A. W. Tozer Upgrade Collection (11 vols.)

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) was born on a small farm in what is now Newburg, Pennsylvania. His family moved to Akron, Ohio, when he was just a young boy. At age 17, Tozer heard a street preacher, responded to the calling of Christ, and began his lifelong pursuit of God. After becoming an active witness of Jesus as a lay preacher, he joined The Christian and Missionary Alliance and was soon serving as the pastor of West Virginia’s Alliance Church. In 1928, he transferred to the Southside Alliance Church in Chicago, and his ministry continued there for 31 years. During that time, he preached on the Moody Bible Institute’s radio station. In the 1940s, Tozer was invited to speak at Wheaton College, and seldom a year passed after World War II that he didn‘t preach in the college’s Pierce Chapel. In 1950 he became the editor of The Alliance Life magazine and served in that capacity until his death.

Self-taught, with no formal Bible training, Tozer has been called a twentieth-century prophet within his own lifetime. Through years of diligent study and constant prayer, he sought the mind of God. A master craftsman in the use of the English language, he was able to write in a simple, cogent style the principles of truth he had learned. For Tozer, “there was no substitute for knowing God firsthand.” He wrote many of his books with one idea in mind—that his reader would achieve the heart’s true goal in God and maintain that relationship with Him.

Tozer moved to Toronto in 1959 and spent the final years of his life as the pastor of Avenue Road Church. He and his wife, Ada, lived a simple, non-materialistic lifestyle and let much of the royalties from his books go to those in need. The Tozers had seven children.

About James L. Snyder

James L. Snyder is the pastor of the Family of God Fellowship in Ocala, Florida, a Christian and Missionary Alliance church (1973–present). He is recognized as an authority on the life and ministry of A. W. Tozer, and has written a number of books as well as numerous essays in Christian periodicals about Tozer. He has a weekly radio ministry, writes a weekly syndicated newspaper column carried by 35 newspapers, as well as over a dozen monthly magazines, both online and print.