Biography
Stephen Frederick Olford was born on March 29, 1918, in Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia, to British missionary parents. His father, Frederick Olford, was a missionary with the Brethren, and his mother, Bertha, was a woman of devotion. He grew up in Africa, in the bush, in a home that was filled with prayer. As a boy, he was taught the Bible and was exposed to the life of the mission. He was sent to England for school and then to Angola, where he worked with his parents. He was a gifted boy, who was known for his speaking. At the age of seventeen, he was converted in a mission in Angola, in an experience in which he was moved by the preaching of a visiting evangelist. He said that he had been touched by the story of the cross.
He felt called to the ministry and trained at Spurgeon's College in London. He studied under a number of teachers and was ordained as a Baptist minister. In 1940, he went to Wales, where he served in a church. He was a young man who had a drive to preach. In 1943, he was sent to be the pastor of a church in Newport, in South Wales, and then to a church in Duke Street, in Richmond, Surrey, where he served from 1947 to 1953. He was a man of a firm and warm temperament who gave himself to the preaching of the Word. He was influenced by the revival movements of Wales and by the work of Duncan Campbell in the Hebrides.
In 1953, he was called to the Calvary Baptist Church in New York City, a large congregation on West Fifty-Seventh Street, near Carnegie Hall. He served there for twenty years, until 1973. He was a leading preacher in the city. He drew crowds, and many were converted. He took part in the work of the Billy Graham Crusade in New York in 1957 and became a friend of Billy Graham. He was Graham's mentor in preaching. Graham said that he had learned much from him. He also was the host of a radio program, The Institute of Biblical Preaching. He was invited to speak at many events.
He was a man who took the task of preaching seriously. He held that the preacher should expound the Bible faithfully, in the power of the Spirit. He said that preaching is the proclamation of the Word of God, with a dependence on the Holy Spirit. He developed a form of expository preaching, which he taught to young ministers. In 1988, he founded the Stephen Olford Center for Biblical Preaching, in Memphis, Tennessee. He taught preachers from many countries. He wrote a number of books, among them Anointed Expository Preaching and The Way of Holiness. He also wrote on the life of the Spirit, on prayer and on the cross. He was a man who stressed a deep life with God.
He had his struggles. He was a man who worked at a heavy pace. His health suffered, and he went through times of exhaustion. He was a man who sometimes was stern with his students. He also was a man who held his convictions with force. He was a man of the Spirit, who believed in a baptism of the Spirit that was a second blessing. This put him at odds with some in the Baptist tradition. He was a man of great warmth who was loved by his students.
He died on August 29, 2004, in Memphis, at the age of eighty-six. His wife, Heather, who had been his partner for sixty years, survived him. His life shows the effect of a missionary's son who became a teacher of preachers. His work has helped to shape the preaching of a generation.