Dr. Alastair Walker

PREACHING THE WORD

Welcome

This site is a celebration of the preaching ministry of Dr. Alastair C. Walker.

Dr Walker retired in 1983 after serving 25 years as pastor of First Baptist Church of Spartanburg and has served 16 interim pastorates since. In 1979 he was president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention and is often credited as an early leader in the convention’s fight against world hunger.

Walker

“In retirtement I made a resolution that I was going to be a witness to lost people. Whatever it took, I was going to try and win people for Christ, whoever those people might be,” he said, maintaining a lifelong Scottish accent.

He said his resolution came after decades of allowing pastoral ministry to be replaced by church administration and sermon preparation.

“When I first entered ministry, I was focused on soul-winning,” he said. “But, then, over time, I began to spend 60 percent of my time in church administration, 30 percent of my time in sermon preparation, and only 10 percent of my time in pastoral ministry. I became burdened that my conviction didn’t match my emphasis. I had allowed myself to drift.

“My attitude had become ‘here we are, and you come to us,’ and my new attitude is ‘there are the people, and let’s go get them.’

This website is yet another outreach to go where people are!

Walker, a Southern Baptist “by choice,” is a Scotland native whose dad was a preacher in Scotland and South Africa. The younger Walker came to the United States to attend seminary in Chicago. “I heard the Southern Baptists were meeting in Chicago, and I went to their meeting,” he said. “R.G. Lee was preaching, and I was amazed at the great singing about the cross. I decided to transfer to Baylor University, and then went on to Southern Seminary.”

“Every church is precious to the Lord,” he said. “There is opportunity for soul-winning in every church, and every church can search out prospects and reach people.”

He encouraged pastors this way: Ask God to create a burden for lost people; make up your mind that nothing will deter you from getting in the homes of lost people; schedule time to reach prospects and then get the prospects to the church on Sunday morning; and walk with the Lord and reveal that faithfulness to the church you serve.

“God blesses obedience to the commission to see people born again,” Walker said. “Our theology should lead us into the homes of people and lead those people to Jesus.”