Biography
Arthur Wallis was born in 1922 in England. He grew up in a family of modest means, and as a young man he came to faith in Christ. He joined a Brethren assembly and was soon drawn into a hunger for more of God. He read about the great revivals of the past, and he began to pray that God would send revival again to Britain. He felt the church of his day had become cold and weak, and he longed for a fresh move of the Spirit.
He met other men who shared his hunger, among them Campbell McAlpine, a Bible teacher from Scotland, and they spent long hours in prayer together. In the 1950s he was part of small groups of believers who met to seek God, and who felt that the traditional structures of the church were holding back what God wanted to do. He began to think about what a church built on the New Testament pattern might look like. Out of those years of prayer came the early stirrings of what became known as the house church or restoration movement in Britain.
His first widely read book, In the Day of Thy Power, appeared in 1956. It set out the conditions of revival from Scripture and from history. He wrote of prayer, of repentance and of the Spirit's work in sending times of renewal. He followed it with God's Chosen Fast in 1968, a book that called believers to take up fasting as a spiritual discipline, and which became a classic on the subject. Later works included Rain from Heaven, The Radical Christian and Pray in the Spirit. His writing was clear and warm and rooted in Scripture.
He also served as a traveling teacher, going from place to place to encourage believers. He was a friend and counselor to many of the men who started new churches in the following decades, and he is counted among the founding figures of the movement. He did not found a large organization and preferred to work through relationships. He had a gentle and thoughtful manner and was a patient listener.
The movement that grew from his early efforts was not free from difficulty. In later years, some of the networks that came out of it faced controversies over authority and over the way leaders related to the people under them. Wallis himself saw some of these problems and spoke about the need for humility and for a servant spirit. He also felt the pain of divisions among those he loved.
The record of his life is not as fully available as some, and what is written here is a simple outline that may need correction. He died in 1988. His books continue to be read, especially his work on fasting and on revival. His life shows that a man who prays and waits on God can help to shape a movement without ever seeking to lead it.