Former Christian broadcaster Mal Garvin has passed away in Tasmania at the age of 82. From 1968 he hosted the award-winning Breakthrough Generation which at its peak was on every major radio market in Australia and attracted up to two million listeners regularly for 40 years. Many stations around Australia also played his Godspots and his weekly Sunday night talkback program “Conversation of the Nation.”
Fellow broadcaster Ron Ross has written that Mal’s life-changing encounter came at a Sydney City Mission camp which energised him to found Teen Crusaders which became Fusion Australia and then Fusion International. “He began teaching scripture classes, reaching out to youth who had given up on school. With his mates Mal started a holiday club in his mother’s back yard. The attendance grew fast and became known as one of the first Sydney drop-in centres. As many found what Mal called their ‘spiritual rudder,’ professionals in the field of adolescent mental health were openly impressed. A psychiatric nurse gave Mal support with reading material, expertise and downright common sense,” Mr. Ross reported.
Mal completed a diploma course at Emmaus Bible School and set up a youth commando course and a training program for young workers and religious teachers. After launching the Breakthrough Generation in 1968, Mal helped establish the first Christian FM radio station in Sydney and developed the Captain Midnight Show. He also set up a phone counselling service called People Who Care.
Ron Ross wrote: “I had the joy of working with Mal and the team who designed and organised the Canberra Gathering in 1988. 50,000 Christians from across Australia converged on the new Parliament House to pray. This was described as the largest prayer meeting in Australian history and was the forerunner of the Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast held annually in the Parliament House Great Hall in Canberra.”
“Mal Garvin was the National Coordinator for AD2000 which he recalled ‘became the sister movement of the Aussie Awakening. That event brought all the mainline churches together to reach out to their communities and welcome non-church people. Out of that success came The Global March for Jesus. In 1994, 250,000 Australians of all denominational backgrounds participated, with 50,000 gathered in front of the Sydney Opera House,” Mr. Ross continued.
“In 1995, Mal took a significant lead in the purchase and development of Tasmania’s Poatina village enterprise. A beautiful hydro-town became a resort village with a special purpose of caring for young people at risk. In this setting Fusion offered training in youth and community work for those who want to help young people at risk.”
In 1999 Mal Garvin received an AM award for his life’s work. A decade later he was awarded the Order of Australia for ”service to the community” and for ”the development of social welfare programs that support and guide young people, and as a broadcaster and author”.
A few months after that, he quietly ‘retired” from the youth and community network he had built, after Fusion Australia’s national executive found that he had engaged in ”inappropriate behaviour” and made ”errors of judgment.”
In a letter to a newspaper, he wrote: “I made a number of errors of judgment and I certainly wish I had done things differently. In 2006, when I turned 65, I announced that even though physically I was ready for retirement I would stay on for another three years to support the transition. These circumstances as well as my deteriorating health confirmed that it was time for me to step aside in my leadership of Fusion.”
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