Reporting back on the ADM Annual General Meeting
The 2022 Annual General Meeting was held on 3 November 2022. It was a great evening reporting on the work of ADM to our members and thanking God for His work through our organisation.
Acting CEO Maryanne Davis shared a report on the theme of ‘small doors into big worlds of opportunity for serving Christ.’ She began:
“When I first joined the ADM team some years ago I really knew little about the organisation. I wondered what would lie behind the door into the ADM office.
Looking back, I now know, that at that time I was a little like Lucy coming through the wardrobe door and finding herself in Narnia.
I discovered that ADM is a series of small doors, that appear mundane or insignificant, yet open into big, amazing worlds of opportunity for the work of Christ.”
Maryanne shared that it can be hard to see ADM’s work when there are so many ‘small doors’ rather than one big project or focus. But she explained:
“ADM is undertaking and delivering on significant works for Christ every day. We do have a ‘big project’- it is the opening of many small doors, apparently insignificant doors, to big, amazing, and very significant worlds of opportunity; worlds in which we move closer to our goal that every woman can be equipped and engaged in serving Christ in the church, the community and the world.”
Maryanne shared an update on the many ‘doors’ that ADM opens for women to serve Jesus, including through funding, mentoring and support, Mary Andrews College, the Mental Health and Pastoral Care Institute, chaplaincy, and much more. If you’d like to see some of these updates take a look at our 2022 Annual Report!
Chair of the Board Caroline Andrews also addressed the Members, offering particular thanks to those who have served ADM, including Rev Phil Wheeler, who stepped down from the board after 16 years in 2022.
Caroline shared, “I am thankful for his faithfulness and dedication to ADM over so many years. I particularly wanted to acknowledge his support and encouragement to me as a new chair and the opportunity to learn from his historical knowledge of the Board.”
At the AGM, we also celebrated 100 years since women were first licensed to lead and participate in services in the Sydney Anglican Diocese. Caroline explained,
“In October 2022 the Anglican Sydney Diocese celebrated 100 years of “Women’s Work in the Diocese Ordinance” and I thought tonight might also be an important moment to mark the passing of that ordinance.
In 1922, the deaconesses had already been working in the diocese for 30 years but the passing of this ordinance was a marking and endorsing of the work they did particularly in the local congregation, in the granting of permission to lead morning and evening prayer and addressing the congregation with the Archbishop’s permission.
The work of the deaconesses and lay women in the Anglican church in Sydney is way more diverse and comprehensive than the few lines expressed in this ordinance.
However, it is a time to take a moment to be thankful for the work of women in the diocese and to continue to pray for the women who serve God’s church now, and also to pray for the future.”
We marked this occasion with a cake cut by Rev. Jacinth Myles, former ADM chaplain, with ADM board directors and other female deacons.
Board member Caitlin Munday gave a prayer at the AGM, which we are sharing here to invite you to join with ADM’s board, staff and members in praying:
Gracious heavenly father,
We give thanks for the for the hundreds of women, both ordained and lay, who have served and do serve in gospel ministry across this Diocese, nation and world. We rejoice in the many and diverse ways you have and are using them to proclaim the good news of the gospel, to disciple and minister to your people through your word, and to meet the very real and practical needs of those in their communities through acts of service, all to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We give thanks for the many ministries, formal and informal, in which women are continually participating: for parish ministries, chaplaincy in schools, in hospitals, universities, prisons, aged care, the public sphere and more. We give thanks for the many people these ministries serve - children and young people, the elderly, the sick, incarcerated, needy and vulnerable - and we recognise that many of these ministries would not exist without the loving labour, persistent prayer, costly gifts of time, skill, energy and care of women in your church. Gracious Father, you have been powerfully at work in and through these ministries, and so we humbly ask, that you might not only sustain, strengthen and grow these ministries but that you would also raise up future generations of women who might serve and lead them.
Would you raise up women of Christlike character, who are overflowing with the fruits of your Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Women who are quietly confident in your perfect plans and purposes and patiently hopeful for their realisation in the return of the Lord Jesus .
Would you raise up women in whom the word of Christ dwells richly, who teach and admonish in wisdom, who sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in their hearts to God. Would you equip these women with a deep and intimate knowledge of your word, the desire to be faithful to it, and to speak winsomely of it - always illuminating the truth, beauty and goodness of the gospel to a world blind to its need.
Would you raise up women who are courageous ambassadors of Christ, used in His triumphal procession to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him, at all times, in all places and spaces.
Heavenly Father, we pray knowing you have raised up such women before and so ask that you might do so again, using ADM in their service, as it has for the last 130 years, that these women might be a blessing to your church, whether in Sydney or beyond, for the fame and glory of your name.
In Jesus Christ we pray,
Amen.