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Gordon Powell
Gordon George Powell (1911-2005) was an Australian minister, author and radio broadcaster.
Rev. Powell was born in 1911 in Warrnambool, Victoria, the son of a dentist, George Powell, and his wife,...view moreGordon George Powell (1911-2005) was an Australian minister, author and radio broadcaster.
Rev. Powell was born in 1911 in Warrnambool, Victoria, the son of a dentist, George Powell, and his wife, Louisa (nee Clarke). He went to school at Scotch College. He gave up plans to become an electrical engineer after hearing a call to the ministry and studied arts and then theology at the University of Melbourne. He was awarded a scholarship to Trinity College, Glasgow University, in 1935. While in Scotland, he wrote a weekly article for The Messenger, the official journal of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria.
On returning to Australia in late 1936, he became assistant minister at Toorak, the second-biggest Presbyterian church in Melbourne, and he was ordained in 1938. In 1941, Rev. Gordon became assistant minister to Scots Church in Melbourne. For the following three years, he was stationed in New Guinea and Australia. His war reminiscences were published as Two Steps to Tokyo and sold 6000 copies in 1945 alone.
In 1952, he took up what was to become his happiest ministry, at St Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Sydney; there, “Dr. Wednesday,” as he became affectionately known, soon attracted what was perhaps the world’s largest regular mid-week congregation to his Wednesday noon service, with up to 1,300 people crowding the church and the hall below.
The Rev. Powell’s unique application of spiritual solutions to everyday problems spread his ministry by television and radio to 90% of Australian’s people. The power of his message made him a most popular guest preacher at Dr. Peale’s Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, at George Docherty’s New York Presbyterian Church in Washington, and Leslie Weatherhead’s City Temple in London.
He and his wife Gwen moved to New York, before retiring to Melbourne, where he passed away on February 21, 2005 at the age of 94.view less