Posted 11:17 pm Saturday, January 28, 2012
Local Pastor Marks 90th Birthday
Editor’s Note: Information gathered from Special Contributor Betty Ewalt Taylor.
The Rev. Benny Walker has lost count of all the weddings, funerals and baptisms he’s officiated.
Walker, who will celebrate his 90th birthday with the church on Sunday, has pastored Taylor’s Chapel Community Church at Tecula, northeast of Jacksonville, for 64 years.
Walker will be honored in the church’s family life center from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
It’s unusual for any pastor to have a long stay at one church; on average, pastors last four years before moving to another congregation. That is about half the average among Protestant pastors in non-mainline churches, according to 2009 data from the Barna Research Group.
His more than 60 years at one church isn’t the only unusual fact about Walker’s life.
Walker was born in Cross Roads, Texas, into a family of 11 children. His father was from Alabama and was a farmer, so Walker got his share of farm work.
The Rev. Benny Walker has lost count of all the weddings, funerals and baptisms he’s officiated.
Walker, who will celebrate his 90th birthday with the church on Sunday, has pastored Taylor’s Chapel Community Church at Tecula, northeast of Jacksonville, for 64 years.
Walker will be honored in the church’s family life center from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
It’s unusual for any pastor to have a long stay at one church; on average, pastors last four years before moving to another congregation. That is about half the average among Protestant pastors in non-mainline churches, according to 2009 data from the Barna Research Group.
His more than 60 years at one church isn’t the only unusual fact about Walker’s life.
Walker was born in Cross Roads, Texas, into a family of 11 children. His father was from Alabama and was a farmer, so Walker got his share of farm work.
When he was a boy, Walker got a cramp while swimming in a stock tank and almost drowned; the late Vernon Harton pulled him out. Later in Walker’s life, he returned the favor, pulling a drowning young boy out of another stock tank.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, he went into the service and stayed until World War II was over. He served in the Army Infantry in Bouganville, Guadacanal and many islands of the Philippines.
When Walker began holding a church service for some of the men, the officers heard about it and attended one Sunday. Afterward, they sent for Walker to come and talk to them. They told him they wanted him to continue doing the services, but wanted it to include the whole company.
After conducting the services for the whole company for a while, the company received a second chaplain. Then Walker began carrying an M1 rifle in the jungle.
At the end of the war, his company was assigned to releasing civilian Japanese prisoners from an old prison on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. They looked for them for three days, stopping often to pray. They didn’t know what they’d find, he said.
They finally found them, all in one room, scared and almost starved.
During the time they were imprisoned, they had taken scraps of clothing — anything red, white or blue — and constructed an American flag. They would place it in a window upstairs and then take it in. When asked why, they said they were afraid the Japanese would see it and kill them. They had a Japanese combat shirt, which they asked the rescuing unit to sign when they liberated them.
“I feel like God watched after me (during the war),” Walker said.
When he came home from the war, Walker began his studies at seminary, now Southwest Assembly of God in Waxahachie. He received a bachelor’s degree in social studies, and a master of education degree as well as a public school administration degree at Stephen F. Austin University.
He and his late wife, Louise, were both school teachers and enjoyed working with youth groups. He taught at New Hope School several years, instructing seventh- and eighth-graders and driving the bus. While at New Hope he was also a Boy Scout leader. He then taught 34 years at LaPoynor, making a total of 40 years teaching.
During all those years he was busy with his pastoring. When he and Mrs. Walker started their ministry at Taylor’s Chapel in 1947 they were in a little square building which had been a residence. Many of the families who were there then are still there, as are their descendents.
“We are now the fifth generation of some families. We are like a big family,” he said.
Not long after they started, they built a larger structure, later making additions to the side and to the front. In 1987 the Benny and Louise Walker Family Life Center was constructed.
One year in January they told the children if they were at Sunday School every week until Easter, they would get a Bible. They handed out lots of Bibles that Easter.
“Coming here and building this church is like Moses leading the children from bondage,” he said. “It’s been wonderful.”
In 2007, Walker traveled to Florida to attend a reunion of the prisoners he’d helped to free and his company. The combat shirt they had all signed was there.
“They had the reunion because they wanted to honor God for intervening in their lives and releasing them from bondage,” he said.
“With the life he has lived, the work he has done and the faith that he has, we expect him to have a wonderful crown waiting for him in heaven,” church member Betty Ewalt Taylor said.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, he went into the service and stayed until World War II was over. He served in the Army Infantry in Bouganville, Guadacanal and many islands of the Philippines.
When Walker began holding a church service for some of the men, the officers heard about it and attended one Sunday. Afterward, they sent for Walker to come and talk to them. They told him they wanted him to continue doing the services, but wanted it to include the whole company.
After conducting the services for the whole company for a while, the company received a second chaplain. Then Walker began carrying an M1 rifle in the jungle.
At the end of the war, his company was assigned to releasing civilian Japanese prisoners from an old prison on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. They looked for them for three days, stopping often to pray. They didn’t know what they’d find, he said.
They finally found them, all in one room, scared and almost starved.
During the time they were imprisoned, they had taken scraps of clothing — anything red, white or blue — and constructed an American flag. They would place it in a window upstairs and then take it in. When asked why, they said they were afraid the Japanese would see it and kill them. They had a Japanese combat shirt, which they asked the rescuing unit to sign when they liberated them.
“I feel like God watched after me (during the war),” Walker said.
When he came home from the war, Walker began his studies at seminary, now Southwest Assembly of God in Waxahachie. He received a bachelor’s degree in social studies, and a master of education degree as well as a public school administration degree at Stephen F. Austin University.
He and his late wife, Louise, were both school teachers and enjoyed working with youth groups. He taught at New Hope School several years, instructing seventh- and eighth-graders and driving the bus. While at New Hope he was also a Boy Scout leader. He then taught 34 years at LaPoynor, making a total of 40 years teaching.
During all those years he was busy with his pastoring. When he and Mrs. Walker started their ministry at Taylor’s Chapel in 1947 they were in a little square building which had been a residence. Many of the families who were there then are still there, as are their descendents.
“We are now the fifth generation of some families. We are like a big family,” he said.
Not long after they started, they built a larger structure, later making additions to the side and to the front. In 1987 the Benny and Louise Walker Family Life Center was constructed.
One year in January they told the children if they were at Sunday School every week until Easter, they would get a Bible. They handed out lots of Bibles that Easter.
“Coming here and building this church is like Moses leading the children from bondage,” he said. “It’s been wonderful.”
In 2007, Walker traveled to Florida to attend a reunion of the prisoners he’d helped to free and his company. The combat shirt they had all signed was there.
“They had the reunion because they wanted to honor God for intervening in their lives and releasing them from bondage,” he said.
“With the life he has lived, the work he has done and the faith that he has, we expect him to have a wonderful crown waiting for him in heaven,” church member Betty Ewalt Taylor said.
