New Chairperson
of the ABM Board

Bishop Gary Weatherill has retired as Chairperson of the ABM Board after six years in the position. Bishop Gary’s time as chairperson has been one of evaluation and refocusing of the work of ABM and a review of the governance structure of the ABM Board. For this we are very thankful, we acknowledge his commitment to ABM and his deep understanding of the importance of ABM in the life of the National Church.

Bishop Gary has been replaced as Chairperson by Father Andrew Sempell. Andrew has been a member of the ABM Board since 2019 and has ministered in the Dioceses of Armidale, Grafton, and Bathurst before taking up the position of Rector at St James’ King Street in Sydney. He has also had a variety of other ministries which included a time in the Australian Defence Force Chaplaincy Service including as part of the Peace Monitoring Group in Bougainville in PNG in 1999.

Andrew brings to the role of ABM Board Chairperson much experience in governance and strategic visioning, with a desire for ABM to be a catalyst for change in the broader church. He realises the challenges embodied in the growing marginalisation of the church is Australian society and for a Mission Agency such as ABM, the accompanying decline in financial support.

When asked how he envisaged helping ABM to meet these challenges, Andrew replied, ‘Our concept of mission must incorporate diversity, much like a healthy ecosystem does. Mission must have the capacity to change over time, just as a species evolves biologically. ABM has a role to help the church overcome its crisis of adaptation to a changing world’.

Andrew is fascinated by the idea of God’s mission, and how we discern this for the church’s engagement with the world.

Image: Fr Andrew Sempell, ABM’s new Board Chair, is Rector of St James, King Street, Sydney. © Fr Andrew Sempell.