Pastor Walt

"My name is Pastor Walt with Church on the Street and I was called by God to just proclaim His Word to a lost and dying world.  

"And the most interesting thing is I was probably the biggest lost and dying sinner out there until God got a hold of me.  When I saw what He could do in my life, I realized that He's chosen and called me to go out and do the same thing to people who don't know Him that have had broken and shattered lives: people out of prisons, out of the jails, living on the streets, out of the mental hospitals, children, people that even go to college.  It doesn't make any difference.

"He put a passion in our hearts because that's the heart He's got and the passion He has - to simply just go out and share this wonderful Good News about the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Walt Rattray, Pastor of Church on the Street, is a 1969 graduate of California Lutheran University.  His addiction to alcohol jaded his high school years and became a controlling factor in his early adulthood.  When he wasn't in school or at work, he was in the bars.

Unsettled and restless, Walt took a job in 1969 in Vietnam.  Life was meaningless, he thought, so why not have a little fun?  So began eighteen months of craziness: danger, drunkenness, and immoral living.  Upon his return to the States in 1971, he embarked on a quest for Truth, a journey that took him deep into the occult and white witchcraft.

In 1976, looking for a manifestation of God, he went to a Christian Revival Service that had been advertised as a "healing service."  That service became his divine appointment with God... there he heard the Truth of Jesus Christ and responded in total surrender.

Pastor Walt began street preaching in 1977 and formed Church on the Street in 1985 with one mission: "To win and build men and women for Christ."

Currently an auxiliary chaplain at the Arizona State Prison at Perryville and for the Maricopa County jail system, Pastor Walt continues to oversee Church on the Street with his wife of over 40 years, Ms. Louene.