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FamilyVoice Australia and the National Alliance of Christian Leaders together are truly delighted to announce Warwick Marsh is the winner of the inaugural Australian Christian Man of the Year Award.

“For more than three decades, Warwick Marsh has raised a voice for the irreplaceable importance of fatherhood, and he is a most worthy recipient of this honour,” said NACL and FamilyVoice spokesman David d’Lima.

“Warwick was the outstanding candidate among those nominated for this important award.”

From Family Bus to National Ministry

Inaugural Australian Christian Man of the Year Warwick Marsh.

In 1990, Warwick Marsh left the building industry and took his young family on the road, touring Aboriginal communities, country towns, schools, prisons and churches in a converted bus. Their family band performed original music grounded in faith, family and hope. A decade of touring gave Warwick a firsthand view of what fatherlessness does to a community — a view that hardened into a mission.

He and his wife Alison founded Australian Heart Ministries and the Fatherhood Foundation, now known as Dads4Kids. Its first act was a set of Father’s Day television community service announcements, filmed with the help of his son Nathaniel, that aired free across Australian TV networks. Decades later, those announcements still run, and the Dads4Kids’ weekly fatherhood newsletter remains the longest-running publication of its kind in the world.

The organisation has since developed the Good to Great fathering course, the Courageous online course, and Inside-Out, a fathering program delivered within Australian prisons. In February 2003, Warwick convened the Fatherhood Forum at Parliament House, producing the 12-Point Plan on fatherlessness, endorsed by more than twenty faith-based and secular organisations.

Standing Firm When Conviction Came at a Cost

In 2008, the ALP federal government appointed Warwick as Men’s Health Ambassador, but sacked him days after he refused to repudiate research he’d co-authored linking family breakdown and same-sex relationships with poorer outcomes for children. Refusing to recant, Warwick insisted that every child has the right to relate with a mother and a father.

In 2010, Warwick helped draft the Canberra Declaration with the support of key Indigenous Christian elders.

In 2011, he helped establish the National Day of Prayer and Fasting, which he coordinated for a decade. In 2019, the Canberra Declaration network launched The Daily Declaration, now Australia’s largest Christian news site, where Warwick serves as Editor-in-Chief.

Warwick has co-authored four books, including Great Southland Revival and Jesus: The Centre of It All, along with his semi-autobiographical book Break Through. Married to Alison since 1975, Warwick is the father of five and grandfather of ten.

Few Australians have converted personal conviction into lasting public institutions as consistently, or defended that conviction at as high a cost, as Warwick Marsh.

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Republished with thanks to FamilyVoice Australia.