Alan is an ordained minister of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and Senior Minister of Calvary Methodist Church, Midland, situated halfway between Pretoria and Johannesburg. Alan’s faithfulness to the peacemaking Christ was tested early in his life when he faced conscription into the apartheid regime’s military. After spending a year of discernment working as a laborer in Australia, he returned to South Africa, declaring he would never fight in the apartheid army – or any army. He was arrested and faced trial with a six-year prison sentence as the likely outcome. Alan’s trial was surprisingly abandoned midway, and he became the last conscientious objector to be tried in apartheid South Africa.
During his theological training at Rhodes University, he was involved in the Gunfree South Africa Campaign that was launched at the time of transition to democracy. After University, Alan was sent to Welkorn, which is known as a conservative mining town that lies in the very center of South Africa. It was here that Alan started the Banna Na Modimo home for destitute children and the Banna Ba Modimo Clinic for people who are homeless. Alan received Rotary’s Paul Harris award as a result of this work. Alan was ordained in 1996 and sent to a small white congregation in Midrand. He built a new church named Calvary and the congregation has quadrupled in size; but more importantly, it has engaged deeply with dwellers in the informal settlements (shanty towns) in the area. Alan himself lived in one of these settlements for two years to identify more deeply with the people there. Calvary has become the most multiracial Methodist congregation in the denomination and is on the cutting edge of reconciliation and justice ministries. The church staff practice a radically different approach to salaries and sharing.
Beyond Calvary Church, Alan helps train Probationer ministers in Diversity Training, and has become well known throughout the Methodist Church for his Manna and Mercy retreats – life changing encounters with the Biblical story. Alan has his Masters in the Philosophy of Applied Ethics from St. Augustine College in SA, with a special focus on economics.