Edward Lawlor

BY STAN INGERSOL

Edward Lawlor was the consummate evangelist. He was born in 1907 into a Roman Catholic family in South Bank, Yorkshire, England. He immigrated to Canada with his mother and three siblings after his father’s early death. They settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

He experienced an evangelical conversion at age 18 and began working with the Salvation Army while studying theology at its local training school. He also attended Wesley College, a Methodist school in Winnipeg, majoring in speech. By 1930, he had moved to Ontario and was studying sociology at a YMCA college. He gained experience teaching in Winnipeg public schools and at YMCA centers, and serving as a YMCA program director.

He joined the Church of the Nazarene in 1934, the year he professed entire sanctification. He was 27. He spent the next year conducting revival meetings in Canada and the United States. With his wife Margaret, he began his pastoral ministry on the Canadian prairie at a home mission church in Shackleton, Saskatchewan. R. T. Williams ordained him in 1936 at the Manitoba-Saskatchewan District assembly.

Lawlor next pastored the church in Picture Butte, Alberta. Then he was called to Calgary First Church. His evangelistic preaching was popular there and drew large crowds. He was pastor there from 1939 to 1946.

The Alberta District elected him superintendent in 1946, as did the British Columbia District. Lawlor oversaw the three-way merger of these districts, along with the Manitoba-Saskatchewan District, in 1948. The new Canada West District was immense and comprised Nazarene congregations across four Canadian provinces. One year, he traveled over 67,000 miles.(1) He led the district for another twelve years.

He told the 1957 district assembly: “Home missions has had a large share of my time, my prayers, and my labours during the year.” The district needed to find preachers and financial support “for the purchase of property, for evangelism in the unchurched cities, towns and rural areas of western Canada.” There was more: “I have tried to visit the churches as needed, never turning a deaf ear to any call.”(2)

He chaired the Red Deer camp meeting board and the Board of Governors of Canadian Nazarene College. His annual reports always reflected his fostering care for Canadian Nazarene College. He was a General Board member and a trustee of Nazarene Theological Seminary. He was on the denomination’s Crusade for Souls Commission and published a book on evangelism at its request.(3)

The 1960 General Assembly elected Lawlor as executive secretary of the Department of Evangelism. He had traveled extensively in western Canada, now he would do so throughout North America. Lawlor was completely in his element, upholding the banner of evangelism and functioning as an evangelist.

Franklin Cook wrote that Lawlor’s preaching was marked by passion and clarity. The clarity was reflected in the organization of the sermon, which always led hearers to the preacher’s destination. Passion was exhibited through strength, intensity, and discipline. Lawlor’s years as a teacher were evident in preaching that was articulate and knowledgeable. A colleague noted that Lawlor’s “personal appearance in the pulpit, his deep resonant voice, and his dramatic style of delivery marked him.”(4)

A Canadian pastor once said that Lawlor reminded him of Jehu, who, the Bible says, “drove his chariot furiously.” Lawlor once asked a friend to drive him home to Kansas City after a meeting in Wichita. Lawlor had so thoroughly poured himself out in the work that he lay down in the back seat and slept for the whole four-hour journey.(5)

Lawlor was one of three new general superintendents elected in 1968 and served in that office until 1976. In addition to conducting the normal round of assemblies, he held revivals at Nazarene colleges, gave the address at church dedications, and spoke at ministerial gatherings.

Retirement released him to give full-time service to evangelism, which he did for nearly eleven years. He died in San Diego in 1987. William Greathouse preached at his funeral service, conducted in San Diego First Church, and he was buried in El Camino Memorial Park in Sorrento Valley.

Dr. Stan Ingersol, Ph.D., is a church historian and former manager of the Nazarene Archives.

(1) In 1955, British Columbia broke off and became part of a new Canada Pacific District, which Lawlor also led until 1956. See First Annual Assembly Journal of the Canada Pacific District Church of the Nazarene (1956): 25.-27.

(2) Ninth Annual Assembly Journal of the Canada West District Church of the Nazarene (1957): 41, 43.

(3) Ibid, 43.

(4) Orville Jenkins, Herald of Holiness (Jan. 15, 1988): 15.

(5) Neil Hightower, ”Tribute to Edward Lawlor,” Herald of Holiness (Jan. 15, 1988): 16; and Franklin Cook, email to Stan Ingersol, Oct. 3, 2025. Franklin Cook drove Lawlor’s car.