Happiness is a Habit

by Gordon Powell

Overview

The most dominating goal of the average person today is to find happiness.

Clergymen, doctors, sociologists and specialists in human nature will generally agree that the above statement accurately reflects the times. A famous author-minister—Gordon Powell—has written an inspirational book based on the above statement.

Gordon Powell was minister of St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Sydney, Australia. One unique aspect of this church was the lunch-hour service every Wednesday for professional and business people. This service was broadcast by eighteen radio stations, in four states of the continent, to an area covering ninety per cent of the population. It was also shown on television in the areas of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. St. Stephen’s claimed the largest attendance of any Protestant church in Australia.

Another spiritually creative feature of Gordon Powell’s ministry is the “Faith Builder” cards, over a million of which have been printed and distributed. The cards contain both a scriptural guide for living, plus a modern interpretation or adaptation of the Biblical wisdom. Each of the twelve chapters in Happiness Is A Habit ends with a “Faith Builder,” and these “Faith Builders” are printed again in a separate section at the end of the book in case you should want to clip them out for personal use.

Happiness is a Habit digs into the heart of today’s complexities, offering helpful guidance and spiritual nourishment to the reader.

“A sensible philosophy of life, based on the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, and teaching that the secret of happiness lies in right thinking and in the application of a positive faith to everyday life.”—The Times Literary Supplement

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789127621
Publisher:	Muriwai Books
Publication date:	12/02/2018
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	93
File size:	492 KB

About the Author

Gordon George Powell (1911-2005) was an Australian minister, author and radio broadcaster.

Rev. Powell was born in 1911 in Warrnambool, Victoria, the son of a dentist, George Powell, and his wife, Louisa (nee Clarke). He went to school at Scotch College. He gave up plans to become an electrical engineer after hearing a call to the ministry and studied arts and then theology at the University of Melbourne. He was awarded a scholarship to Trinity College, Glasgow University, in 1935. While in Scotland, he wrote a weekly article for The Messenger, the official journal of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria.

On returning to Australia in late 1936, he became assistant minister at Toorak, the second-biggest Presbyterian church in Melbourne, and he was ordained in 1938. In 1941, Rev. Gordon became assistant minister to Scots Church in Melbourne. For the following three years, he was stationed in New Guinea and Australia. His war reminiscences were published as Two Steps to Tokyo and sold 6000 copies in 1945 alone.

In 1952, he took up what was to become his happiest ministry, at St Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Sydney; there, “Dr. Wednesday,” as he became affectionately known, soon attracted what was perhaps the world’s largest regular mid-week congregation to his Wednesday noon service, with up to 1,300 people crowding the church and the hall below.

The Rev. Powell’s unique application of spiritual solutions to everyday problems spread his ministry by television and radio to 90% of Australian’s people. The power of his message made him a most popular guest preacher at Dr. Peale’s Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, at George Docherty’s New York Presbyterian Church in Washington, and Leslie Weatherhead’s City Temple in London.

He and his wife Gwen moved to New York, before retiring to Melbourne, where he passed away on February 21, 2005 at the age of 94.