“Because I live, you also shall live.”
Although the compact pastor is just 5-foot-2, he fully eclipsed the massive wooden cross that rose up on the wall behind him. He mixed his easy charm and sincere observation with bits of wit and soon he had many at the 8:30 a.m. service laughing and pondering and nodding in agreement.
As soon as he finished, church organist Carol Stewart led the way into the old Charles Wesley hymn, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” as the congregation, hymnals in hand, stood and sang along.
Today, though, Olson will be in Johannesburg, South Africa, wearing a black wrestling singlet edged in white, a blue T-shirt underneath and special weightlifting shoes. In place of that easy charm, his face will soon redden and his features will contort as he exerts himself almost beyond belief.
It’s nearly 8,500 miles from Xenia to Johannesburg, but if you consider today’s scene to the one last Sunday in the sanctuary of Faith Community, the distance seems even greater.
Here’s how he explained it the other day:
“There’ll be something like Nine Inch Nails blaring in the background and people will be yelling and there’ll be chalk flung all over the place and people will be screaming to get their lifts. And then comes my introduction: ‘Now lifting, the Reverend Brad Olson.’ ”
Along with being the 52-year-old senior pastor of the large Methodist church on the north edge of Xenia, Olson is a four-time, world powerlifting champion who – after an 18-year hiatus from the international stage – has returned to big-time competition as the No. 1 seed in the 145-pound, over 50 years of age weight class at this week’s International Powerlifting Federation’s RAW World Championships in South Africa.
He will compete against eight other men from around the globe. The RAW competition means lifters can wear nothing advantageous – like knee wraps or canvas singlets – and train and compete drug free.
Olson won the IPF national competition last summer with a 375-pound squat, 275-pound bench press and 475-pound dead lift. When he won the world competition in 1988 and again from 1994-96 – in the 132-pound class – he had both squat and dead lifts at just over 500 pounds and bench presses of around 300 pounds.
A man of cloth
As it turns out, Olson lifts the barbells at international competitions with the same fervor he lifts the spirit and consciousness of his congregation back in Xenia.
He said the church brethren seem less surprised that he is a powerlifter than do some weight lifters when they find out he is a man of the cloth.
“It’s just not the general image people have of a pastor,” he said with a laugh. “A lot of people think of a preacher as caring, peaceful … maybe even harmless and soft. Weightlifters tend to be focused, intense people. People don’t expect something different.”
That was never more evident than several years ago when Olson said he was working out in a gym one Friday night and was approached by a novice lifter who was interested in pumping up.
He said the guy told him he was about to start work as a male stripper and he wanted to beef up for his shows. Olson gave him some pointers and that’s when the guy made one more request. He said he knew Olson was a competitive weightlifter and he wondered “if I had any moves that he could use on stage. He wanted any suggestions I had for being seductive.
“I said, ‘You do realize you’re asking an ordained pastor?’
“He turned several shades of red … and then just left.”
A comfort calling
Olson was raised in upstate New York – in Ithaca, the home of Cornell University, which he attended and where his father was a professor.
“I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to help people,” Olson said. “I worked in the hospitals and the doctors were very good about letting me observe surgeries.
“When I was a nursing assistant and pulling double shifts, I often talked to people the night before their surgery. And I enjoyed that spiritual side – comforting them, praying with them – more than the actual surgery part.
“I graduated with a degree in microbiology, but I felt a call to ministry and saw it as my way to help people. As soon as I got into it, I knew that’s where I belonged.”
He enrolled at the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, N.Y., then after three years transferred to the United Theological Seminary in Dayton. He initially was assigned to two small churches in western Indiana and then became a pastor at the both the Oldtown and the Union United Methodist churches just outside Xenia.
It was during those assignments that the young Olson met his future wife, Dawn, at the Greene County Fair. She was taking tickets, he came in her gate, the two talked and hit it off. She had three small children—Christopher, Derek and Elizabeth – from a previous marriage when they wed. Today, Derek is the young pastor at Union.
In 1991, Brad Olson took over at Ohmer Park United Methodist in East Dayton for three years before getting two lengthier assignments in Monroe and Milford. In 2009, he became the senior pastor at Faith Community.
As he was building his spiritual resume, he kept up on the physical end, as well.
He had first been introduced to the weight room – as a “95-pound weakling” he once said – when he came to Cornell. He had joined the crew team as a coxswain, the small guy who steers the racing shell and calls the rhythm of the oarsmen’s strokes.
Following his teammates to the gym, he said he initially served a spotter, but, within six months was the president of the Cornell weightlifting club.
He said he has found the weight room, to be a place to keep healthy, manage stress and boost his energy levels. Plus, he said, he enjoys the people he meets there:
“It provides me a way of sharing my faith with some people I’d otherwise never get a chance to cross paths with.”
He said powerlifting and the ministry are “very compatible: There are values that faith teaches – the importance of discipline, taking care of your health, doing your best – that are the foundations of sport.”
He has said the concept of a muscle-bound Christ isn’t that far-fetched for him either:
“In the Bible, Jesus is called a builder and in the Western world we’ve described that as a carpenter. But if you have ever been to Jerusalem or anywhere throughout Israel ,you see there is almost nothing built of wood. It’s all out of stone.
“So instead of a carpenter, Jesus may have been a builder out of stone. And if that was the case, he might very well have had a very good physique.”
Quite an adventure
When it comes to ornamentation in Olson’s church office, you’ll find a Last Supper scene carved out of olive wood that he got at a shop in Bethlehem and a framed Kent L. Drake print of Christ’s crucifixion entitled “And God Saw.”
But you will find no sign of his powerlifting supremacy: No trophies, medals or belts.
All that is at home. The hardware of his four world championships – won twice in London, once in Paris and once in Minneapolis – are on display, but most of the rest of the stuff is in the attic.
“It’s just that powerlifting is something I do more for my own benefit, but the ministry is not about me,” he said.
He spends some 60 hours a week on pastoral duties and then finds at least another 10 to train at Club 51 Fitness in Centerville.
Although he continued to work out over the years, he said he stepped away from the more intense regimens of competitive powerlifting because his body “couldn’t take the pounding.” He started working on his return four years ago and made the considerable strides that brought him the national crown again last July.
He said there were things he missed about the competitive stage: “Every now and then there are moments when you feel you can do anything. I love that feeling – when you know all the hard work has paid off.”
In February he said he ripped a quadriceps and has had to readjust his training methods so he could heal. But one of the biggest challenges he faces is making weight.
He said when he started in earnest again, he was weighing 175, 30 pounds over the weight class he now competes in.
“At 145, I feel great now,” he said. “More alert. I have a lot more energy. But there are sacrifices to get here, too. I haven’t had a dessert since last November. I’ve cut out potato chips and sugar. My only indulgence is frozen grapes.”
He has been at his proper weight now for two weeks.
He and Dawn left for South Africa on Wednesday and he will compete today at 1 p.m. (which will be 7 a.m. Xenia time.) As he has trained, he has embraced a quote of 19th Century clergyman Phillips Brooks, one he said people can use in everyday life, as well:
“Don’t pray for a lighter burden, pray for a stronger back.”
When Olson steps onto the competition stage today he said he will notice his wife in the crowd: “She’s my main coach and my big encourager. She will be very vocal. It’s hard to miss her.”
Just before he lifts he said he prays “for courage in defeat and humility in victory.”
His wife plans to post a video of the competition on her Facebook page, but win or not today, Olson said there is one thing he’s looking forward to soon afterward.
He said he and his wife are going to spend a week in South Africa “going on a safari, taking a hot air balloon ride over Kruger National Park, visiting a lion cub park and riding elephants. It’s going to be quite an adventure.”
First though comes dinner tonight.
“Steak … and ice cream,” Olson said with a big smile. “Ice cream always gets me.”
Turns out the preacher knows a bit about seduction, after all.
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