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Speaker Bios

Howard A. Snyder

Howard A. Snyder currently serves as Visiting Director of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre in Manchester, England. He was Professor of Wesley Studies at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2007–2012, and previously was Professor of the History and Theology of Mission in the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, 1996–2006.

Howard has taught also at United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio; North Park Theological Seminary, Chicago; and Wheaton College Graduate School in Illinois. He has pastored in Chicago, Detroit, and São Paulo.

Howard continues to be affiliated with Asbury Seminary and occasionally teaches or lectures in the School of World Mission and Evangelism and maintains a relationship with Asbury Seminary’s Center for the Study of World Christian Revitalization Movements.

Howard was born in the Dominican Republic to U.S. missionary parents. He is a graduate of Spring Arbor Junior College (1960), Greenville College (1962), and Asbury Theological Seminary (1966). He completed his doctorate in historical theology at the University of Notre Dame in 1983 under John Howard Yoder. From 1968 to 1975 he served as pastor and seminary professor in São Paulo, Brazil, with the Free Methodist Church. He was Executive Director of Light and Life Men International from 1975 to 1980.

Howard’s books include The Problem of Wineskins (1975), The Community of the King (1977; rev. ed., 2004), The Radical Wesley (1980; rev. ed., 2014) and Salvation Means Creation Healed, with Joel Scandrett. His most recent books are Jesus and Pocahontas (Cascade, 2015), a study in history, mission, and culture; Small Voice, Big City: The Challenge of Urban Mission 2016); and Rooted in Mission: The Founding of Seattle Pacific University, 1891–1916 (2016). Other books include EarthCurrents: The Struggle for the World’s Soul, published by Abingdon Press, and Radical Renewal: The Problem of Wineskins Today, a revised edition of The Problem of Wineskins (2005). In 2006 he published the biography Populist Saints: B. T. and Ellen Roberts and the First Free Methodists (Eerdmans) and the autobiography of evangelist and abolitionist John Wesley Redfield (1810–1863), which he edited (Scarecrow Press, 2006).

Howard has spoken frequently at colleges, seminaries, and conferences, including a plenary address at the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, the 1991 Evangelism 2000 Conference in Hong Kong, and the Mission Korea 2000 Conference in Seoul. He has done short-term teaching in Brazil, Singapore, India, Philippines, Korea, Germany, Croatia, the UK, and other countries. In 1993 he and his wife Janice visited thirteen countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, studying the life and renewal of the Church.

Howard is an ordained elder in the Ohio Conference of the Free Methodist Church. He and Janice reside in Wilmore, Kentucky. They have four married children and thirteen grandchildren.

Howard blogs on various topics at http://howardsnyder.seedbed.com/

John S. Walker

Rev. Dr. John S. Walker is the pastor at Christian Friendship Baptist Church in Henrietta, NY. He has a Doctor of Philosophy in Religion & History from Syracuse University, a Master of Divinity from Colgate Rochester Divinity School , and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and American History from Morris College. Among other things, he has taught at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Monroe Community College, and the University of Rochester. He has also been the Deputy Director for Big Brothers & Big Sisters in Rochester and founded the Rochester Area Child Abuse Network.