and women around the world have received support and hope in times of loneliness, isolation and need.

Lifeline phone counsellors take 400,000 calls a year, 20,000 of them in Sydney alone.

The Rev Dr Sir Alan Walker was the son of the Rev AE Walker, a graduate of Taylor's Evangelists' Training Institute and a missioner at Newtown in the 1930s.

Sir Alan himself had ministered at Cessnock during the war (1939-44) and from 1944 had been superintendent of the Waverley Mission in Sydney's east. Between 1953 and 1956 he was director of the Mission to the Nation, which gave him the profile of the "best-known" Methodist in the nation.

He is survived by his wife, Lady Winifred, and children Lynette Sue, the Rev Bruce Walker, David Walker and the Rev Dr Christopher Walker.