Walter was a very influential person in my spiritual development. His strength was Christian apologetics and philosophy, but he was very solid Biblically as well. Along with some other men, I did a book club led by him for about 9 months where we read a variety of books of Christian thinking. Out of about the 30 men who started with Walter in the club, I was probably in the bottom 2 or 3 in terms of knowledge in apologetics and strength in critical thinking. As you would expect, I made lots of dumb comments out of my ignorance. But I hung in there. At the end, there was about 8 of us left and I never missed a single meeting nor a reading assignment. I grew a great deal through it, and it taught me to look a my faith in a rational dimension which I had never done before.
To this day, I would say Walter is probably the best teacher/communicator I have heard. If I had to pick one person to teach a Bible study or Christian class, I would choose Walter over anyone. I mean over Andy Stanley or Tony Evans or anyone else you can name. When it comes to communicating Christian thoughts, few are better than Walter. His breadth of knowledge, his charisma, his passion and his humor are so well orchestrated and focused around the ideas he is trying to get across that you get drawn in. Put it this way, when Prestonwood add a Saturday night church service, we had Bible Study Fellowships (a.k.a Sunday School) at 4:45 and 7:30 around the 6:00 PM service. It almost impossible to get 20ish singles to come on Saturday at 7:30, but it was even worse at 4:45. So, they stuck Walter at that spot and soon he was averaging over 100. Yes, a 100 single people in their 20s were coming regularly at 4:45 on Saturdays to hear him. Once Walter left, they left. My friend Greg and I called them Walter-zombies. They would follow Walter but that is it.
Now that I have so built him up, you will likely be let down when you hear him. But, I know you will enjoy him. He is just too good. Here is a sermon Walter gave at Ron Holton's church, who is my old Singles minister. It is called "Why I am Convinced of the Christian Worldview."
I know Walter was a tremendous influence in your life. I well remember hearing you mention his name and talk about how much you received from the Bible study groups and especially the book club. I received the tangential benefit from the book club of hearing about books of interest. Consequently I read "The History of the Church in Plain Language" and consider it one of the most interesting and enlightening books I have ever read. I highly recommend it to every person who has any interest in The Church and how our faith has arrived at this point in history.
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