Vale Warwick Hood Olson AM (1936 – 2025)
There are only a few Australian Christians who have impacted global organisations. Even fewer have massively changed three of them and created a household name in Australia as well. Warwick Olsen crammed all this into a life well lived.
His path to global stature began with leaving school at 14, joining the Daily Telegraph as a copy boy (that was the title then). Borrowed for half a day a week from Sir Frank Packer by Sydney Archbishop Hugh Gough, Olson became press secretary (or perhaps minder) to Sydney’s first Australian-born Anglican Archbishop, Marcus Loane. Through roles in the Sydney diocese and at the Pilgrim International Ad agency, Olson became a key figure in international Christian communication and evangelism.
Lausanne Movement
In the 1970s, Olson became pivotal in what has become known as the Lausanne Movement. Billy Graham was the driving force behind holding a global congress on worldwide evangelism and enlisted Bishop Jack Dain from Sydney, Australia, and John Stott from the UK. This became the first Lausanne Congress held in Switzerland in 1974, and Warwick was the Communications Director of the Congress. The Olsons relocated to Lausanne for this work for 18 months, fondly remembered at his funeral by his family, and it was an involvement in global evangelisation that Warwick maintained for decades with Lausanne: he was still involved in the Lausanne Movement in the late 1980s on the Communications Working Group for the Lausanne Congress held in Manila.
Billy Graham Crusades
Olson was a key organiser of the 1979 events in Sydney and Melbourne.
World Vision
World Vision became the best-known aid agency for Australians, while Olson’s day job was at Pilgrim International, the advertising/fundraising agency for World Vision Australia for about 30+ years from the late 1970s. This was the time when World Vision grew significantly – the introduction of The 40 Hour Famine (and later the inclusion of Famine Fighters as a “junior famine”), Child Sponsorship print media advertising, one hour TV Specials for Child Sponsorship on the 7 and 9 Networks, 30 minute 40 Hour Famine program on the 10 Network, integration of media and direct mail appeals for response to major emergencies.
This led to Olson working with the World Vision International organisation in roles such as organising successive World Vision International Triennial Councils (when all the national WVs met) at Antigua, Guatemala, the US, Johannesburg, Romania, and, finally, Singapore. He served as World Vision International’s Vice President for International Communications. Their former President, Dean Hirsch said of Olson: “Brilliance, energy, and passion were descriptive of Warwick, on a daily basis. He had strategic contacts globally that helped position World Vision… Warwick was essential in helping position World Vision as a strategic global organisation.”
Former World Vision Australia CEO and Chief Advocate Tim Costello said, “Warwick Olson’s work with the 40 Hour Famine ignited a movement of compassion that has transformed countless lives around the world. His faith and courage remind us that one person’s conviction can inspire generations.”
African Enterprise
Warwick was a personal friend of AE’s founder, Michael Cassidy, and first served AE when opening an AE office in Australia in the early 1970s. Cassidy has paid tribute to Olson’s role with African Enterprise: “Warwick served AE for decades after opening an AE office in Australia in the early 1970s and then serving as their Director and Board Chairman. This was after our AE East Africa team leader, Festo Kivengere, was hounded out of Uganda by the murderous Idi Amin. Warwick introduced Festo to Australian Christians as they toured the country. This venture led Warwick, with Jean Wilson, to found and launch AEUK.
“In due time, Warwick became Chairman of our International Partnership Board, in which he served the ministry with extraordinary distinction and capability. In fact, at one point in the early 1980s, when serious divisions and tensions developed between AE East Africa and AESA, it was Warwick’s tireless and persistent efforts that saved the union and gave AE an ongoing International and Pan African life. We can never adequately thank Warwick for this historic contribution to our very ongoing existence and subsequent expansion and success, to the point where we now have 12 teams, the latest being in Zambia and South Sudan. “
And in Sydney
Stephen Judd writes: “Soon after Harry Goodhew was elected Archbishop of Sydney in 1993, [The Diocese’s peak council, the] Standing Committee rejected Goodhew’s nominee for an assistant bishop in July 1993. To som,e this rejection was merely the wise (mainly) men of Standing Committee not supporting Goodhew’s choice; to others it was the Anglican Church League, the dominant political party in the Diocese, making clear to Goodhew who really called the shots in the Diocese; to still others it was an expression of not giving a newly-elected Archbishop every opportunity to succeed.
“Whatever perspective you prefer, the result was that a very small group of laymen and women decided to challenge the ACL. Fresh elections for Standing Committee were due at the October ’93 session of Synod [church parliament]. Warwick Olson, Stuart Piggin, and Stephen Judd were the founders of a group that nominated and advocated for people who were willing to support the Archbishop as elected members for Standing Committee. The group put out a ’ticket’ of recommended names for synod members to elect to Standing Committee. It was a tussle that persisted until the end of the decade.
The group had no formal name, no constitution, and no bank account. It became known by others as The Blue Ticket. Why? Because Warwick insisted that the mail to synod members and the list be all on coloured paper – Blue. Why blue? Because in marketing, blue is a friendly colour often associated with calmness, trust, and stability.
“Warwick’s involvement in this episode of diocesan politics was not ’the main game’ as far as Warwick was concerned. His purview was far more global, and where he made an inestimable difference. Over five decades, he worked to realise the vision and evangelistic ambitions of Billy Graham, John Stott and the Lausanne Movement as well as works and words of African Enterprise and World Vision.”
Judd tells The Other Cheek a favourite story. At a farewell Judd organised for Olson when he left the Standing Committee, he reminisced, “I have never backed a successful candidate for Archbishop.” To which Robert Forsyth, who was present, responded, “I wish you had told me that years ago.”
Warwick Hood Olson is survived by his wife, Maureen, and their children, Virginia, Geoff, and Philip, and grandchildren, Nicholas, Sarah, Andrew, Hamish, Jonathan, and their families.
Image Credit: African Enterprise