Lyndall, Linda, Stuart and David

 ​Open Sanctuary was founded by Linda Chapman, a priest in the Anglican Church.   We are overseen by a group of five, Linda Chapman, Lyndall Magnusseson, Stuart Absalom, Mandy Wheatley and David Oliphant.   What holds us together is contemplative silence, respect and friendship, and concern for the world and our environment.

Linda Chapman is a retreat leader, meditation teacher, spiritual director and an oblate of the Benedictine World Community of Christian Meditation.   As an environmental and social justice advocate, Linda recognises the need to marry contemplation and action.   For Linda, the heart of Open Sanctuary is the recognition of our common humanity and our common home and silence as our first language.

Lyndall Magnusseson comes from an Eastern Tradition and finds that the sharing, respect and learning from the Open Sanctuary community, makes it a place for the deepening of being, of the true self of who you are. She finds that the church's location  in such  a beautiful landscape, overlooked by the sacred mountain of Gulaga,  adds to the welcome for all who come and  to the core of the contemplative nature of Open Sanctuary.

Stuart Absalom

David Oliphant is a retired priest in the Anglican Church who also served as a Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church.  He helps train chaplains and pastoral care practitioners with his wife Angela and Sister Helen Kearins.  He is currently writing a book about Christ and his centrality for our twenty first century world.

Mandy Wheatley sees life as an opportunity to encounter people of all kinds, to link our lives into a larger story of compassion, joy and peace through contemplation in its many forms. She finds that by practicing meditation we can discover a spirituality embedded deep in our own reality that gives each of us hope in community even in the midst of the suffering of the world.

Mandy