MBM move for Malcolm

On March 8, the Rev Dr Malcolm Gill became the rector of MBM Rooty Hill, moving from an assistant minister’s role at St Andrew’s Cathedral.

Dr Gill has “always had a soft spot” for MBM, has preached there a number of times and, from a distance, followed the progression of events at the church since last year, when long-term rector the Rev Ray Galea announced that he was moving to Dubai.

However, in the middle of the year Dr Gill received an unexpected call from the nominators. Would he come out to Rooty Hill for a chat about the senior minister’s position?

“I was a little bit surprised,” he recalls. “I thought it would be polite to have the conversation, but I didn’t think they would pursue it... I didn’t grow up Anglican, I didn’t go to Moore College, I didn’t have experience leading a church before, so there were a variety of reasons where I thought, maybe they’ve got the wrong guy!”

Dr Gill’s experience includes 12 years as a preaching lecturer at Sydney Missionary and Bible College, and another four years at the Dallas Theological Seminary in the US. He also worked part-time for a 6000-member church in Texas while he was doing his PhD.

The first meeting at MBM went well, but a fortnight later

Dr Gill rang to pull out of further discussions – partly for family reasons but also because he was yet to finish the process in Sydney that would make him eligible to be a senior minister. The timing just didn’t seem right.

He offered to have another conversation if the nominators reached the end of 2022 without finding the right person. They rang him back eight weeks later. This conversation was even more encouraging than the first, but Dr Gill still had his doubts and said as much when he was invited back for dinner with his wife Tamara.

“Well, this is the problem when you marry a godly woman,” he says with a laugh. “My wife said to me, ‘This is the right thing to do. We need to honour their request’.”

Dr Gill expected his wife would need convincing to move suburbs as well as ministries. But, he says, when they got back into their car after dinner, “she looked at me and said, ‘I think this might well be our new home’”, adding: “Abram and Sarai, they both trusted the Lord even though they didn’t know where they were going. We just need to be obedient.”

At that point Dr Gill placed the decision completely in God’s hands and, two weeks later, the nominators rang and invited him to join MBM as their senior minister. The group had been

The Rev Len Abbott died on January 24, aged 100.

Born Leonard Mackay Abbott on September 26, 1922 in Adelaide, he grew up in the coastal suburb of Largs Bay and began an engineering degree at Adelaide University at the age of 16. Awarded the university medal in 1942, Mr Abbott took meeting once a week for nine months, praying and working through the process, and were united in their decision.

“That’s the way the Spirit of God works,” Dr Gill says. “So, we trust the Lord, take this step and move forward.”

While he is going to miss the Cathedral with its diversity of people and services, and the regular walk-ins off the street, he is now excited by what lies ahead.

“I’m really looking forward to it… I went out and spoke at their vision night in January, which was primarily for lay leaders and volunteers, and they had a large group of passionate people there!” he says. “Everybody was super-encouraging.”

During its season without a lead pastor, MBM has had a large number of people do its Belonging course (for those new to the parish) and has continued to grow and thrive under the leadership of Bishop Gary Koo and the church’s pastoral staff, who have all stepped up during the interim period.

“This all reminds me that what is going on at MBM is the Lord’s work,” Dr Gill says. “This is why I’m excited – I get to be part of what God is already doing out in western Sydney. It’s just a privilege to join what God is already doing with a great staff and a great church.”

Following 25 years as chaplain at Trinity Grammar School, the Rev Greg Webster was inducted as rector of Lavender Bay on March 7.

The senior associate minister at St Matt’s, Manly, the Rev Scott Petty , will become rector of Northbridge in May.

List of parishes and provisional parishes, vacant or becoming vacant, as at March 6, 2023:

• Beverly Hills with Kingsgrove

Castle Hill

• Concord and Burwood

• Eagle Vale**

• Freshwater GreystanesMerrylands

West

• Liverpool South** up a job at the Port Kembla steel works, returning to South Australia in 1950 to work for BHP in Whyalla.

In the mid-1950s, he put his career aside to study at Moore College and was ordained in 1960 – serving as curate for two years in the Adelaide parish of Kensington (during which

• Mona Vale**

• Regents Park*

Robertson

• Rosemeadow*

• St James’, King Street

• South Hurstville

• Wentworth Falls

• West Wollongong

* denotes provisional parishes or Archbishop’s appointments

** right of nomination suspended/on hold time he obtained a Bachelor of Divinity from London), before returning to Sydney to become chaplain and Maths master at Shore school.

A student at Shore during this period, former Archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies, describes Mr Abbott as “a faithful and godly pastor – fearless in his defence of God’s word and in his understanding, not only of the Bible, but also of human beings.

“He created his own curriculum for Divinity classes and it was way in advance of anything available at the time. Boys also gave testimony to their love of maths because of the way Len taught it.

“His pastoral care continued after boys left school. He would follow their life trajectories and careers, and not only encourage them but pray for them – and I was a beneficiary of that, in many ways.”

Mr Abbott’s influence went well beyond the school. Shore graduate Peter Conway, who left Australia in 1970 to study at Dartmouth College in the US, was astounded to discover after his arrival that Mr Abbott had written to the head office of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in another state to ensure that his former student would find “meaningful Christian fellowship”.

Through the IVCF link, Mr Conway was introduced to a few Christian students and they began a Bible study. By the time he graduated in 1974, 250 students were meeting weekly in the chapel, there was a Bible study in nearly every dormitory and they operated a 24-hour Christian coffee house. The Christian fellowship eventually built a church not far from the campus, which still ministers to the local community.

“All from a letter Len Abbott wrote on my behalf,” Mr Conway says. “I stand in his debt. Hundreds of Dartmouth students who have never heard of him stand in his debt.”

Mr Abbott became rector of Peakhurst in 1974, rector of Windsor in 1980, and was a Canon of St John’s, Parramatta from 1983-88. He “retired” from Windsor in 1988, spending the next couple of years as a Master in Holy Orders at St Andrew’s Cathedral School. He also served with Bush Church Aid in Port Hedland.

Threaded throughout this was tireless support for Shore old boys who had gone into ministry, and the gathering of so much knowledge about – and insight into – Australian history that, in 2010 at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Mr Abbott’s ordination, historian Dr Stuart Piggin said:

[He] has not been an Australian historian by profession, but he may have been a wiser historian than the professionals, and he is certainly more interesting than most of us who have been working on Australian history. He has been a greater influence on my understanding of the history of Australian Christianity than anyone else by a long, long, long way.

Dr Piggin went further in 2018 by dedicating a book he co-authored – The Fountain of Public Prosperity: Evangelical Christians in Australian History 1740-1914 – to Mr Abbott: “who should have written this book and would have done it better”.